Fake Pujols autos verdict.

Yesterday I posted this. This is an auction from the same seller featuring 2 different Albert Pujols cards. Both cards are 1/1 autographs and both looked fake to me. What did everyone else think?

Well after postings about this on SCR and TheBench everyone who viewed the posts agreed that they were fake.

I also email Gelman from SCU, since hes always posting about fakes. He got back to me very quickly also agreeing they were fake.

The Hairylemon started a thread on SCF, where the majority believed they were fake. There is one idiot on that thread who swore blind they were real and even provided the proof in the form of a Beckett checklist. Unfortunately for him the cards in the checklist were different to the cards in the auction.
A thread was also started on FCB, surprise surprise, the consensus there was also fake.
I even contacted the seller to voice my concern. I thought maybe he didnt know what he had, since I have since learned that many people have been duped by fake Bowman Original buybacks.

Here are the messages I sent followed by the replies:

ME - Hi, Do you have anymore information about this card and the other Pujols you are selling? Why are they in Bowman original cases when neither card are a Bowman product and neither appear on the checklist? Thanks

SELLER - they are hand signed single cards they did not come from packs

OK. So that sounds like they are IP autos, right?

ME - Thanks for the response. How did they end up in a Bowman Original case? What company has authenticated them?

SELLER - The holo can be confirmed w them for confirmation of authenticity.

ME - Sorry but I do not believe Pujols signed either card for the Topps company. The Bowman Originals product is very well known for having forgeries and many dealers have been burned with these cards.
Even comparing them to other autos of him in other peoples collections, they aren't even close.

SELLER - been there done that mate, its all Kosher. Those in the know, bid and win. Cheers for your cynicism.

Notice he didnt actually answer any of my questions.

Well that seller has made himself around £250 on two fake autos. Good work if you can get it.
I feel bad for the people who bid on these cards but seriously if your dropping that sort of cash on a card you must have a basic idea of what your buying. I always check the seller out, maybe google them if I think something might be wrong. If something doesn't look right I'll ask a question. I have made mistakes by not reading the description properly and have ended up winning a damaged card, like this Lind TTT but that was no big deal.
I hope the buyer tries to get the card graded and learns the hard way and then does a chargeback on the seller.
This seller, silvermakergems, does not sell many cards but incase he does you should avoid them like the plague.

Fake cards on eBay UK

I have never come across fake card sellers on eBay UK, at least none that I have noticed.

Its very rare that a high dollar card will be listed on this site as the majority of cards are basic team lots, junk wax and a couple of autos/GU every now and then.

While checking over what new cards have been listed I came across this.




Now I have no proof that this fake, other than the fact the auto doesn't look right, the 1/1 is marked 01/01 ( I'm pretty sure thats not a Topps trait) and its a Bowman Originals buyback case but contains a Topps Heritage.

This is the back of the same card. Notice it says Bowman on the case and below it says Certified Autograph Issue. The auction also says it comes with a hologram code, which you can see on the case. Isn't there a site that you can enter this code to see what it matches? Can anyone tell me what that site is because it would be handy to know.

I have just checked the the Bowman Original checklist and it does not contain any cards that were not Bowman products, so this Topps Heritage should have no place in this set.

Now perhaps I'm jumping the gun and this card is 100% legit but how would that explain this:

Same seller with another Pujols 1/1 auto. Again this is not a Bowman product! This is 2002 T206 and just like the previous card has absolutely no place in this set.



So what do you think? Fake or real?

I'm going with fake and will be watching this auction over the next twenty four hours to see what it goes for or to see if its pulled.

If you're interested in checking out these piss poor listing's then here are the links: Heritage and T206.

Taking inspiration from the Hairylemon

A few days (weeks?) back, Simon AKA the Hairylemon posted on his blog 7 Hours from Tampa Bay a really nice James Shields card that he picked up. Click on the link to see that post and the card.
The card he posted about was a Shields Sweet Spot 2006 Leather Auto 5/20. I really liked the look of the leather inside the card and the autograph worked really well with it. Unfortunately I couldn't find the Adam Lind equivalent. He does have a few 2007 Sweet Spot Leather cards available, all of which have fairly low print runs.

I did however find this little beauty sitting on eBay.com a few days ago!

This is a 2007 Sweet Spot Signatures Black Bat Barrel Silver Ink numbered 9/15.

