Sunlight vs Cards (research on fading)

The dormant Pack War blog by Corky used to do a neat series of "things done to cards (so you don't have to)" or something like that where he'd bury a card in the ground for a year to see what happens to it.. stuff like that.

Along those lines, I wanted to do some first-hand experiments taking a look at the effects of sunlight on trading cards.

Back on 2/28/2021, I placed a duplicate of Tony Gwynn's 1989 Upper Deck in a window that gets a lot of direct sunlight, curious to see how faded it'd get after a year. I took a photo a year later on 2/28/22:

Would you look at that? Old Mr. Sun seems to have bleached away most the magenta and yellow ink, leaving the card black & blue. I think it's pretty cool, and filed away the unofficial blue parallel in my Gwynn PC.

-o-

Not too long after putting the 89UD card on the windowsill, I got creative with another "card in the sun" idea. This time I blocked part of the card to try to limit the sun-bleaching to a certain area. I wanted to make a 1990 Donruss card look like there was a "vision beam" from Tony's eyes. I'm sure there are more interesting things that could be done with this concept (like, stencil out a Padres logo over the card or something?), but hey, it's just a rough test.

Oof. I should have anticipated that baking painters tape for several months in the sun would have an adverse effect on it. Ended up with too much paper loss to consider the experiment a success, but at least now I know not to use tape with things like this in the future. (And yep, I've already got a couple new Gwynn dupes messing around on the windowsill, so check back in a year or so to see how they turn out.) 

The "vision beam" came out alright, though it looks more like it's coming from Tony's earflap than his eyes. ("Hearing beam"? Was the secret to Tony's success that he used sonar to echolocate the ball? lol)

-o-

Finally, I've been intrigued by how the ink on Topps Retired autographs seems to vary with cards on the secondary market. This auto-per-pack product had 3 releases, 2003-2005, and has been a collecting focus of mine for years, as regular readers know. I've busted my share of this product over the years and every "pack fresh" Retried auto I've ever seen features a signature in bright blue Sharpie, though I've seen several on the secondary market that have duller blue ink, often close to black, and sometimes even ostensibly "black ink" autos that have faded significantly. Funny thing is I don't recall ever seeing any faded blue autos (or bold black ink autos), so this effect is most likely due to sun exposure.

Experiment begun 2/1/22 - no difference in ink

I chose 2003 Bill "Moose" Skowron as my guinea pig because it seems to be the cheapest and easiest to find of the Retired autos. Plus I happen to have 2 good copies of it, so one can be kept in the dark as the control. Scientific! It's my hypothesis that the bright blue ink will eventually become darker, likely appearing to eventually "change" to black ink as it fades. The above photo shows identical ink appearance on the 2 autos as of the evening of February 1st, 2022. The encased card is the control and the loose card was put in the window moments after this shot was taken.

[... time passes ...]

Yep, after just one month (--at that, February, a short, cloudy month--), the ink has definitely darkened somewhat.

[...More time passes as this post sits in my "drafts"...]

Wow, not even to the 2-month point yet, but the ink has deteriorated a lot since the previous check-in. Now the ink does in fact look closer to black sharpie than blue, and the last name especially has begun fading away. A rise of sunny springtime days likely contributed to the accelerated impact.

Since the card is toast already, I suppose I'll leave it out indefinitely in the interest of curiosity. By the end of the year, I'd expect the signature to be barely visible and we'll eventually see the rest of the card start to fade. However, all Topps Retired autos are on Chrome stock, and-- scribbled Sharpie ink aside-- Chrome cards seem to be more resistant to the elements than standard paper cards. Keep in mind that when Moose jotted down that particular "on card" signature two decades ago, it wasn't a cardboard surface he was pressing that felt-tip onto, but rather (I'm paraphrasing here, but it's something like) a thin sheet of plastic covering layered ink printed in reverse affixed to a foil layer backing, and some cardboard mixed in and on the back. So I won't expect it to look as "bad" as the earlier '89 Upper Deck Gwynn ended up after a year, but I guess we'll see. (Funny to note that Chrome card technology was pitched to Upper Deck first, but I guess the money wasn't right for them and they passed, but Topps signed on instead and ended up getting revenge for the whole 1989 "premium card" disruption once Finest refractors began heating up the pages of Beckett.)

