Too good to be true or Lucky?

1yunggun

So I go in to work today and everybody is buzzing about a card another employee was showing off. According to numerous people I talked to, the card is a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #53. The story is the guy went to some small auction (don't know which one as he won't tell) but ended up getting the card for $65!! I have not personally seen the card but all reports are that it looks legit. I immediately think its gotta be a fake as there is no way someone could score such a card for that price. Anyone else ever scored something like this by chance or is there just no way this could have happened? I am going to see if he will let me take pics of it with my phone tomorrow if he brings it.

digicat

Anything's possible.

jeffcbay

edmundfitzgerald

Yes, just last week

1yunggun

What did u get?

CollectorAtWork

The 1933 Goudey #53 Ruth card is counterfeited like crazy, so hopefully your co-worker got a genuine. I've read plenty of stories of people scoring big time however. Usually, the story goes something like they went to an estate auction, and these rare cards were mixed in with a bunch of old postcards that the the owner collected. Or was used as a bookmark in a book. e.g., something like that where the owner and auctioneers didn't know what they had.

GR

I bought an oil on board painting for $10, that was in a box with an old broken crockpot and boxed mac and cheese, sold it last week locally for $1100...things like this do happen at auctions where people just dont know what they had, it could have been at the bottom of a box and not displayed in a glass case and such. At an auction i attend weekly a guy brings in Boxes upon boxes he gets from a storage unit and they dont even go through it...its up to the buyers.

vladguerrero

I'm going with counterfeit, theres a ton of these reprint cards that get fenced through small auction houses because they just dont know any better, it's worse at the auction houses that accept mailed-in consignments.

jfkheat

There is an auction house near me that I go to a lot for estate auctions. About a year ago someone got a 84-85 Star Chicago Bulls sealed team set for $10. For some reason I wasn't able to be at that auction.
James

wrestlingcardking

Always a possibility but my first guess would be a counterfeit.

mtcards

I had a guy come into my store and show me a Goudey Ruth that he just traded someone for. I looked at it and knew immediately it was a counterfeit. He had been having a yard sale and some dude came and offered to trade his Ruth for about $1000 worth of 80's RC's. He took the offer, not even considering the possibility of it being a fake. Honestly, sometimes the outright greed and ignorance of people when faced with an "opportunity" amazes me.


As for the one in this thread, I would have to believe that the card is a fake. Even in my area, where theres an estate auction every week, the newspaper lists "Old Topps Baseball Cards" in the item listing, so my guess is, if someone had a legit Ruth, it would have been advertised well so that either enough bidders would show up and he wouldnt get it for $65 or enough bidders showed up and knew it was a fake

AkbarClone

I would add there is a scenario where once a card becomes counterfeited so many times, most assume almost every one they see is probably counterfeit--and perhaps a real one slips through the cracks every so often and is sold cheaply by a non-expert under the assumption it might be counterfeit (but is real).

Good luck to the other employee.