The 2025 PSA Fraud Report: These Are The Most Commonly Counterfeited Cards

All Vintage Cards content is free. When you purchase through referral links on our site, we earn a commission. Learn more

PSA just released its 2025 Fraud Report which outlines their findings into the most forged and altered cards submitted to PSA in 2025. If you’re a reader of this blog, you won’t be surprised by the findings, but I figured it would be interesting to cover the report in some more detail.

The headline number is a big one: PSA estimates it intercepted over $200 million in projected market value of fraudulent collectibles in 2025 alone. And that’s just what came through PSA’s doors. Think about how much fake cardboard is still circulating on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and at your local card show.

A few other numbers that jumped out at me:

• Counterfeit card submissions were up 45.3% year over year
• Counterfeit Pokémon submissions were up 125%
• The rate of counterfeits as a share of total submissions rose 250% — meaning fraud isn’t just growing with the hobby, it’s gaining share
• Altered cards (trimming, recoloring, rebacking) were up 108.7% overall

Now let’s get to the part that matters most for vintage collectors.

AVC Acquisitions Portal

Sell Your Card Collection

Skip the listing process and long wait times. Get a professional offer on your collection within 48 hours. See our buy list.

Step 1 of 3

33%

Your Name(Required)

First Last

Your Email Address(Required)

What Is The Era Of Your Collection?

Pre-War/Tobacco/Early Gum (1900-1930’s)

Golden Age / Early Topps & Bowman (1940-1959)

Standard Vintage (1960-1975)

Late Vintage to Mid-Eighties (1976-1986) includes Fleer and Star Basketball

Junk Wax Era (1987-1999)

Modern Sports Cards (2000 to Present)

Acquisition Criteria

For the 1987–1999 era, we are strictly seeking High-Grade PSA Rookies or Sealed Cases with a minimum value of $1,000. We do not acquire raw singles, sets or commons from this period.

Acquisition Criteria

Modern Acquisition Criteria (1995–Present): We are exclusively seeking PSA/SGC Graded 10s, Low-Numbered Autographs (/25 or less), or Rare Inserts of Tier-1 Hall of Famers and top-tier active Stars. We do not acquire raw base cards or modern “inserts” from this period.

Photo Upload Instructions

To give you an accurate value, please upload clear photos of the front and back of your 5-10 most valuable cards. For large sets, a few group shots are fine.

Reminder: Our acquisition team only responds to modern inquiries with a confirmed market value over $1,000.

Add Images Of Your Cards Here(Required)

Drop files here or Select files

Max. file size: 128 MB.

Are Any Cards Currently Graded?

Yes (PSA, SGC, BVG, etc)

No

Brief Description Of Your Cards(Required)

E.g., Complete 1956 Topps set, or a handful of T206 tobacco cards found in an attic.

What Is Your Primary Goal?

Immediate Cash Offer (Best for quick liquidity; usually 60-70% of market value)

Auction Brokerage / Consignment (Best for high-value collections to achieve maximum market price; handled via our verified auction partner).

Professional Appraisal (I just need to know what I have).

Phone Number (optional)

Only used if we need to clarify details about your collection for a firmer offer.

Target Price

If you have a specific number in mind, enter it here. Leave blank if unsure.

All Vintage Cards Newsletter

Yes, add me to the mailing list!

Δ

The Highest Counterfeit Rates: A Vintage Rogues’ Gallery

PSA broke out the cards with the highest counterfeit rates — that is, the percentage of submissions that turned out to be fake. And folks, this list could have been pulled straight from our authentication guide archives:

T206 Honus Wagner — 92.3% counterfeit rate. Thirteen Wagners were submitted to PSA in 2025. Twelve were fake. Given that there are only around 60 known authentic Wagners in existence, the odds that a “raw Wagner find” is real are essentially zero. Trust me, I get a lot of inquiries from collectors with very fake raw Wagners and there are so many out there. If grandpa’s attic Wagner shows up in your Facebook feed, you already know the answer.

Our step-by-step guide to spotting a fake T206 card covers the tells — the dark brown (not black) font, the card stock, the print quality — that apply to Wagner and every other card in the set.

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 — 61.9% counterfeit rate. Of 181 submissions, 112 were counterfeit. Nearly two out of every three ’52 Mantles sent to PSA last year were fake. This is exactly why we put together our complete guide to spotting a fake 1952 Topps Mantle, covering the Type 1 vs. Type 2 distinction, print quality, color, and paper stock.

1984 Star Michael Jordan #101 — 26.7% counterfeit rate. 360 submitted, 96 fake. Regular readers know the Star Jordan XRC is one of my favorite cards in the hobby, and with PSA now grading Star cards, submission volume (and counterfeit volume) has exploded.

The good news: most existing fakes aren’t great. Our guide to spotting a fake 1984 Star Jordan XRC walks through everything, including the Topps and Stadium Club reproductions that often get passed off as originals.

