welcome agent21. My take on it was this: a slight smear doesn't totally eliminate the serial number indicating it being visable. He could have just not even pictured it or blacked it out or something else.... I thought it was a good idea actually. The point to doing anything is to deter the "borrowing" of the scan by unscrupulious "sellers" that we see every day on there.
Heated debate about whether this guy is offering fake cards... some of his stuff definitely looks convincing, and the scans are uniform on several of them, which would help imply they weren't stolen. I certainly wouldn't purchase anything from him, and I highly doubt any high dollar card you would receive from him would be authentic, however...
The '52 Mantle is undoubtedly unauthentic. It lacks a key feature of a standard 52 Mantle with the variation where there is no black box around the Yankees logo. There should be a small white spot where a pixel appears to be missing in the blue background on the left side of the card, even with the brim of Mantle's cap. And if you didn't know that about the card, it would certainly raise a red flag that the winner of the Mantle card would also receive a midgrade 52 Bowman Mantle as well as a single signed Mantle ball, as if winning the Mantle is not enough in itself.
A761506 - thank you,,, i have been saying that about his scans for two days being consistant.
- oh and the "free" 52B and signed ball was for a BuY IT NOW purchase, but he didn't/forgot to list one, but I assume w/ most BINs it is higher than the opening bid. just another observation.
wlf3 - I changed my mind about the 52 Mantle. It is 100% real. It is absolutely, positively, without a doubt genuine. I sent the scan to Fred's Authentication Knowledge Enterprises, and he confirmed that the card is the very rare 52BS variation. It was actually printed with the help of the Mick himself. As Fred explained it to me, back in 1952, Mickey needed some extra money so he got a job working nights at the Topps printing center. Mickey wasn't a very good printer. He mixed the ink wrong, didn't burn the printing plate properly and used the wrong paper stock. That's why the card looks different from other genuine 52 Mantles. Topps didn't want to throw the cards away and they figured 10 year old kids weren't going care about the differences, especially back then when kids towards the end of the summer didn't hardly buy baseball cards anyway. Since you seem so determined not to listen to anyone here, you should go ahead and buy the card. Make sure when sending the card to PSA that you have them contact Fred over at F.A.K.E. so that PSA understands the history behind the card and thus grades the card, and doesn't accidentally return it to you as not being authentic.
Comments
The '52 Mantle is undoubtedly unauthentic. It lacks a key feature of a standard 52 Mantle with the variation where there is no black box around the Yankees logo. There should be a small white spot where a pixel appears to be missing in the blue background on the left side of the card, even with the brim of Mantle's cap. And if you didn't know that about the card, it would certainly raise a red flag that the winner of the Mantle card would also receive a midgrade 52 Bowman Mantle as well as a single signed Mantle ball, as if winning the Mantle is not enough in itself.
- oh and the "free" 52B and signed ball was for a BuY IT NOW purchase, but he didn't/forgot to list one, but I assume w/ most BINs it is higher than the opening bid. just another observation.