Beware Fake Sticker Autos

I have discussed problems with the use of sticker autos many times before, and the particular problem stemming from affixing fake stickers to cards is not new. For a period of about 3 months last year, eBay was flooded with sticker autographs that had been stuck to cards that werent meant to be autos. In most cases, the autographs were so blatantly fake that it was laughable, however, some still garnered very high bids. It went away after this site and a few others, along with the message boards, posted numerous accounts of how easy it was to create.

Im not going to go into how to do it, but basically, cheap auto stickers are wiped, peeled off the original cards, re-signed and affixed to better cards. Chrome was a favorite target because the base rookie auto cards have few differences from the actual legit signed ones. Well, at least one seller has found out what to do and is bringing these cards back.

Here is the example Adrian Peterson that was just pulled from the block.  For your reference, here is a legit autographed 2007 Peterson Bowman Chrome. You know this isnt the auto version of the card because it doesn’t have the line above the sticker auto where the brightness of the photo changes to accommodate the signature. As if that wasn’t enough, you can even see the peel marks on the bottom right hand corner where he took it off the other card.

Guys, just because a sticker is on a card, doesn’t mean it is real. Keep in mind that if there is money to be made in any part of this industry, someone will find a way to take advantage of it.

Fake Peterson Logo Back Up On Ebay

When 2009 Ultimate Football came out, I was very excited for a number of the cards in the set. None more so than the Ultimate Patch Auto cards, which were beyond awesome. The Adrian Peterson from the set was one of the cards I HAD to have from the product and I set out to buy one as soon as I could. The first one that was posted was a blurry picture but still good enough to bid on. Not willing to wait, I offered the guy almost 50% more than I expected the card to go for, but he wanted to let it go. Less than 3 hours later, another one showed up on ebay, this time with 3 color patches, to which I hit the BIN as quickly as I could. Funny enough, that price was less than I offered the first guy for his one and two color patches Peterson.

Moving forward in time, the person who ended up winning the Peterson I originally bid on wasn’t exactly the best of people. The card, number 6/10 was put back on eBay with two reebok logo patches and a shield logo tag patch, hiding the serial number and expecting people to not see what’s up. Obviously, since I had been watching all the Ultimate Patch cards, this one set off red flags immediately. Eventually someone brought to my attention that this card was the one I had previously bid on, and it had been destroyed for nefarious purposes. Regardless of my proof, the card was sold for a lot of money, again to someone who didn’t take the time to do a simple google search.

Well, its back up on ebay, and this time, the person wants even more money than it sold for originally. Stay away, stay FAAAAAAR away.

EDIT: Looks like the card has been taken down and replaced with something else. Maybe the seller was notified it was fake and actually took it down like a good person should.

Its Rare That Fakes Generate This Kind Of Money

Fake patches have become sort of a good/bad situation these days. Obvious ones rarely generate much money, and the less obvious ones generate tons. Because of the way fake patches have been covered on the message boards, blogs and other non-mainstream hobby media, collectors have been able to avoid some of the pitfalls that once plagued them. However, based upon recent auction completions, im not so sure people are wising up as much as I thought they would.

Look at how much this fake Peyton Manning that I covered last week sold for. Check out this Tom Brady too. I cant believe this Favre hit the number it did. Those are HUGE prices, despite the fact that they are ridiculously fake. My favorite fake promoting company, PSA/DNA, seemed to think they were authentic enough to slab them, and that I just don’t understand. I explained that the presence of the Captain’s patches alone should have been a tip off, but because the faker was skilled at creating these terrible cards, they passed it off. Inexcusable.

Guys, the reality of this situation is that our only line of defense is ourselves, and even a quick 2 second google search on these cards would have brought up the FCB AND Blowout thread where these fakes were outed. Ufjumper7 may be gone for the foreseeable future, but there is always someone else to take their place. Kevin Burge has been operating for as long as I can remember, and he is responsible for so many fakes that I cant even count them in an excel spread sheet. The list is that long.

Its one thing when the card generates 50 bucks or even 100 bucks, but when someone spends the cost of a month’s rent on one of these horrid fakes, we have to start asking how they think it can be real. I know if I were about to drop that kind of money on a card that obviously has doubts as to authenticity, I would do everything in my power to rid myself of that doubt. Hell, I recently bought an autograph for 150 dollars and I spent close to an hour online comparing it, despite the presence of authenticity statements from “reputable” companies. That was 1/10th the cost of what this person paid.