Wrapping up here, a takeaway from this post is to be careful when displaying cards. Ha, "no duh", but the sun can potentially do a number on them before too long. Even in a place that gets much less sun than a windowsill can still do damage over time. For me, with any cards I'd be concerned about replacing ($$$/low print run/etc), I try not to display for long. Maybe put a nice card on the display shelf for a couple weeks, focus a satisfied glance on it occasionally during its "time in the sun" (if you'll excuse the phrase), and then file it away in the dark for storage after a bit. And just like rotate cards out like that. One idea I've thought of but haven't really gotten around to is to take a photo with some of my best cards laid out, then use the photo as my desktop background pic or something... then you get to admire the cards frequently while the actual cards are safely stored away. Another strategy is to cover up cards on display during the time you're not actively appreciating them, like drape a little cloth over a card when you're not actually hanging out in that area. Humblebrag, but I like to put a pack of sticky notes or something over my Roberto Clemente autograph when heading out at the end of the day when I've got it displayed at my desk at work. It's not in a spot that gets much sun, but still.. don't want that baby fading! (though in that instance, it's a pencil autograph, and the effects of sunlight on pencil seems like a whole 'nother experiment.) 

Thanks for reading... Hope this post was informative and entertaining so those 3 baseball cards weren't "destroyed" in vain! :)

White Whale or just a ghost? (the case of Kirby Puckett's 2003 Topps Retired auto)

I think I've identified a "ghost whale"... you know, a white whale that might not actually exist.

Regular readers know I'm nuts for the Topps Retired product line. And Kirby Puckett is one of my favorite guys to collect, so his autograph in 2003 Topps Retired has been a holy grail of mine for a while now.

But I'm beginning to suspect that the card doesn't exist, and hopefully this post (and reader response) can help settle it.

To start at the beginning, Topps Retired Signature Edition debuted in 2003 and Kirby Puckett was listed as an autograph signer in the marketing materials and even on the bottom of the hobby box (above), though key to note is "this list is subject to change" small print attached. He was among the Group B odds group (Group A being the toughest pulls, and Group G being the most common), with a stated print run of 75 base Kirby autographs and 25 serial-numbered refractor parallels. This is common info provided on card checklist sites like TCDB, Beckett, and baseballcardpedia.. So according to that, there should be a total of (100) '03 Retired Kirby autos out there.

Sadly, Mr. Puckett died on March 6, 2006 after years of failing health, though he has other on-card certified autographs through 2004 on the market, so it's certainly possible he signed '03 Retired cards.

I've been watching Retired autographs on eBay for nearly a decade at this point. I think it's safe to say I've seen all other autograph subjects from the product for sale-- some I may not have seen the refractor yet [all numbered to 25 or less], but I've at least seen the base available once or twice over the years. In fact, there's currently a seller with "complete" autograph sets from all 3 years of Retired on eBay. His listing for 2003 Retired has an asking price of $30,000 OBO, beyond the realm of possibility for me to think about, but still a helpful resource. I poured over the photos in the listing-- the lot is highlighted by a slabbed Hank Aaron refractor (all other cards in the lot are base autos)-- but Kirby is nowhere to be seen.

The base (non-auto) set of '03 Retired is 110 cards deep. Of that checklist, only two players don't have corresponding autographs included: Dave Concepcion and Johnny Sain (with Kirby possibly being the 3rd). I gotta assume these guys were slated to have autos in there, but just didn't return their signed cards to Topps in time to be packed out (and there were no redemptions in the product, as far as I'm aware). Concepcion, like Kirby, is listed on the box bottom (in Group C), making Johnny Sain the only player in the set without his name on the original autograph list. But Concepcion, unlike Kirby, isn't included by checklist sites in the autograph listing for the product. So Topps knew it wasn't getting those Sain cards back for whatever reason, but was holding out hope for Kirby and Concepcion. And eventually Topps gave up on Dave Concepcion (ostensibly leaving him off updated marketing materials that were used by the checklist sites), but the Kirby question remains.

