Around six months ago, I posted a plea for help because I needed a card that seemed to be ungettable. Since that time, it has only come up once on ebay, and that was from an overseas seller that I refused to trust due to poor feedback. I will offer a finders fee for anyone that can locate it for sale, patch or not, single color or not, it doesnt matter.
If you see it, please help me out and drop me an email, it will be worth your effort.
Here it is, 2005 Joe Mauer UD Artifacts Patch Auto /10:
A few readers sent in this auction link of a seller who wanted to prove that a recently sold Peterson chest logo SPA Patch Auto was fake. See, of all the patches to fake, I would expect that this one would be the least likely to top the list due to the shear scope of the cost of the card. Then again, we have seen Exquisite Peterson fakes, and other fakes of this SPA card, so the lesson is this:
JUST BECAUSE ITS HIGH END, DOESNT MEAN YOU ARE SAFE.
The too good to be true rules still apply, and basically it comes down to not taking a chance. Yes, it is a cool card, but why risk the fake patch? Why not buy a 3-color for a similar price and be sure it is real. SPAs are frequently faked, though UD has been good about removing the auctions they know to be fake. Some of them will continue to get through as I have mentioned here before, but its still something that needs to be planted in the minds of collectors. Nothing is safe anymore, and if someone can make a buck or two by switching out the patch, THEY WILL. They are fucking scum, and should be castrated to prevent more of them from entering the gene pool.
Listen people, dont be idiots out there, and though there are quite a few people who will continue to be idiots, it does not give you free reign on both ends of this scam.
ADDENDUM: Just because a card is slabbed does not mean it is real, just another way the scammers get you. See, even though Beckett may authenticate the card, there is nothing they will authenticate about a patch. Now, aside from the arbitrary and exceedingly stupid practice of authenticating cards (especially post 1995), the scammers use this available resource as a way to lure you into a dumb purchase. Even if Beckett were to say something is real, a la SPA NFL Logo patches from Tomlinson’s RC year, why would it be in your best interest to believe them? Why are they the preeminent authenticators of patches, especially with all the fakes out there? Yes, yes, I know some are ridiculously obvious, but when it comes to others, they arent necessarily a green smurf in smurfville. I dont put any trust in Beckett either way, but some of you might when it comes to seeing the authentic slabs. In fact, if a card was in an authentic slab, I would AUTOMATICALLY stay away, as it waives red flags all over my alarm system.
Again, why even risk it?
I was going through a thread discussing bad autos, and Geronimo Gil came up as one of the worst. In terms of bad, this is beyond awful, even though there is twice as much ink as Mendenhall’s, Johnson’s, or Timmons’. Add in the fact that his auto looks like a big penis, and you have a new inductee into the Autolic Test Fail HOF.
This is the best auto of his I could find. There are ones that are MUCH worse.
So, a little over one year today, SCU was born of anger and retribution. I have to admit, even I didn’t even expect it to last this long. I mean, once I started, I found it quite hard to post things every day, sometimes more than once, and to continue to find relevant things to talk about. On top of all of that, I never expected to get any traffic, mainly because no one knew who I was, and the CBN (Card Blogger Network) was only a third of what it is today.
Once the CBN hit full stride, things really picked up, as for some reason, people enjoyed reading my rants, or hated them enough to come back and see what I would say next. Really, I was just looking for a place to have fun writing, and usually when its about something you love, its much easier to do. Funny enough, I found there was a lot of shit that goes down in the hobby that I really disliked. There was rampant problems with established institutions that no one wanted to question publicly, there were problems with the cards themselves, there was problems with the people who collected them, and most of all, there were a ton of really ignorant people who seemed to be multiplying by the second. With that, I decided to stake my flag and really show people what could possibly be behind the curtain.
Unfortunately the gap between the smart and the stupid continued to grow, and people continued to take advantage of the lack of information and transparency. Luckily for everyone, the CBN also continued to grow and continued to challenge the paradigms that have long plagued collectors in the industry. They also provided complete up to date info, a fresh perspective, and quite a bit of pizazz to boot. New people joined up every day, and I tried to help as many of them as I could to find their voices. SCU’s blogroll continues to grow by the day, and I will never hesitate to add a friend, even if your views arent quite on point with mine.
As of today, over 100,000 unique visitors have seen the site, and most of them have come back multiple times for the same reasons as when this page first started. My biggest contribution, the Blog Bat Around is still running strong with a new person at the helm each month, something I love seeing. Hopefully the BBA will continue to be an awesome display of the might of the CBN.
As for SCU, well, I hope there are more years to come, more people to piss off, and more rantabulous posts to write. Really, the only people that deserve the credit are the guys from the SCU staff and you, the visitors. Thanks a ton guys and gals.
Now where is Matt Forte to jump out of my cake?
I was out of town this weekend, my parents visited and we decided to do a bit of road tripping to Santa Barbara. When I got home and checked the mail, and found a package inside my mailbox. I opened it up and found some awesome stuff from Marcus Henderson of Guitar Hero fame. You may remember him from the amazingly done guitar pick cards from Allen and Ginter, and we have been trading emails after he let me know of some ridiculous fake autos on eBay.
