I’m slightly late on this one, but another collector alerted me to this lawsuit regarding a Fake PSA 10 Michael Jordan rookie card.

Donald Spence, who is a heavyweight in collecting circles (just take a look at his PSA registry here) is the plaintiff in the suit. 

Back in May 2017, Spence purchased a purported PSA 10 graded Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card from Common Cents Coins in an eBay transaction worth $19,999.99.  

Common print stain/defects on bird/magic rookie which can help us often distinguish real cards from the fakes.

The 1980-81 Topps Bird/Magic rookie card has seen a huge increase in price this year; for most grades, an increase of more than 300%.

Back in June of last year, we posited that the Bird/Magic rookie might actually be undervalued given the hysteria with Michael Jordan’s rookie card. 

With the rise in value for the Bird/Magic rookie card, there is certainly the potential for more fakes to hit the market. 

In this piece, we review the Bird/Magic rookie card, help identify and fakes, and ultimately try and help collectors avoid buying a counterfeit card.

If you have a Bird/Magic rookie card you think might be suspect, shoot me an email to chris@allvintagecards.com.  

I’ve had the unfortunate experience of breaking the news to many eBay buyers that the card they spent multiple thousands of dollars on was a fake.

Thankfully eBay has strong buyer protection rules in place along with PayPal guarantees and options to dispute the transaction through your credit card company.  Thus, many of the buyers I’ve spoken to have been able to recover their funds.  

Still, I really hope that eBay can develop a program for sports cards, similar to what they have done with sneakers and watches.  

Despite this, I decided that I should create a guide to help buyers protect themselves from the most unscrupulous of eBay sellers. 

eBay does a good job of shutting down fake listings if enough people complain, but often times many fall through the cracks.  

Note that eBay does require that any cards that have a questionable authenticity be listed as a reprint, yet buyers are still bidding up these cards thinking they’ve found a diamond in the rough.

This guide will help you avoid these mistakes and help you become a better informed buyer when purchasing sports cards on eBay. 

The 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards have been on absolute fire of late, with the Lou Gehrig cards (there are two) from the same set not too far behind.  

I often get inspiration for new counterfeit resource guides from the questions coming in to me.  And I’ve had a lot of requests for help of late in authenticating Goudey Ruth cards, with many of them ending up being outright fakes. 

So, in yet another attempt to help fellow collectors avoid getting scammed, this guide is all you need to know in distinguishing a fake Goudey Ruth or Gehrig from the real deal.   To note, the Goudeys can be among the toughest to distinguish in the hobby due to some better than average reprints. 

Also, one quick point too.  I’m not going to get every authentication question right.  Especially when dealing with only photos.  Sometimes, just the wrong angle or the wrong light can make a card look questionable from a photo.  So, all of this to say, buy a loupe and read this article!  

And…one last thing I need to get off my chest.  Often times the game of authentication (especially when not done in person) is a game of weighing the red flags.  For example, if a raw card is selling for only a small discount versus a graded copy, and there is even one small concern, forget about it.  Why take the risk?  And if you are dealing with the same question from a seller on eBay with questionable feedback…move on! 

Of course, once again, if you have any questions on a Goudey Ruth or Gehrig you might have, feel free to email me at chris@allvintagecards.com.

An authentic Michael Jordan 1984 Star XRC #101 Card

Ever since we published our interview with Star cards expert Steve Taft, we’ve had an increasing number of inquiries on Star basketball cards.

And the focus of the questions we receive typically are regarding the 1984 Michael Jordan Star XRC (or extended rookie card) #101.  

Jordan’s 1986 Fleer rookie card has become the essential card to own for nearly all vintage basketball collectors, yet Jordan’s Star XRC card still remains a bit of an after thought in comparison.

In this piece we examine the 1984 Star Jordan #101 XRC a bit closer and more importantly help collectors determine how to identify a fake copy.  

We’ve written extensively about how to identify a fake Michael Jordan rookie card here and here

As I’ve mentioned many times, we get a lot of inquiries asking to help authenticate Jordan rookie cards. 