TCDB lists 0 collectors with either '03 Retired Kirby auto marked as being in their collection (though plenty have them on their wantlists). And none for sale (or "sold out") on COMC.

I even checked the PSA population report for 2003 Retired autos, and no one has sent in a Kirby auto for grading. You'd figure at least one of the 100 cards would have been submitted.

I've done Google searches, tried digging into historical eBay listings, and still have found no sign that a 2003 Topps Retired certified autograph of Kirby Puckett exists.

So with all that layed out, what do you think? I'm interested in hearing your take on the matter, especially if there are any Kirby Puckett supercollectors reading this who may've already gone down this rabbit hole themselves.

Does anybody have this card, or could at least share documented proof that it's out there beyond a text checklist?

Please let me know. Thanks!

coVIdNTAGE

 Time to show off the vintage from my big COMCOVID shipment.

I miss finding pre-Topps beaters for cheap at the card show. This well-loved pair of 1950 Bowman cards each ran me a buck-something. Love the artwork on these!

Bob Scheffing and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones. Sure, in a perfect world I'd love to have these in EX/NM or whatever, but I don't mind wear on really old cards. Adds to the character. These cards lived. Kids in the 50s shoved these pieces of cardboard into their pockets, played with them down by the schoolyard, and at least in the case of the Jones, apparently ran them through the wash.

These non-sport tobacco minis were each under a dollar.

1968 Brooke Bond History of the Motor Car #48 -1967 Ferrari P4, 4 Litres

1925 Wills Life in the Tree Tops #28 Young Kestrels

I wanna say I saw some of these History of the Motor Car cards on somebody's blog, and went out to find one for myself. This was a year ago, before I started doing my Vintage Frankenset, so that didn't play a factor, but serendipitously I had an opening at #48, so this Ferrari will be pulling into a parking spot there.

Sadly the same can't be said for the Young Kestrels or above 1950 Bowman cards, as their numbers are already filled, but I suppose you can never have enough old-ass cards, right? Pulled the trigger on the 1925 Kestrels back in September 2019 for 75¢ from COMC seller MashingDingers, who I recognize as a Twitter acquaintance of mine (who has expressed an interest in writing a guest post, so who knows, might be a Baseball Card Breakdown collaborator at some point), but I don't think I bought it because it was from him, but probably just trying to find the oldest/cheapest card available that caught my eye.

I wanted to pick up some more Pumpsie Green cards and did just that by grabbing his '61 and '62 Topps. I remember reading his SABR bio while waiting at the vet during the final days my previous pup Annie's life, so there's an additional emotional component towards getting a little PC going for him, the first black player for the Red Sox.

Here's an unassuming 1969 Topps card that I heard about and had to score myself a copy. The highlight of this Mel Queen card is the back..

Both pitching and batting stats! Seems like Topps is usually too lazy to make a special back like this for 2-way players, so the extra effort is appreciated.

Lastly for this post, I picked up a couple cards for vintage sets I'm building. Bob Purkey is a nice semi-high number I found a good deal on for my '64 Topps set that's just over ¾ of the way complete, but one of the cards in this shipment I was most excited about is this particular Gene Baker for my '57 Topps set that's also inching towards 80% complete.

According to TCDB, 1957 Topps #176 Gene Baker is the only card in the set with error and corrected variations listed. As for which variation this one is..? Welp, it's actually a "missing link" between the two! Check it out:

The variation involves a printing flaw with the player name on back. Apparently some of the pressings had a bit too much red ink or something, flooding the last letter of text in the player's first and last name. "EUGENE W. BAKER" became "EUGENF W. BAKEP". I found a curious copy on COMC where the troublesome letters in question are not at their full errored state, but also not quite their fully formed correct versions either. The last E in Eugene has a shorter bottom compared to the top, and the R in Baker has a noticeably thinner tail.

