When Upper Deck lost both the baseball and the football license due to situations that were both well within their responsibility to avoid, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to take advantage of the collectors who knew little to nothing. As someone who likes to keep up on the different scams around the hobby, it was pretty shocking when Jeff from Iamjoecollector.com brought this particular instance with Masterpieces baseball and football to light. As someone who buys more of this product than anyone in existance, he would know what to look for in avoiding bad sales on fakes. As someone who likes to examine autographs, I have to agree 100% with his assessment of what is going on.

Basically, here is what happens:

– The seller finds a base card of some popular player.
– They sign the autograph of the player onto the card
– They hand number the card to signify that it wasn’t originally done the usual way
– They list it on eBay as a “rare redemption replacement straight from Upper Deck

Yeah right.

Im not saying this seller is the one responsible for the fakes, but someone is.

Here are some examples to avoid:

2007 Masterpieces Daisuke Matsuzaka “On Card Auto”

2008 Masterpieces Brett Favre “On Card Auto”

In the end, as always, education is the best weapon against this practice. So far, there has been no response from Upper Deck’s legal team, and I really don’t expect there to be. As far as we know, there were ZERO hand numbered autographed base cards in masterpieces, and if there were, they would come with a certificate from Upper Deck that good sellers include in the auctions. If the autos even looked remotely close, it wouldn’t even be a problem. Even if these looked legit, however, I wouldn’t touch them regardless. You cant be too sure these days.