Selling Fake Cards

You may or may not have noticed that I have been absent from this blog for a couple months now. I have just been overwhelmed by work, family, the holidays, you name it. As a result have had less time to spend on my hobby.

And that is what this is, my hobby. It is not a money making proposition. In fact it costs money and produces nothing. And I am fine with that. But lately a couple of eBay sellers have been using cards from various blogs and selling them. Including this blog plus Bob Lemke's Blog, When Topps had (Base) Balls, Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be and several other.

Several times I have had request for physical cards. I have always responded that I make virtual cards only but you are free to use them as you like. I understand collectors (I am one myself). There a many completionists (for lack of a better word) who want to fill in the blanks left by Topps of their favorite player, team or set. Go ahead print one out and put it in your binder.

Just don't put them on eBay. Please.

The problem comes when somebody who is not familiar with the hobby pays $40.00 for this:

I posted this as part of my Mets Favorites series here. This guy has used several other cards of mine most selling in range of $8-$18. Except for this one selling for only $0.99 :

You can see the disappointment on Joe's face. LOL

The funny thing is this guy has lifted cards from this blog that are not even mine. Including this one that was put out by Topps themselves. Which proves that the guy selling our cards, is just looking at the pictures and not reading the text.

Some poor sucker paid $15.50 for a print of this with a blank back. He could have bought the actual card with an actual back, printed by Topps as part of their 2012 Archives set. It is currently going for as little as $0.73 on COMC.com. That's even less than my 1966 Joe Torre All Star.

I know I've been rambling on a bit here. I don't have a solution to this. There will always be hucksters trying to make a quick buck. And I agree with the blog written on Baseball Card Breakdown that it DOES hurt the hobby. The best we can do is bring these people into the light and expose them for what they are.

A couple decades ago somebody was printing fake Pete Rose rookie cards. They got caught and the judge allowed the cards back into the market as long as they were stamped "counterfeit". I knowingly bought one of these stamped cards a long time ago for about $10 bucks. I collect rookie of the year cards and there was no way I would be able to afford a real one. It is currently filling the hole in my binder.

Other expensive holes are filled by Topps reprints such as:

Topps included an almost exact reprint of this card in its 1999 Topps Stars set. No gold foil stamp on the front, No refractor imaging, just a nice clean reprint. This particular card is extremely hard to find. I don't remember what I paid for it but it wasn't cheap. Oddly the autographed version is easier to find and goes for $50-$100 on eBay.

I know, rambling again. The point is, I know the hobby. I know what I am paying for. I have knowingly bought fake cards but I knew what I was getting. 

Not everybody does. 

I made this blog for my own entertainment. It is awesome that other people enjoy it as well. The truth is I would like to have hard copies of a few of my cards as well as some of the cards created by other hobbyists. But I don't want to contribute to these scams. 

Sorry for not posting in 2 months and then posting a long babbling semi-coherent post. 

I welcome and encourage comments on this issue. You can post them here, or on Baseball Card Breakdown's post on the same subject. Or on When Topps had (Base) Balls post that started the dialog. I am following all the comments closely.