The corrected variation is common and typically sells for under 5 bucks in average condition. I paid $1.25 for mine last fall. In researching around for this post, all recent completed listings on eBay show the error selling for comfortably in triple digits... except for one that sold for "just" $57, but in my opinion it's a fake. Take a look:

Really looks like some dipshit used a red pen to obscure the R in an attempt to increase the value of his 1957 Topps common. You can tell the coloring seems just a little off right there. And notice how the last E in Eugene is conspicuously full. If it was an authentic error variation, both the R and that E should have been affected (Correct me if I'm wrong, but they sure seem to go hand-in-hand). Yep, pretty sure this particular "error" card was faked. Lame. I feel bad for whoever bought it.

Anyways, I don't intend to drop $100+ on the error card-- no offence to Gene Baker who was an All-Star in '55 with the Cubs and got a ring as a bench guy on the 1960 Pirates-- but I'm glad to score what might be an even scarcer variation. What do you guys think, should mine be added to TCDB as a 3rd variation for the card, or would that just piss people off and I should continue to appreciate it as a printing-flaw oddity, not a true variation?

Thanks for swinging by and going down this Baker street with me.

card trimming for science

The hobby has been rocked by a card trimming scandal over the past few months, with hobby heavyweights PSA, Beckett Grading Services, and eBay consignment powerhouse PWCC in the spotlight over allegations of being complicit in schemes regarding trimming valuable cards for better grades, and therefore higher sales.

For the heck of it, I thought I'd give a shot at trimming a card myself. I've never attempted to trim a card other than my own customs or occasionally a cut-out oddball from a magazine or box, but for the sake of an interesting blog post, I'll give it a try.

Here's a 1990 Score Tony Gwynn card I found among my many Gwynn dupes (He's my all-time favorite player, so I've got a lot.) You can see this card's top corners are both clearly less than gem mint. Let's see if I can take the ol' paper cutter to it to improve them.

Well, I doubt this card would grade out to a 10 after going under the knife-- a bit off-center to the right, and the corners still aren't perfect-- but at a quick glance, I'd say those top corners are improved. If this was hypothetically a valuable card like a 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout or a 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan, the alteration may have helped bump up the grade by a few hundred dollars' worth, assuming the grading entity didn't take any measurements into account and just gave it a rough once-over.


So there you have it. And please note that this is my first time trimming a real card and that I am doing this at 1:30 in the morning while having trouble sleeping. I'd imaging that someone who does this a lot (and on a full night's sleep) would do a better job.

So yeah, it's a bit scary if you're concerned about things such as altered cards and/or are someone who pays a premium for slabbed 10's.

Lest anyone think I was contaminating the hobby with altered '90 Score Gwynns, I pulled the ol' Upper Deck X treatment on this guy, with some artificial "die cuts" to make sure it never gets mistaken for an unaltered card. (Sorry, Tony-- no disrespect intended! Thank you for your sacrifice.)

The "Cardboard Bump" recap

Whammy or no whammy?!

In my last few posts, I've been conducting an experiment to see if-- as Night Owl suggested to me years ago-- including the word "cardboard" in your blog post title results in increased viewing numbers. Fuji countered with a comment saying he saw no effect from adding "cardboard" in a title of one of his recent posts. Well, which is it?! Hits or no? Let's take a look at where my view totals stand for my last dozen posts as of this writing:


Javier Baez PC - 124 views, 4/25/19

Vintage Influx - 124 views, 4/26/19

Giving us a baseline are these two consecutive posts both clocking in at a smooth 124 views. Solid showing, but nothing to write home about.

