While the majority of present-day card scams relate to more modern era cards that are easier to reproduce, there are most certainly counterfeit cards dating back to the Pre-War era.  

We have covered the evaluation of old counterfeit cards before, yet this piece will focus on detecting some of the more common fakes from the infamous T206 White Borders set.  

Hopefully, this guide will arm you with all of the knowledge you need in order to avoid buying any fake T206 cards.

As always if you come across a good fake or if you need any help in authenticating a T206 card, shoot us an email at help@allvintagecards.com

I’d say one of the most common stumbling blocks I encounter when speaking with novice (and even more experienced) collectors concerns shipping sports cards.

For someone that hasn’t sent a valuable card through the mail, the process can be a bit of a daunting experience.  However, once you do it a few times, it becomes a fairly simple and easily repeatable process.

I put this guide together to help fellow collectors and to provide some further instructions on shipping sports cards.  This guide will cover supplies needed in order to ship your cards, how properly package your cards, along with different methods of shipping and how the process might vary if sending to any third-party graders.  

If you have any questions on this, feel free to leave a message in the comments section, or as always feel free to shoot us an email at help@allvintagecards.com

In what can only be described as inevitable, PSA just announced that it was suspending all Value, Economy, Regular and Express grading service levels.  In a letter to collectors, PSA President Steve Sloan outlines the massive influx of grading requests and the move to ultimately slow down submissions. 

Sloan reiterates in his letter that PSA continues to get flooded with grading requests and has received more cards in three days than they did during the previous three months.  The letter clearly states that PSA needs to catch up.  And in order to do so, they are halting any Value, Regular and Express grading submissions.

So what does this mean for collectors?  Well, it means that it will basically be impossible to get your cards graded at PSA, unless you want to pony up the $300 for the ‘Super Express’ grading level.  And for most collectors that isn’t an option, unless you are dealing with a card worth in the multiple thousands of dollars.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t even aware of this card a year ago, but I wish I was, as the 1985 Prism Jewel Michael Jordan Sticker has skyrocketed in value.  

Recent sales of PSA 8 graded copies of the card have reached nearly $50,000.  

The cards were inserted into vending machines, likely mostly outside of your local grocery store.   And given that they are stickers, most kids that plopped the quarters into the machine to grab these were peeling them off to use them how a kid might actually use a sticker.  

Hence, they are super rare to find intact and in good condition.  PSA has graded only 87 copies of the card, with only 8 reaching a PSA 9 and only 1 garnering a PSA 10 Gem Mint. 

I started to become more curious about the card when I started to get inquires from people that had one (or two) that they were trying to sell.  Knowing how rare these are, to receive multiple inquiries on this issue, just seemed sort of strange to me.

In what was only inevitable, both SGC and PSA, two of the hobby’s largest third-party grading companies have hiked prices. 

The deluge of cards submitted to the grading companies has resulted in nearly unfathomable wait times and the grading companies are trying to put a halt to submissions….well, by raising prices.  

The story at PSA is two-fold.  First, if you hadn’t heard, the parent of PSA – Collector’s Universe was acquired by an investor group, which includes collector Nat Turner.  Turner has voiced his desire to improve upon the existing operational infrastructure at PSA and to provide much-needed investment to improve upon the existing processes.  

In a recent letter to customers from PSA President Steve Sloan, PSA provided a new pricing structure, hiking the ‘Regular’ service card submission from $50 to $100, while at the same time raising the declared value to $499 (from $199) on Collector’s Club ‘Value’ submissions.  They also hiked the ‘Value’ rate to a minimum of $20 per card.  

I was only 9 years old when I started collecting back in 1985. I got a few packs of 1985 Topps and was hooked; as a kid that loved baseball, those little pieces of cardboard were everything to me.

I was obsessed right away and it consumed my entire being, ranging from riding my bike three miles to the nearest baseball card store and setting up tables in my basement for a ‘baseball card show’ amongst friends.

My brother soon opened a baseball card store and I was quickly thrown into battle as a high schooler peddling cards and negotiating purchases. I lived through the peak of the ‘Junk Era’ in which cards were massively overproduced, yet at the time, I didn’t grasp the realities of what was happening with the values of cards.

