Unplanned

After the amount of time I spent putting together yesterday's post, today was supposed to be my day off from "writing" anything, but I came across something (or rather multiple something's) while perusing the Sportlots auctions this morning that I just couldn't ignore. Because this is being so hastily thrown together, I will apologize in advance for any typo's or any thoughts that aren't fully formed.

This is the first card that caught my attention this morning. Notice anything odd about this '62 Mantle? If not, check out two more 62's being sold by the same seller, and pay particular attention to the corners:

Notice a pattern yet? If not, here's a few more:

I would hope that everyone has figured out by now that these are all counterfeits/reproductions, as it would be virtually impossible for a genuine '62 to have acquired corners rounded in this fashion without sustaining wear to any of it's other edges.

A couple of years ago I came across a website of a company (I can't remember what the company's name is) that was creating reproductions of pretty much every card of note from every major sport, and of course, there wasn't anything printed on the card to identify them as such. The thing is, all their repro's had these exact rounded corners (although these could've been made by someone else). Ever since seeing those cards on that site, I have been very aware of this style of reproduction, and have encountered them many times on eBay, but never on Sportlots... until today. And from from past experience, I know that eBay doesn't care if their user's get bilked, so it will be interesting to see the route Sportlots takes.

The thing that really bugs me though, is that looking at the prices that the above cards are currently at, there are clearly multiple people that are under the impression that they are real. For example the first Mantle shown, is (as of this writing), sitting at $78... which is insane, especially since you can buy a genuine '62 Mantle in pretty darn good shape for that amount of money, or less.

For s**** and giggles, let's take a look at some of this seller's other "roundies":

Since they are not listed as such, I have no way of knowing if this seller, hock2015, knows that these are fake or not. This is just a sample, as they have quite a few more listings (including tobacco cards, Goudey's and a Pete Maravich rookie) that you can view by clicking here. I am also unsure if all their vintage cards are fake or not, because there does seem to be a few that appear to be the real thing, although those could have just been cooked up by a different counterfeiter. With someone selling this many fakes, I would just assume everything else as well.

I debated whether or not to do this post, but just in case the email that I sent to Sportlots falls on deaf ears, I just wanted it to be known that I didn't just sit by idly and not try to do something. It really irks me to see people that might not know too much about vintage cards getting taken advantage of.

If you use the site, and have any similar feeling about this, I would encourage you to send off a quick missive as well. Multiple voices speak louder than one.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.