Kerry on my Cardboard Blog - 888 views, 4/27/19

Now here's where things get interesting. 888 views is a very popular post by my standards. The content wasn't anything too mind blowing-- just a trade recap. Could it be the "cardboard" bump?

Cody Bellinger PC - 125 views, 4/30/19

How I spent my eBay bucks: Reggie and Ozzie - 133 views, 5/3/19

A pair of big Bobs - 137 views, 5/5/19

Beach Weekend 2019 recap - 119 views, 5/9/19

And now we're back into the expected viewing numbers, a bit over 100 each.

Cardboard Potpourri - 584 views, 5/10/19

The experiment officially begins! Another strong showing from a "cardboard" post.

cardboard from mr haverkamp and beyond - 251 views, 5/12/19

Boldly going right back to the "cardboard" well. Not quite as big a jump, but still more hits than the norm.

Hometown Cardboard Additions - 181 views, 5/14/19

I really presented a tough challenge to the hypothesis with this one. As I mentioned in the post, when I write about Guys From Granite, the views typically take a dip. The cardboard bump seems to have helped this post perform above-average, even if down from the other "cardboard" posts.

Cookie Cardboard - 341 views, 5/16/19

Back to eye-popping numbers by my standards. Full disclosure, I also tweeted out a link to this one, so that may have affected the numbers a little. I don't always tweet-plug my posts, but when I do, it's usually good for a few more hits.. but unless a popular account retweets it, nothing too big.

Cards from Canada - 79 views, 5/17/19

Up to this point it's tempting to think, "Hey, maybe views are up because I'm growing a following of loyal readers who appreciate my fresh, creative take on baseball cards!" The conscious decision to use the word "Cards" instead of "Cardboard" was to see if we'd find a return to norm, and as you can see, yep, the numbers were definitely down.. about what I'd expect for a trade post. Should probably hit 100 in another day or two.

And that brings us up to current.

Wow! So I think we've confirmed that putting the word "Cardboard" in a blog post title does seem to increase views-- at least for Baseball Card Breakdown. Your results may vary.

So why is it? Does the word "cardboard" connect with casual readers in some special, perhaps sentimental way? Is there a sexy mystery to it? Like with that "Cookie Cardboard" post-- had I just dryly titled it "1989 SF Giants Mother's Cookies team set", it wouldn't have seemed as interesting.

Of course the more likely reason is that somehow the word "cardboard" is a siren song for web-crawling bots that creep over the internet compiling data and whatnot for their overlords to use. But why "cardboard"? What would make that an interesting word to anyone not in the hobby or in the paper products industry? Who knows.

Most bloggers will tell you they appreciate comments more than views, and I'm no exception. The "cardboard bump" doesn't seem to translate to more comments, another indication that the additional viewers are non-human. It's almost kinda insulting to get a ton of views but not many comments, lol.

By the way.. my worst performing post? Well, at this moment I believe it's "Never Dunn Ghostbustin'" from this past March, an update to my Ghostbusters card collection. Seems not everyone is as into Ghostbusters as I am, since this post is sitting on just 99 views as of press time. Perhaps I should have titled it something like "more Ghostbusters cardboard" and maybe then it would have dunn better.

So in closing, yes, I would say that (for reasons I'm unsure of) putting the word "cardboard" in a blog post title will likely result in an uptick of views. Pretty crazy, right?! But the excess views are probably from bots, not humans, so it's nothing to get too excited over. But still, it's nice to get a lot of views on your posts, so don't be afraid to throw around the word "cardboard" in your post titles here and there if you'd like to boost your ego.

Oh, and I had been hankerin' for a Whammy! card.. fun inserts which are seeded 1-per-case in modern Donruss products. Ended up with Javy here. Pretty neat.

Thanks for reading!

Getting scientific with card thickness (Is Archives REALLY so thin?)

A lot has been made recently of just how thin the card stock is for 2015 Archives. But is it really that crazy thin, or are people just overblowing it? I happen to have access to medical-grade diameter measuring equipment. I brought in a few cards from various sets, and today on my lunch break, I tested the thickness of each. Let's see how they measure up!