I returned to the hobby several years after college and slowly started getting interested in cards again –which ultimately led to the launch of ‘All Vintage Cards’. 

I’ve discussed my thoughts about the current market exhibiting signs of being in bubble territory, but this time I wanted to examine the current market environment in relation to the last big card bubble from the 1990s.  

While I lived through it, I sort of always chalked up the bursting card bubble to overproduction but figured there had to be more to it. 

Thus, I went into the archives, did some more extensive research, and spoke to other people in the hobby. 

Thus, here are the results of my exploration into the sports card bubble from the 90s’.   

Note, if you lived through it and have a different perspective, or if you just want to leave your thoughts on my findings, please leave a comment!

With Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card sales continuing to break records on a weekly basis, collectors priced out of Jordan rookie card ownership have turned to his more affordable 1987 Fleer second year card. 

And while the 1986 Fleer Jordan is heavily counterfeited, the 1987 Fleer card fakes are not as common.  However they exist, and would expect more sophisticated scammers to start firing up the printing presses again to try and take advantage of novice collectors.

Thus, this guide is here to help you know the ins and outs of detecting a fake 1987 Fleer Jordan second year card.

Please, do let us know if you come across any fake ’87 Fleer Jordan’s, as your assistance can certainly help us in aiding fellow collectors.

Feel free to reach out to me at chris@allvintagecards.com

An authentic 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie card.

With the unfortunate passing of baseball great Hank Aaron, there has been a lot of buying activity with his 1954 Topps rookie card.

There are some pretty good 1954 Topps Aaron fakes out there, so this counterfeit guide will help you avoid getting scammed.

Of course, like anything, even before you read this, make sure you check out our guides on ‘Buying Cards Safely on eBay‘ and our first piece dedicated to authenticating vintage cards. 

As always, after reading if you have any questions on authenticating your Hank Aaron rookie card, please shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com

I typically stay away from writing about cards from the Junk Era.  This website as you might have noticed is dedicated to ‘vintage’ cards, whose definition is still a bit fuzzy among collectors -although usually consensus is that ‘vintage’ is anything pre-1980.  

So, when a reader wrote in recently asking my thoughts on the investment potential for Barry Bonds rookie cards I started to think about it for a while. 

Immediate reaction — ‘eh Junk Era, don’t bother’.   But then I started thinking–hmm, there is still an outside shot at the HOF….so maybe, just maybe some of Barry’s rarer cards from the 80’s are worth another look.  We write about Jordan rookies all the time and it’s from the same exact year, so maybe, just maybe it’s something I need to examine a bit closer.

And so I did.  This piece will take a look at the Barry Bonds rookie cards, and try to determine whether his cards might have good appreciation potential over the next few years. 

As always if you have any questions on Barry Bonds rookie cards, shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com.

Zee-Nut (also commonly referred to as Zeenut) baseball cards were issued over the course of twenty-eight years from 1911 to 1938.  The cards were issued by Collins-McCarthy, a candy company based in San Francisco.  Zee-Nut cards were issued in packages of ‘Zee-Nuts’, which were kind of a different type of cracker jack candy. 

The cards were issued on the West coast and only included players from the Pacific Coast League.  Thus, many of the players in the sets did not even reach the big leagues.  Given the number of sets (25) and the number of cards (nearly 3600)  issued over 28 years, it is rare to find many collectors dedicated to completing all of the sets.  

Most collectors don’t have a lot of familiarity with Zee-Nut cards but some are familiar with the Zee-Nut Joe DiMaggio pre-rookie cards. Zee-Nut cards with a coupon attached are much rarer and deserve a significant premium.

Thus, I thought it might be helpful for collectors unfamiliar with Zee-Nuts to examine the Hall of Fame players (including DiMaggio) from the sets.  Some of the early Zee-Nut cards are super hard to find, so it would probably take you years and a huge budget to try and collect every one.  

At the very least this provides some novice collectors with some more manageable targets, and avoids some of the players many of have never even heard of.