Collecting baseball cards and other sports cards is a hobby that is now well over a century old. This used to be a very disorganized hobby where only the industry insiders knew the games and nuances of each year. Now card collecting has evolved into a game of collectors and investors who are armed with the same data on pricing, populations and other card nuances to help make informed decisions. And despite all of that — people are being duped into buying fake cards and reprints much more frequently than you might want to imagine.
There is now a book that is dedicated solely to the hobby called ‘Spotting Fakes’ by Ryan Nolan. Ryan’s site can be found via the BreakoutSportsCards.com and you can watch his weekly videos on his YouTube lineup. Right now, the best thing to look at of his is the book ‘Spotting Fakes.’ There is something to learn here regardless of what level you are in collecting sports cards.
Book reviews are not my normal effort. In this case, Ryan Nolan and his partner Steven Lazar deserve a lot of credit for writing this book and getting it in the hands of the public. It is a huge service to the hobby and it may save you hundreds or thousands of dollars by arming you with knowledge. And no, I received no compensation for this review other than knowing it may help Ryan’s efforts AND it may help you from making a mistake because you didn’t know what t look out for.
Before getting into some aspects of Spotting Fakes, this aspect of “Fakes” hits home hard for me. In fact, it nearly discouraged me from staying in the hobby of sports cards. About a decade ago I missed out on buying one of the hobby’s great cards in a PSA 4 because both the seller and myself were too stubborn to budge. When I finally won the card in an eBay auction months later, guess what happened when it arrived — the case was cracked wide open and there was a fake 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. I must admit it was a very convincing fake, but it was fake nonetheless. Had this not been resolved by eBay, an investigator and his meeting with a U.S. Postal Inspector it may have devastated me enough to quit the hobby.
We now live in a world where slabbed and graded cards by PSA, Beckett, SGC and others can be reproduced. The good news is that these are almost never perfect fakes. The labels can be reproduced and buying the slabs can at some times be almost identical. And the three major grading companies have also endured slight changes to their grading case presentations over time, and grading standards themselves have all evolved in time. This all adds up to why ‘Spotting Fakes’ can help basic collectors and professional dealers alike.
Every U.S. card collector knows the 1986 Fleer #57 “rookie” Michael Jordan card has surged in value over time. It has nearly 22,000 graded examples by PSA alone and just over 2,500 graded examples by SGC on last look. This card, on top of a tribute card a decade later, is widely faked with many counterfeit cards circulating in the market. According to the PSA website of Collectors Universe, the Michael Jordan Fleer rookie is the most recognizable basketball card and the most important modern card from any sport in the entire hobby — AND it is the most heavily counterfeited card in the hobby!
With fake PSA slabs and with fraudsters copying the exact certification numbers and grades it is important to know what to look for. It could save you thousands and thousands of dollars! Ryan’s book also outlines the 50 most widely “faked” cards on the market today.
I bought the paperback copy of ‘Spotting Fakes’ on Amazon the first day it was released. I had no clue what to expect, and frankly I expected it to be a long-form book that was technical. After all, fraudsters making fake cards and counterfeit cards are quite sophisticated these days. I was quite pleased at how easy it is to read and how organized the book is. Many of the bullet points make it quite simple to digest the information in bits, being able to pick right back up where you left off. Too many books these days carry on endlessly for the modern readers and short attention spans – but ‘Spotting Fakes’ makes it very easy for any level of reader and any level of collectors to find what is important to them.
The 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle have had entire counterfeit operations dedicated to making free money at the expense of naive collectors and dealers who couldn’t imagine people would do such a thing. And it is known that the 1948 Jackie Robinson Leaf card and one (or more) of the 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards have been faked. It turns out that rookie cards of Tom Brady, LeBron James and Steph Curry have been faked despite how many graded examples there are.
The amount of fake cards in the hobby is much more than what I would have assumed. It only reaffirms the “buy from reputable sources” mentality. Most dealers and traders in the sports collectibles hobby are good-hearted and well-intentioned people. But the few bad apples out there have counterfeited cards from players like Tom Seaver, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, Frank Thomas and so on. Would you have ever guessed that players like Dan Marino, Steve Young and Bart Starr have fakes on the market? Wayne Gretzky’s rookie has also been well documented as having some fakes, but even guys like Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby have seen fraudsters make fakes of their rookie cards. They have even spotted fake cards for soccer and boxing.
Another refreshing aspect about ‘Spotting Fakes’ is that it doesn’t just show you lessons about fakes and reprints. It covers how to spot altered cards, trimmed cards, pressed cards and recolored cards. It even gets into spotting some of the numerous fake autographed cards that are out in the market waiting for the next sucker to come along.
It’s ok to pass on buying a card for a steal or that you just aren’t sure about. What’s not ok is the feeling that you will get when you want to sell or trade and the person on the other end of you says “Sorry buddy, your card is fake and I don’t want it any price.”
I have met Ryan multiple times at sports collectibles conventions. I must admit I wish I had the energy he has – what does 52 card shows in 2021 alone tell you? And in all those shows he picked up even more tricks of the trade in spotting fakes along the way.