As for my methods, I got two readings from each card (one on the top half, one on the bottom half), averaged the two, and rounded to a hundredth of a millimeter.

No surprise the thickest cards I tested were 2001 Archives (0.65mm) and 2015 Heritage (0.63mm). If you like a hefty cardstock (and not those ridiculously thick high-end cards), Heritage is the brand for you. And the "old school" version of Archives is probably one of your favorites, too.

2014 Panini Donruss delivered a sturdy card as well, measuring 0.53mm. (Prizm is Panini's extra-thick brand, but I didn't test any of that.)

Moving down the thickness scale, both the vintage Topps (1976) and modern Topps (2005) were 0.42mm.

1982 Fleer and 2008 UD First Edition measured out comparably, both at 0.41mm.

Ok, now what you've been waiting for: the modern Topps Archives! Ready for this? The three I tested (2012, 2014, and 2015) were all measured at 0.41mm! So as far as my results are concerned, the cardstock has not gotten thinner.

Here's what I think is the reason for the perceived thinning. When 2012 Archives came out, the backs were just as glossy as the fronts. This makes for a sturdier-feeling card. Over the years, the backs for that product line have gotten less and less glossy. 2015 Archives has a downright matte finish on the back (and not much gloss on the front). Without a shellacking of gloss on the cards, they seem flimsier in hand.

Personally, I'm a bit sick of all the gloss on modern cards, so my fingers welcome the tactile touch of a matte finish on new cards from time to time. As such, I'm totally cool with the cardstock of Archives this year.

When I gave my little review of 2015 Archives, I mentioned holding the cards made me reminisce about 1990 Donruss. And 1990 Donruss happen to be the very first cards I ever ripped a pack of as a kid. So it's understandable that I'd get a little sentimental over cards with light gloss on the front and a matte back. It's been a long time since I opened a new pack of cards that felt like that! Really takes me back, sort of like how certain smells can trigger memories/feelings.

But back to the science! Two cards were significantly thinner than the rest. Yep, 1990 Donruss was near the bottom at 0.36mm. And the award for thinnest card I tested goes to the 1990 Baseball Cards Magazine card at 0.32mm. I admit this was a "ringer" I included knowing full well it'd be the thinnest. I mean, it's a free card cut out of a magazine, so what do you expect?!

So those are my findings.

Interesting!


Anywho... Time's running out to enter my big anniversary contest, so if you haven't commented on that post yet (or pimped it for a bonus entry), get on it!

Speaking of anniversaries, my wife and I celebrate our first year of marriage today. Still going strong, happy to say! We weren't able to come up with anything fancy to do (ideas of a weekend trip to the coast fell through), but we'll at least open a nice bottle of wine that's been waiting for a special occasion.

Oh, and it's also the centennial of my grandfather's birth (fancy way to say he would have turned 100 today). He was a great guy. Talked about him a bit more back on that post showing off my Howard Hughes autograph.

Enjoy the rest of your day, everybody!

Fail Friday: Topps botching Mike Piazza autos

I don't own the cards in this post. I just stumbled upon something intriguing while browsing eBay and figured I'd get a post out of it. (Turns out this is old news.. made the rounds on Twitter and a blog or two back in December 2014.. but screw it, I've already drafted this post, so here it is.)

I'm in the market for a Piazza auto to cap off that PC as I creep up to 100 different cards of the guy.

This Mike Piazza auto from 2014 Topps Supreme caught my eye:

Check out that signature. That's not Mike Piazza's signature!

This is Mike Piazza's signature...

Veeeery different (nowhere near as legible).

Topps obviously mixed up auto-stickers of Mike Piazza, the HOF-caliber catcher and Mike Piazza, the meager minor league pitcher. 

Yeah, see? That's clearly the guy who signed the sticker on the card at the top of this post. I actually own this one (it was $2), and I've shown it and mocked the unfortunate photo choice on the blog before.