Like I said this came from eBay.com as opposed to my usual haunt, eBay.co.uk. Ebay.com is a much better site for cards but I'd say around 75% of the sellers will not ship outside of the country and most don't even respond to a question about shipping which is a real pain in the arse. The sellers that do send overseas charge anything from $1 (in a PWE) up to $24.99, which in most cases is double or even triple the cost of the card they are selling. The seller of this card charged a little more than I like to pay, $6.50 but the chances of me seeing this card again is pretty slim so I was happy to pay.

I actually had to let a few other cards in my watch list end without bidding on them in order to go after this one. I even let what could have been my first and only 1/1 slip through my fingers so I had to make sure I won this card and thanks to a little sniping in the closing seconds this baby is making its way to Wales!

This card is number 125 in my collection, hope to get to 175 by Christmas but its getting harder to find newer cards at reasonable prices or to trade.

Does anyone out there have any Lind cards that they want to trade or even sell? I'm looking for everything, not just autos and GU. Please get in touch if you have something you think I may like.

A few new pick ups

I haven't written anything for a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy picking up new cards for the collection.

Its been difficult finding the time to set aside to write something, what with the playoffs and World Series and the fact I was averaging between two to four hours sleep each night because I wanted to watch the games live. It sucks following a sport that is played thousands of miles away!

Anyway congratulations to the Giants! Who'd have thought it? What will happen next season? Will they manage to keep up the kind of dominance that they showed in the NLCS and WS? Will they be able to keep the players that are going into free agency and will they pick up any new players? Obviously with that bum Zito being paid an obscene amount of money to keep the bench warm they probably wont be picking up many star players, although I did read earlier that they are going to entertain the idea of going after Carl Crawford. I guess we'll all have to wait and see until next year. I hate the off season.

Right onto the new additions. As usual I have stolen the scans from the seller that I bought from and from COMC. I can truly say that all cards pictured are the actual cards that I picked up and not just a random stolen pic, unless of course the seller I got them from had stolen the scan from someone else.

First up is a card that I already have but another copy showed up on the bay and I just had to grab it.





The top card is the new addition, numbered 10/20 and it goes well with the bottom card numbered 19/20. I like the idea of collecting as many of the same low numbered card so I will be keeping my eyes peeled for another few copies. I was surprised at how cheap this card was and hope that the others, should I find them, are going to be as cheap.

This is one of those manufactured bat barrels that just came out in Topps Update. I had this card on my watch list from the first day it appeared on eBay and watched like a hawk, ready to pounce in the dieing seconds of the auction. With about 15 seconds to go I entered a bid of $10, thinking I would win. I was wrong. With mere seconds to go I entered another bid of $14.50 and again was outbid. Someone wanted the card badly and they got it. I was gutted that I lost out on it. I dont know why but after the auction ended I clicked on the item again. I dont know if you have done that yourself but when you do, eBay suggests similar cards that you may like. The card that popped up was the above card that was listed literally within minutes of the auction that I lost ended and even better than that it was a BIN of $10! This beauty is going to find a nice new home in the UK.

This is the auto that is also in Update. For some reason these cards are also proving quite popular with almost all of them on the bay seeing some sort of action. When it comes to shopping on eBay, shipping plays a big part in deciding what I'm going to pick up. This card had a higher price than others but the shipping balanced it out. Also it wasn't just one auto in the auction it was two. So I thought why not and placed a bid for the opening the price and managed to win. So I have two of these cards, not sure if I want two. If it was numbered then I would keep it but since its not I may trade on the second copy.

This is not the last card that I picked up but its the last one that I'm going to show, I have to keep some back for another post!

This is a 2010 TTT numbered out of 75. I already have the copy numbered out of 50 but I like this one better. The blue really works and it looks brighter. This card I got for $4! I was very happy with the price and had to double check the ended listing to make sure I read it right because that price was stupidly low. And thats when I saw it. In the item description the card is listed as damaged. How the hell did I miss that the first time? The cardboard is peeling slightly above the jersey piece on the number 6. Its barely noticeable so I guess thats OK. If I was picking this card up for trade bait then I would be really pissed off at myself for not reading the description more carefully but since its going into my own collection I'm not to bothered.

I'm now on the look out for the TTT numbered out of 99 but for some crazy reason it always ends much higher than the cards numbered out of 50 and 75. I dont know why that is and since I got bargains on the other two I dont want to pay a premium on a card with a larger print run.

I guess I'll just wait it out since I'm sure this is just a blip and that card will start leveling out in price.

Contest over at Georgia Mindset

Get over to Georgia Mindset for your chance to win a hobby box of 2010 Topps Chrome.

What are you waiting for? GO NOW!