We’ve also written about the history of PSA flips and how to altered slabs. 

First, let’s just say that the Jordan fakes are getting better.  Often I find myself telling a reader that it’s not possible with me to authenticate via images and would need to examine the card in person.  So, long story short, the scammers are getting better at their job.

Now, something that the scammers have been doing for a while, and not just with Jordan rookies, is busting cards from authentic flips and replacing with a fake card.

A Reprint of a Wilt Chamberlain rookie card.

With the big run-up in Michael Jordan rookies over the past few years, vintage basketball cards from the 1960’s and 1970’s have followed, showing significant price increases.

While I authenticate a lot of Michael Jordan rookies, I’ve started to get a lot of requests from one set in particular- 1961 Fleer Basketball.   I love this set, it features some of the most valuable basketball cards in the hobby and in my mind is one of the best designs of all basketball card sets. 

However, with the popularity, comes more counterfeits and reprints, with unsuspecting collectors getting scammed out of thousands of dollars.

Thus, I want to provide a new guide for the 1961 Fleer Basketball Set.  This should be everything you need to know to help identify a real card from a fake.  

If you have any ’61 Fleer cards you’d like me to authenticate, shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com

A PSA 9 Hank Aaron Topps Rookie card with one of the first front holograms.

Over the years, PSA has made various changes to the labels on its PSA holders (or ‘flips’ as most in the hobby call them) and the actual plastic ‘slabs’ themselves. Some variations are not as noticeable as others, but it’s important to know the difference when buying graded cards.

This guide was designed as a resource for collectors to help distinguish the different PSA ‘labels’ and ‘slabs’ to help identify some of the fake holders and labels that exist.  I haven’t run across many fake PSA slabs, but they do exist and can usually be spotted if you know some of the telltale signs. 

We hope this guide on PSA holders is a useful resource.  In future posts, we also plan to examine the history of both Beckett and SGC graded holders as well.  

Star Basketball cards were issued from 1983 to 1986 and were the only licensed NBA basketball cards on the market until Fleer came to town in 1986-1987.

The cards were a bit of an anomaly in that they were released in polybags, either by team issue or in various subsets and not in wax packs.

The Star company also has a bit of a checkered past; the ‘Shop At Home’ scandal involved the former owner of Star- Robert Levin selling counterfeit cards on a home shopping channel.

Star cards were produced in fairly limited quantities – it is believed that most sets had production runs under 5000 cards – yet most collectors I know sort of dismiss the cards as second fiddle to any of the later Fleer issues. 

Thus, I really made it my mission to figure out if Star cards are either:

A) an underappreciated and undervalued long term investment  

or

B) not worthy of the time, just too confusing, too checkered a past, and too littered with counterfeits.

So, I got a hold of the hobby’s most renowned expert on Star Basketball Cards – Steve Taft.  Steve has been dealing with Star Cards since the beginning in 1983 and had once consulted with the major grading companies on how to identify counterfeits.  Steve knows Star Basketball cards inside and out.  

The ultimate goal of this interview is to help collectors with some of the confusion on the various issues and to help provide some more legitimacy to the cards.  

My ultimate conclusion: Star basketball cards deserve more attention. 

I hope you enjoy this interview with Steve Taft. 

With all of the latest trimming scandals running rampant throughout the hobby, we’ve had many collectors ask us about how easy it is to spot a trimmed baseball card.

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing how to detect counterfeit cards, but haven’t spent much time discussing cards that have been altered or trimmed. 

My hope is that this guide will become the premier resource for collectors and help educate everyone in order to avoid buying any altered cards.

Let’s face it; PSA, SGC and Beckett are just third party authenticators.  There is no guarantee, whether intentional or not, that the graders will get it right. 

It’s now on all of us, to be a ‘fourth party grader’ of sorts to ensure that we are not getting scammed.  

If you come across any graded cards that look like they might be trimmed, shoot me a note at chris@allvintagecards.com.