They're cousins that share the same name.

Looks like the mistake is confined to this 25-run card. They have sold for around $60 a pop on eBay (with no caveat regarding the auto). I'm curious if the winners are aware of the error. At the time of this post, there aren't any currently on eBay, but you can see 3 such cards in the completed auctions.

Just more proof that sticker-autos suck. The mixup wouldn't have happened if Piazza was signing the actual card, instead of a plain sticker on a sheet. You gotta wonder how often illegible autos get mixed up and nobody notices the difference. I'll bet it happens more often than you'd like to think.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by.

Concern over counterfeit and custom cards on the market

I've mentioned before about how I find the rising ease of producing unauthorized cards unsettling. It's gotta be the #1 threat to the hobby going forward. Back in the day, an entrepreneuring asshole with access to a specialized printing press could spend a few weeks creating a Jordan rookie or '52 Mantle that was passable to the casual eye. But now, with advancement in printers and computer programs like Photoshop, anybody willing to shell out a couple hundred buck for a nice home printer can do the same in a few minutes.

Even added touches such as foil, refractor shine, and holograms are possible for the amateur card-creator if he is willing to spend the time and money to work it out. It's all just trial and error with various types of paper and tints and whatnot until an acceptable card is created.

All this "home brewing" cards is fine when it's for your own personal use. But when such cards start ending up on the secondary market, that's bad news for everyone.

This is where the difference is heightened between custom "cards that never were" and counterfeit copies of real cards. The day will come when two identical 1/1 Mike Trout superfractors are on eBay at the same time with it being anybody's guess as to which one is authentic.

But the crime is not exonerated when a seller comes right out and tells you it's not a real card.

The blog WHEN TOPPS HAD (BASE)BALLS! is run by Giovanni Balistreri. Don't be fooled by the juvenile name; his is an incredible blog focusing on 1970s baseball. Gio uses his background in graphic design and vast knowledge of the game to create a plethora of custom "cards that should have been" and "fixes" of cards from the decade that Topps botched with bad airbrushing, boring photos, or whatnot. Many of his customs are so awesome that you'll ache at the fact they weren't released by Topps some 40 years ago.

Recently, Gio was browsing eBay and noticed a hard copy of one of his own creations for sale. Turns out this seller has made hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars over the past year or so by selling prints of other people's custom cards. The cards typically sell for around $5, but can sometimes go for over $40 if two or more misguided collectors have a bidding war over a card.

Here's a 1961 Topps Ted Williams:

The seller comes right out and admits it's a fake card in the description: "THIS IS NOT A REAL TOPPS CARD. IT IS WHAT A TED WILLIAMS CARD WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE IN THE 1961 TOPPS SET. CARD HAS A BLANK BACK."

Here's another one:

Geez! It would almost be forgivable if the guy was selling copies of his own creations, but the fact that the seller is using other people's cards without their knowledge is pretty dicked.

But I don't want to just pick on this guy. I'm sure he's not the only one out there selling cards like this.

For instance, I stumbled upon this other guy a couple weeks ago while searching for cards of Reggie Jackson in an Orioles uniform:

He seems to exclusively sell custom cards for around $20-25 each, with 33 such auctions running at the moment. I'm not sure if those cards are his own, or he snagged the pictures online and just printed them out on nice paper. Again, the seller clearly states in the description that this isn't a true vintage card, but does that make it ok?

As far as other notable physical customs out there... (Not saying there's anything wrong with what these guys are doing. For the record, if I had a nice printer or a buddy at a printshop, you bet your ass I'd be producing cards myself, too!)

Baseball card custom pioneer Bob Lemke has been known to sell limited copies of cards he's whipped up.

Munnatawket Custom Cards are pretty popular customs, aping the design of 2008 Allen & Ginter minis to help market a small baseball bat manufacturer operated by the guy who makes the cards.

