Collectors continue to cast a net in search of more fake autographs found on pre-War baseball cards. A problem that came to light with phony signatures on T206 cards last week does not appear to be confined there.
The cards were discovered when the unsigned copies of the same cards were found to have been sold not long before they entered the market as “autographed.”
On Wednesday, three cards featuring three Hall of Famers from the 1933 Goudey set were also outed as forgeries by alert members of the Net54 vintage card forum.
Original lower grade Goudey cards of Bill Terry, Sam Rice and Rick Ferrell were found to have been sold –and then marketed again on eBay with newly added signatures. Two were being sold without authentication; the Ferrell was offered in an SGC holder. As of Thursday, none of the cards were currently listed.
They are the latest discoveries in a string of fake autographs that began with “signed” cards of players who appeared in the T206 set and lived relatively long lives, perhaps meant to give an air of believability to them.
The cards featured skilled forgeries but the person responsible for selling them made a colossal mistake by selling merchandise that already had an internet footprint. The cards bearing the signatures carried identical creases and corner wear that clearly matched the exact items found to have been sold on eBay over the last few years. Some, in fact, were purchased just a couple of months ago, then appeared for sale online again–this time bearing the phony autographs of the long-deceased players.
Law enforcement agencies have been contacted about the discoveries but so far, there’s no word of the results of any investigation that may be underway. In the meantime collectors continue hunting for other potentially fraudulent pre-War autographed cards.
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Marketing the T206 and M101 Sets: Old Sporting Life Ads Offer Insight
Notes: Cabrera’s 3000th Hit Ball, NOW Cards; Raw Goudeys; Nashville Show; Shop Burglary
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