The sad thing is that a lot of the people who buy the fakes, refuse to admit to themselves that they cant tell the difference. I have received no less than five emails from different scam victims explaining that they know better than I do, even in the face of obvious observation. How dare I call them uninformed for not being able to recognize they were being had. God forbid. Really, the problem is the attitude more than anything, and I mean no disrespect when I say that even the most hobby saavy person is at similar risk as the newbie is. Just because someone has been collecting for 30 years, does not mean they know their ass from their elbow in a lot of these cases. The reason I say this is because of how little the mainstream hobby resources have focused on fakes in general. You can go back through years and years of Becketts, Tuff Stuffs, and any other magazine, and there wont be much to reference from. So, I don’t fault the uninformed for being uninformed in that respect. What I do fault them for is not taking the time to research their purchases, something that should be a part of buying on the internet even outside of sports cards and memorabilia. A simple five second search through completed auctions or google would have saved this person a ton of money, and that is exactly why they have every reason to hate themselves for wasting that kind of money.

I may not be the one hitting the buy it now or the bid button, but I will not stop talking about this as long as SCU is up and running. Fakes are a epidemic that have garnered the attention of national law enforcement, and I think its good to have as much dialouge as possible.

Take One Out, Another Takes Its Place – Avoid khartinla4gnd AT ALL COSTS


Ufjumper may be out of the picture for right now, but that doesn’t mean that others arent in line to take his place. Over on FCB there is a debate over a few Triple Threads cards for sale by khartinla4gnd, mainly that these cards are worth spending astronomical amounts of money on, despite the questions of authenticity. Personally, even if I liked Triple Threads in the slightest, I wouldn’t touch any of them with someone else’s ten foot pole.

Oddly enough, its not even the Reebok or NFL logos that send up the most obvious red flag on these cards, it’s the captains patches, and the fact that he has a few cards with similar swatches. Triple Threads has logos, and it has reebok logos, but I have never seen Captains patches before. It’s the one patch, you rarely see in any set, let alone in three cards from the same seller in the same brand.

Let me elaborate. The Captain’s “C” patch was first used in 2007 for the teams who wanted to institute the system. The Manning, in particular is from 2008, which means that the jersey in the card would be less than one year old. Because of the way jerseys are stocked among the big three companies, I would guess they don’t use 2007 or 2008 issued uniforms in products from 2008. 2009 would not be out of the question to me, but definitely not 2008. But, for some people, that isnt enough of a red flag to not bid on the cards he is selling. Then, after seeing some of the other questionable cards he has for sale, I begin to wonder if they are fooling themselves into a false sense of security just because the card is a 1/1.

Here are the ones I am talking about:

Peyton Manning Triple Threads 1/1 – Three logos, and a nice touch with the sideways NFL logo. Still doesn’t fool me though. I say 100% fake.

Brett Favre Triple Threads 1/1 Again 3 logos and a captain’s patch, again a 1/1, but still not fooling me. Plus, I don’t think Triple Threads often uses 3 separate logos on one card. Maybe one split into the two windows, but I have rarely ever seen 3 DIFFERENT logos.

Tom Brady Triple Threads 1/1 – Same type of card as the two above. I have the same reaction. 3 from the same seller? Cmon, that is a HUGE red flag.

Dwayne Wade Triple Threads 1/1 – Ok, now the story is taking shape. The guy finds out you can split the Triple Threads cards at the seam and switch out the patches, and decides to try it out on a few crappy cards. Then he moves on to cards like this one and the three above. I have a feeling that you get this card and see some damage along one of the sides.

Chris Paul Triple Threads 1/1 – This card was proven fake on Blowout, here is the thread, and once I saw this card on his store completed list, everything clicked.

Brett Favre Limited NFL Logo 3/10 – I know NFL logos exist in this set, but they are numbered 1/1. This is a questionable card at best. I say fake, but not 100% on this one.

Dan Marino Gridiron Gear /5 NFL Logo – This one is no doubt fake, I don’t even know why people think its real. Just a ridiculously bad job on a card that tells me exactly what this guy is up to.

Rick Ankiel Ultimate Patch – Very questionable patch here, but at this point we already know what’s up.

Its really too bad when stuff like this shows up, hopefully this guy gets banned too.