Punk Rock Paint has released a couple sets of oldtimers.

The guy at the blog 6,000,000 Cards and Counting also profits off his customs. Now, this guy here scares the shit out of me, to be honest. Just look at this fake cut signature he made recently:

Wow. A dual cut auto of Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson that looks and feels real and can be bought for just $13. And that's just one of many authentic-looking customs he's produced over the past couple years. He's made Jose Canseco (his favorite player) faux-auto refractors in the style of 2013 Topps that could pass for the real thing were it not for a disclaimer in small print on the back stating it was signed by his printer. His work really is amazing. But if he or someone like him "turned to the darkside" and started being dishonest about his fake cards and/or started making straight perfect-copy counterfeits of real cards (which I'm sure would be no challenge for him), the entire hobby could get a swift stompdown in the ass. I can see it now: The high-end "investment" spectrum of the hobby will crumble, and it'll eventually trickle down to the dimeboxers who collect for the love of the cards. Card companies will fold and collecting will go from "cards you collect" to "cards you make or have made for you". The collectors still remaining will be the few who simply don't care if the piece of cardboard in their hand was made by a legit card company or some guy in his home office.

I hope my apocalyptic prophecy for the hobby is proven wrong, but I'm convinced this is a "when" not "if" scenario. People have been talking about the impending death of the hobby for a long time. It's weathered the overproduction / '94 strike fallout, and the rise of eBay that effectively removed much of the "scarcity" that drove the hobby, forcing companies to resort to dozens of pointless low-numbered parallels to give pack-rippers hope to pull something they couldn't just grab online for a buck. Pack searching is an unfortunate part of the hobby that surely hurts retail sales, but ultimately isn't a huge threat to the general health of card collecting. Digital cards like Topps Bunt have gotten some traction, but don't seem like they'll be phasing out physical cards anytime in the near future.

But when the day comes that anyone can print up any card they want imaginary or not, the hobby landscape will shift dramatically, and it's not that far away. Just thinking about it makes me want to start selling off my collection, at least the big-money cards. I'll make sure to get high-quality scans of them first so I can print my own copies a little ways down the road when that becomes the norm.

So what can be done? Well, if an eBay auction for an inauthentic card catches your ire, you can click the "Report item" link near the upper far-right of the description and use the drop down menu to alert eBay to the counterfeit/unauthorized card. If enough people report an item, eBay might pull the auction and/or issue a warning to the seller, possibly suspending his account for repeated infractions eventually.

But to really make an impact in curbing counterfeit/custom card sales, card companies will need to step up (Topps in particular, since they pretty much have the monopoly on mainstream vintage cards).

Topps has gone after other card manufacturers before, such as when Upper Deck tried to sneak out sets after losing their MLB license. But going after "the little guy" isn't something I've heard of them doing. If they really wanted, they could probably go after card blogs like mine simply for posting scans of their cards. When you think about it, it's not much different than posting an mp3 or movie online. But card blogs don't make money (a few may get a little kickback in exchange for advertising, but I'm sure it's not much) nor do they hurt card sales (more like free advertising for new cards on the market and stirring interest in the hobby), and there'd be a lot of backlash from the collecting community.

However, with the rise of sellers making thousands of dollars on fake, counterfeit, unlicensed cards, the big card manufacturers need to start addressing this as a serious threat. I'm not sure if they've currently got any taskforces dealing with the problem, but they definitely should. I kid about how in the future, mega hit cards will have a tracking microchip in them to help identify an authentic card, but I'm only half-joking about that. The day is coming when you'll buy a certified autograph on the secondary market, then login to Toppanini's website to enter a code on the back of the card to check the GPS coordinates of that particular card in their system to make sure it matches up with your house. How else will you be able to tell somebody with a nice printer didn't just crank it out themselves?


So there's my conspiracy-theorist ramblings troubling little exposé on counterfeits and hard-copy customs endangering the hobby. I hope it spurs some thought and discussion. Please share any thoughts in the comments.