Fake 1998 Griffey Master Piece from Probstein Auction and other Fake MPs

sierra79 · Jul 24, 2016

jcmint said:
All the companies grade backdoor cards. Anyone can see the probstein S were stamped after market. It's still a nice card for a collector but it's not the original highly sought after masterpiece 1/1's

I have no problem with backdoor cards. I think they are quite nice in many cases and really add to the collection. However that being said, if a seller has reason to believe that a card may have been mislabeled or is not exactly how it is being described (altered/counterfeit) then they need to make bidders aware of that. I would feel sorry for the person who jumps on a ($2,000+) "back doored" Griffey thinking it is indeed the highly coveted 1/1, when in fact it would probably command much less had they been properly informed of what it really is. On rare occasions when bidding via Heritage Auctions, when I have informed them (during the course of their auction) of items that were either titled incorrectly, or worse yet, questioned the authenticity of an item, I never got a response back such as..."well, we provided hi-res images and the stuff is graded by a leading third party grader so make your own determination as to weather you want to bid on it."

I'm afraid that stuff like this will not help the credibility of our hobby.

rarecardcollector · Jul 24, 2016

I received the same bs reply from probstein as I have every time I have contacted him about the fake MPs that he lists. He wrote me "these are slabbed and approved by major grading companies".
Ebay won't touch him because he is does so much business with them. The MPs he lists have been obviously fake and yet he has gotten them graded and people like the person earlier in this thread think that grading companies are golden when they analyze cards for grading. This is not true, they analyze size, condition, but do not put much effort into analyzing if a card has been stamped aftermarket or not, and so you see numerous fake cards with aftermarket stamps being graded.
This has to stop and no one is even trying to resolve this problem. Ebay doesn't care, pwcc and probstein do not care. So collectors are left to question everything until someone has a sound way to identify the difference between the real pack pulled 1/1s vs the fakes vs the uncut sheet aftermarket stamped cards.

predatorkj · Jul 24, 2016

Well in all honesty, it's kind of wrong for any of us to expect the grading companies to weed out fakes. I know they weed out altered cards but if I am correct, it's generally based on very noticeable things such as size req's. They spend a max of what, under a minute a card? Otherwise there'd be a backlog a mile long. So unless it's a Jordan rookie or another heavily faked item where the fakes usually have the same issues, they do not probably even know what they are looking at 100% of the time.

sierra79 · Jul 24, 2016

predatorkj said:
Well in all honesty, it's kind of wrong for any of us to expect the grading companies to weed out fakes. I know they weed out altered cards but if I am correct, it's generally based on very noticeable things such as size req's. They spend a max of what, under a minute a card? Otherwise there'd be a backlog a mile long. So unless it's a Jordan rookie or another heavily faked item where the fakes usually have the same issues, they do not probably even know what they are looking at 100% of the time.

I totally agree with you regarding the grading companies (especially SCG which doesn't handle as much of the modern stuff), but I do think that sellers or auction houses that are presented with information regarding what it is they are peddling to the collector need to ensure that they are accurately portraying what it is that is being sold. Not, "Hey I provided high res images of the card, front and back, and the card was graded by a grading company...". Providing a response like that just seems to make me think that their is a certain level of integrity at play. Mistakes certainly happen, either from the grading company or seller/auction house, however that being said, the response towards my inquiry makes me draw multiple red flags. Stuff like that doesn't help the credibility our hobby.

Collect · Jul 24, 2016

I won't keep beating on this, but there is the effort underway to clean up all these uncut sheet, post stamp cards, as well as replacements. The overall plan is to educate and provide authenticating guidelines on cards like the MP's and other rare Fleer cards. I have mentioned in other threads that I am working with the lead designer and manufacturer at Fleer (from 1989-2001) to provide clarity on the story behind certain cards and process. In addition, we plan on making a authenticatoin process to clean up all the fakes and post production cards. The service will actually be for free. That is how strongly we want this all cleaned up. Having the process defined by those who created the cards from inception and then put them into production should help legitimize what is being done. No one knows these cards better than they do. We frankly did not want to do this, as it is so much time and expense. But having watched how bad this has gotten, particularly in Basketball, it became almost a moral duty to do something. We are shooting for end of year to be ready, but we also want to make sure everything is tight.

As a side note, I am getting a lot of hate mail from Probestein or the fraudster of the Griffey.

predatorkj · Jul 24, 2016

Collect said:
I won't keep beating on this, but there is the effort underway to clean up all these uncut sheet, post stamp cards, as well as replacements. The overall plan is to educate and provide authenticating guidelines on cards like the MP's and other rare Fleer cards. I have mentioned in other threads that I am working with the lead designer and manufacturer at Fleer (from 1989-2001) to provide clarity on the story behind certain cards and process. In addition, we plan on making a authenticatoin process to clean up all the fakes and post production cards. The service will actually be for free. That is how strongly we want this all cleaned up. Having the process defined by those who created the cards from inception and then put them into production should help legitimize what is being done. No one knows these cards better than they do. We frankly did not want to do this, as it is so much time and expense. But having watched how bad this has gotten, particularly in Basketball, it became almost a moral duty to do something. We are shooting for end of year to be ready, but we also want to make sure everything is tight.

As a side note, I am getting a lot of hate mail from Probestein or the fraudster of the Griffey.

Perhaps a $10 one time joining fee would allow you to facilitate this a little better?

forgerelli · Jul 25, 2016

Collect said:
As a side note, I am getting a lot of hate mail from Probestein or the fraudster of the Griffey.

I'd like to see what they're saying.

Scott F

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Fake 1998 Griffey Master Piece from Probstein Auction and other Fake MPs

sierra79

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