Forgeries

[padthelad]

hi, just had a buyer come back that a card i sold was a forgery? The cards was a bit thin and he has said it separated out into three separate pieces of paper on handling. with a plain piece of paper in the center of two printed/photocopied pieces. Has anyone any experience with this? cheers paddy

[dmhcollectibles]

hmmmm nope - that's a new one on me. I spose it's possible, it seems just about anything can be faked. Diane

[jaystargraph]

I find it hard to believe that someone as experienced as paddy could have handled the card and not seen/felt that the surface was wrong for the item. YOU ALL know they are on particular paper with a texture and appearance unlike plain paper. BUT as Diane says, anything can be faked, even currency. I have come across "thin" cards before. I wonder ... Jim

[daveypn]

Some old card stock was "laminated". We've all seen cards separate into front & back I'm sure. Maybe OK. It's a postcard club meeting tonight - I'll ask around if anyone's seen similar. Paul

[dmhcollectibles]

I've had one or two that have partially separated front and back - but never nothing in the middle like paddy said. And no reason to suspect it was a forgery/fake either.

[riverboatqueen51]

Paul is correct in saying some cards were laminated. I have a tucks postcard that was in three layers just as you described. I suppose time and moisture unglued it. I know for a fact they belong together because it has the front number and description per Tuck practice. (Thank you Tucks) It is also true that a number of years ago there were crooked dealers gluing fronts onto backs. The ones I have seen are pretty bad though and you certainly can tell that they were tampered with. Joyce

[phoenixantiques-petworth]

Pat - Could be your buyer is going to do a switch? Maybe your card was legit and he already had a fake to "exchange" it with - whats his feedbck etc like? There were alot of Mable Lucy Atwell & McGill cards going around last year - but they were really easy to spot - the card was too thin the colours were a bitt off, and the printing substandard to say the least. All the backs just had POstcard on and none of the publishers details. Hopefully nobody got conned - I picked up a pile at a bootsale and gave them to amy to play with so they are out of circulation. Sara

[bugler1998]

A few years ago some veteran baseball card dealers said this technique was being used on middle 50's baseball cards. I heard that it was as good as anything out there, as far as being hard to detect. What I do not understand is how those cards withstood scrutiny under magnification. Do you postcard guys use magnification?

[dmhcollectibles]

I do - sometimes 8x, sometimes 12x - depending on the card and what I think is necessary. I use a magnifier to try to detect flaws on every card that I sell. Diane

[dmhcollectibles]

p.s. Sara, I had the same thought as you, about the buyer possibly wanting to do a switch. It wouldn't be the first time that trick was tried. Diane

[jaystargraph]

I was looking thru my older Christmas PCs and noted quite a few splitting, no triples tho. BELIEVE me, I know about the sports cards fakers! FWIW, I decided this year I'll Tuck (pun intended) one of these (valueless?) old postcards in with my usual Xmas card mailings. Most folks would be tickled (I hope) to get/see such an "old" (1900-20s) Holiday greeting! You all might consider this palatable way to clean out some dead stock. Jim in KC

[spread-the-luv-greetings!]

We use magnification on all of our cards, Andrea

[markomundo]

I have suspected a number of cards that I have received in wholesale lots have been fakes - why would anyone fake? - with the prices some of these cards fetch it may motivate someone to counterfeit an RPPC and auction it - a fair number of chromes have also appeared to be phonies -auctioning is often a numbers game and if someone can get 10 or 15 bucks per counterfeit card, it may be worth their time - do this a number of times a month and you could be talking a few thousand bucks! I don't know how many people may realize the card is a counterfeit - heck, if someone can pass off phony money (and we handle money every day, at least most of us, my wife won't let me carry any) I am sure a great fake can be made of a "vintage" postcard. Then again, that is my paranoid side of me talking.

[neglus]

Wow Mark - do you really think people are counterfeiting chromes? I can see the motivation (if one has dishonest inclinations) to counterfeit a rare RPPC and even a Halloween or Santa - but a CHROME?? I think that there are huge inventories of some bona-fide (but overprinted) chrome postcards floating around. That being said, I did run across a chrome last night of Cripple Creek Colorado that did not seem like the other Colorado chrome cards (Sanborns mostly) I have listed. I put it aside until I can check out the publisher. Now you have me wondering whether it's a forgery or not! Would seem to be rather pointless to counterfeit a card like that - they never have gotten much auction action.

[phoenixantiques-petworth]

Maybe not so much a forgery as a reproduction neglus? As you know we don't really have the chromes or linens over here so I wouldn't know a fake if it jumped up and bit me - I would now have to pop in here and ask you guys! Sara