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 — 25.0% counterfeit rate. Here’s the volume king. A staggering 3,285 Jordan rookies were submitted in 2025, and 821 were counterfeit. One in four. The Fleer Jordan also topped PSA’s list of the most counterfeited cards by total volume — number one in the entire hobby, ahead of every Charizard.

I’ve written more about fake Jordan rookies than any other card, and the report confirms why.

If you’re buying a raw Jordan (or honestly, even a slabbed one), start with our comprehensive guide to spotting a fake 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie, then check out our piece on the Fleer logo arrow tell that instantly identifies one common fake. And because scammers have graduated to putting fakes in real (or fake) holders, read our alert on Jordan rookies in tampered flips.

The Full Top 10 by Volume

Here’s PSA’s top 10 most counterfeited cards by total volume in 2025:

1. 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57
2. 2014 Pokémon XY Flashfire M Charizard EX #108
3. 2014 Pokémon XY Flashfire M Charizard EX #69
4. 1999 Pokémon Charizard #4 (1st Edition Holo)
5. 2023 Pokémon SV Promo Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat #085
6. 2016 Pokémon XY Generations M Charizard EX #12
7. 2019 Pokémon Team Up Latias & Latios GX #170
8. 2000 SkyBox Impact Tom Brady #27
9. 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 (FF Error)
10. 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311

Pokémon dominates by volume — TCG cards made up 56.3% of all counterfeits, and modern cards (1990-present) accounted for 70.1%. But look at the sports entries: Jordan at #1, the Ripken error at #9, and the ’52 Mantle at #10. The top counterfeited subjects overall? Charizard, Michael Jordan, Pikachu, and Mickey Mantle, in that order. Vintage may only be 29.9% of counterfeit volume, but it punches way above its weight in dollar terms.

Counterfeiters Are Going After the “$20 Bills” Now

One of the more interesting insights in the report: counterfeiters have shifted downmarket. PSA’s Head of Grading Brand Protection, Matt Hendler, compares it to currency counterfeiters who target $10 and $20 bills instead of $100s, betting they’ll slip through unnoticed.

The Tom Brady example is instructive. His most counterfeited cards in 2025 weren’t his six-figure Contenders auto — they were the 2000 SkyBox Impact #27 and 2000 Pacific Crown Royale Rookie Royalty #2. Cards worth $80-$120 raw but $1,400-$1,700 in PSA 10. Recognizable name, strong resale value, and — critically — simple printing technology with no complex foil or autograph to replicate.

This mirrors what I’ve been telling readers for years: it’s not just the grails you need to worry about anymore. Even that $75 pickup deserves a once-over with a loupe.

The Rise of Altered Cards

Counterfeits are only half the story. Altered cards — authentic cards that have been trimmed, recolored, rebacked, or surface-treated to improve their apparent condition — were up 108.7% year over year, with altered Pokémon submissions up over 400%.

For vintage collectors, trimming remains the big one. PSA flags dimensional measurement (“even fractions of a millimeter matter”), edge beveling, and fiber pattern disruption as their primary detection methods — the same things we cover in our guide on how to spot a trimmed card. Remember, the first card PSA ever graded — the famous Gretzky T206 Wagner, cert #00000001 — was later revealed to be trimmed. Nobody is infallible, which is why I always say collectors need to act as their own “fourth-party grader.”

And don’t sleep on the slab scams either. Fraudsters are busting authentic cards out of real PSA holders and replacing them with fakes, or manufacturing counterfeit slabs outright. Our history of PSA flips covers every label generation and how to spot a fake holder.

Forged Autographs: The Usual Suspects

PSA/DNA’s most frequently forged autographs by volume in 2025: Mickey Mantle, Michael Jordan, Joe DiMaggio, Kobe Bryant, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani, Donald Trump, Willie Mays, and Muhammad Ali.

Ruth is a particularly thorny one — his signature varied over his life, and in his declining years, many mail requests were actually signed by his nurse.

How To Protect Yourself

PSA’s advice at the end of the report will sound familiar to AVC readers: verify cert numbers, examine print quality and fonts closely, compare against verified examples, buy from trusted sources, and be deeply skeptical of deals well below market.

I’d add my own standing advice: get a jeweler’s loupe and a black light, and keep a few authentic commons from the relevant era on hand for comparison. Vintage cards were printed with halftone screening that produces a distinctive rosette pattern under magnification — counterfeits printed from modern scans show uniform dot-matrix printing instead. And true vintage card stock stays dull under a black light, while modern paper fluoresces. For the full rundown, see our master guide, Everything You Need To Know About Counterfeit Cards.

The Bottom Line

The 2025 Fraud Report confirms what those of us in the trenches already knew: the fakes are getting more numerous and more sophisticated, and they’re no longer confined to the hobby’s crown jewels. The four highest counterfeit-rate cards in the entire hobby — the Wagner, the ’52 Mantle, the Star Jordan, and the Fleer Jordan — are all vintage icons, and we’ve covered how to authenticate every single one of them.

As always, if you come across a good fake or need help authenticating a card, drop me a line at ch***@*************ds.com. We’re always adding to our counterfeit database, and your finds help protect fellow collectors.