Tuesday, September 6, 2011

"Questionable Authenticity"

I have had a quote from Gellman prominently displayed over to the right for a couple of weeks now. Take a quick glance over there and read it. Now continue...
My friend Kevin, the mortgage guy with the office near my store, and guy that drops off cool Kellogg's 3-d cards occasionally, stopped in today.
He handed me an awesome 2004 Fleer Clearly Authentics Ivan Rodriguez Patch card #29/75.

He then says, "I sent it to Beckett for grading and slabbing. Turn it over."

This is one of the coolest patch cards I have ever held in my hand. It has almost a complete Tiger head in it. It could be fake.
There are so many plain grey or white swatches, seeing one like this is special. Having Beckett return it with nothing more than a, "questionable authenticity: patch" label... well... that sucks.
I have put this card under a magnifying glass tonight. Trying to see how anyone could pull out a plain swatch, and embed a fancy swatch. I can't see any visible damage. None whatsoever. I am amazed that Beckett declared this card questionable. How do they determine something like that when there is no visible damage to the card?
There's an auction for a Cal Ripken card here. The Cal card has what looks like the edge of a letter or number swatch. I wonder if it's fake?
Kevin paid a nice price for this Pudge card. Now he is left to wonder about it's history.
And we're all left to wonder about our patch cards some more.

7 comments:

  1. well the two cents my pea brain and limited knowledge has to say are, I'd be sleptical too. It's a 2004 card. Patch cards like that were beyond rare back then. And to see it, without an auto, on a card numbered to /75 puts out warning bells to me.

    but like I said... peabrain... limited knowledge...

    tell your friend to just enjoy it for what it is... a very sweet looking card.

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  2. Man that sucks. I am almost to the point now where I don't trust patches unless I pull it from the pack myself. Just can't trust people... it's sad...

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  3. another question to ask a tiger's fan... was that particular patch in use by Detroit before 2004? I have no idea.... it just popped into my head.

    Scammers may be masters with cards, but they ain't that bright with era specifics usually.

    Like that colour 8x10 Babe Ruth auto signed in blue Sharpie on ebay....

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  4. Funny you post this today. A Seneca Wallace /10 emerged today on Ebay. Obviously I was enticed as I need it. Oddly though, two issues. One is price - the guy wants $250 and my biggest single Seneca card buy to date was $32, and that's including 3 plates, 1 /5, and 2 /10's.

    The other issue? It's an Adidas Laundry tag. From 2003 Sage. I was skeptical. Asked on blowout and found that a) I'm right to think laundry tags in 2003 Sage are weird/not right and b) that Seneca's college jerseys were made by Russell Athletics, not Adidas. Yet the Ebay seller still cries pack pulled when I messaged him. So...is Sage on crack and putting in wrong patches? Or is it fake? The world may never know...

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  5. 2004 Fleer E-X had two patch cards a box I believe so they aren't incredibly rare. I haven't seen a logo patch like this one though.

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  6. Captain Canuck brings up a good point--this Tigers is from the "new" logo that the Tigers introduced around 1996 (and is prominently featured on the front and back of the Pudge card), but after a couple years on an alternate hat was quickly banished from the team's uniforms.

    When Pudge joined the team in 2004 I'm pretty sure that you would only see this patch on the sleeve of an All Star Jersey and maybe a BP jersey. It was pretty phased out by then though.

    That was my first clue that it was fake, although Beckett probably didn't consider that. They probably saw a ridiculous patch on a #/75 card and said "not so fast my friend."

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  7. Wow. I mean wow. If it's true and the card is a fake that really sucks.

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