Picking up more Adam Lind cards for the PC

This past few weeks I have been selling cards on eBay to help me pay for new Lind cards that come up. I managed to sell the majority of my cards for what I wanted for them, except for the Gold Mini Ichiro which I was disappointed with, but shit happens and it did pay for my T206 lot that I won.
A few weeks ago I got to 71 cards and planned to get to 100 different cards by Christmas. Well I've smashed past 100 cards in less than a month. I now have 112 Lind cards in my collection, actually I have 98 in hand, the others have just been dispatched from COMC but I should have them in a week or so.

The above card is a 2007 Topps Co-Signers auto numbered out of 75. This card was an auction as opposed to 90% of the Lind cards that are on the bay as BINs. I managed to snag it for a fraction of the price of other Lind's that were numbered out of 200 and 275.

This card is one that I have been after for a while. A Sweet Spot silver auto numbered out of 99. Its not to often that one of these will appear on eBay UK, although I'm aware of many on eBay US but the sellers will not ship to the UK or they will if I'm willing to pay $25 shipping and thats not going to happen!

This card was one of those auctions with a BIN attached. I had it in my watch list from the first day it was listed and I was awfully tempted to pull the trigger and hit the BIN. Well it was ending at 5am UK time and I was up late watching the playoffs (I'm averaging around 3 - 4 hours sleep because of these games, but its so worth it! Go Rangers!) Well just before I went to bed I thought I would bid the minimum and check it when I woke up.

When I checked my emails the next day I was pleased to see a message from eBay to say I had won it. I got it for just under half of what the BIN was listed at. Love it when I pick up a card cheaper than I thought it would be.

Lastly this arrived this morning. A 2007 Finest xfractor numbered just to 50. I got an incredible price on this but the shipping was a bitch! The card cost me a penny, yes one shiny new penny! The shipping was $5.99. So $6 total. I'm not happy to pay shipping that high unless its something that I know will not appear to often. The card arrived with $1.80 shipping stamp attached, no idea where the seller got the rest of the shipping price but I'm guessing it was high to discourage international bidders.

Now I have set myself a new goal and thats to get to 175 Adam Lind cards by Christmas. This will probably be tough because there are now only 8 cards that I need from COMC but they are from sellers that are trying to sell the cards at twice BV. So I will be counting on cards from the bay and whatever trades I can muster up.

Massive 2009 T206 mailday

Just over a week ago I picked up a lot of 2009 T206 cards from eBay UK. I caught the auction about 20 minutes before it ended and I entered my bid with about 30 seconds to go.

Here is what was in the eBay listing:

I am offering for sale a lot of Topps T206 Baseball cards from the 2009 set, there are base cards, minis and parallels included in this lot; there will also be one autographed rookie card with Piedmont border.

The cards are as follows,
178 base cards out of 300,
9 no number picture variation short prints out of, I believe, 50,
35 bronze border parallels,
31 Piedmont back minis,
6 Polar Bear back minis,
2 Old Mill back minis,
2 Cycle back minis numbered out of 99.

Very vague description, there's no mention of who the auto will be of or the cycle backs. So how do you think I did?

Here are all the base cards, a nice big mountain for me to sort through! It contained the usual suspects and was nice to go through. The one thing I dislike about the set is that there are no stats on the back. Still the cards themselves are very well done.

This base card jumped out at me. Its Josh Hamilton of the Rangers. How cool is this picture?
Next the short prints. They could have picked a different picture for the Mantle since this is the same as some of his checklists that are featured in the set. I really like the Arod (bottom left) with the New York skyline in the back.

These are the bronze bordered cards. Not much to say about these, they look nice but there was no card that jumped out at me.

Ah, the Minis! I love minis! Here are the Piedmont backs. A few nice cards in the bunch including a nice Thurman munson and Babe Ruth.

The Polar bear backs

The Old Mill backs. Not to shabby, Johnson and Gehrig.

The Cycle backs, numbered out of 99. Very happy that I got a Lincecum!

The auto. Shairon Martis of the Nationals. Who the hell is that?!

There was also another little bonus in the box that arrived. One that wasn't advertised in the auction description and it was a card that blew all the other cards out of the water, even the Lincecum Cycle back.

ICHIRO!!!!!

A Gold chrome mini numbered out of 50! This was a HUGE surprise! I didnt even now that 2009 206 had gold chrome minis, I thought that was just for 2010.

All in all not bad. Also included were two empty hobby boxes, T206 and A&G that the cards were packed into so that was also cool.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring? I'm still waiting on a few more packages.