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What Do Auction Houses Really Know About "Authentic" Vintage Unopened

Sadly, the answer is not very much.

I no longer recall how many times I have seen supposedly "authentic" vintage unopened offered by an AH that was obviously,
or with a high degree of confidence, not really authentic.

One of the early experiences I recall was being the winning bidder for a 1972 Series 6 (high number only) box in a Mastro auction.
When the box arrived, it was clearly an assembled creation of packs from many series (many of which were also re-seals). How their
"expert" (who is one of those who was later indicted as part of the Federal fraud charges that were brought against the AH) wasn't
able to tell for sure that it was not a full series 6 box I cant fathom. You could see cards that werent series 6 through some of the
wrappers. Giving him the benefit of the doubt at the time, I figured he looked at one pack and made the determination based on that
single look. Thankfully I was able to convince them to allow it to be returned for a full refund (or face fraud or negligence charges because
it was so obviously not what was advertised and the re-seals were pretty obvious too).

In the end, the took it back and then offered it again in a later auction as an "unknown" series box. It sold to some unsuspecting person
despite what I had shown them about the box and its packs.

More recently there was the 1975 rack with Brett and Yount showing on the front that was obviously not consistent with any collation
sequence for 1975 that every existed. I called the AH that was offering it a few days before that one closed and told them they had a
dubious pack, but they let it go to the end anyway. They said it was GAI-slabbed, and therefore they would not argue with a
recognized and trusted authenticator (the same one who brought us the slabbed early 70s grocery cellos).

But the motivation for this thread is the latest example of an AH that cis offering something that is clearly NOT what they say it is.

The latest Heritage auction is offering a partial 1963 box (24/36) packs. They claim the packs to be USA-produced packs that were
shipped up to Canada where they were packaged and distributed. Their description further talks about how OPC didnt start printing
the cards in Canada until 1965. By the way, this just happens to be the remenants of the 1963 box that Mastro sold full back in
2003 for about $23k. In fact, I'd bet a pretty penny that Heritage just plagerized from the Mastro description rather than doing any real
due dilligence about what they wrote for this listing.

Getting back to the point of this posting, I was looking carefully at the lot and realized that something was very much wrong. The backs of EVERY
pack say "Printed in Canada" on them! But according the Heritage (and Mastro's description for this same box 11 years ago) OPC didnt start
printing in Canada until 1965. These packs are being advertized to be as American as apple pie.

And then I compared them to some real US 5 cent packs where the wrapper says printed in USA and the disclaimer for OPC says "under license
from Topps printed in USA".

I can only draw 1 or 2 conclusions based on what I have uncovered:

1) Heritage (and Mastro before it) doesn't know what they are talking about regarding when OPC started printing cards in Canada
2) If Heritage is accurate about OPC starting to print in Canada in 1965 then these packs are as bogus as a $100 bill printed on your home HP printer

In any event, these are NOT 1963 Topps BB nickel packs. I won't express my opinion about which of these 2 hypotheses is the right one, but my interest
in the lot has completely evaporated in either case.

What it really comes down to is that AH's dont really care if the vintage unopened they are offering is authentic or not. As long as a TPG or 3rd-party
has made a determination their disclaimers make it not their problem (and any purchaser would have no real recourse against them). This does not
mean that the AH's are evil and unethical. Most are completely legitimate, but they have chosen to ignore the obvious inconsistencies and red flags
and make it someone else's problem in the name of conducting business and getting their consignment fee and/or BP. As long as there is a TPG or
recognized LOA they are happy to turn a blind eye to items that are not what the TPG/autheticator said they were and hide behind their disclaimers
in their rules.

So be careful out there everyone. There are lots of unpleasant surprises lurking for the unsuspecting collector who gets too excited when something
uncommon is suddenly available in an AH auction.


Dave

Comments

  • dennis07dennis07 Posts: 1,842 ✭✭✭
    "So be careful out there everyone. There are lots of unpleasant surprises lurking for the unsuspecting collector who gets too excited when something
    uncommon is suddenly available in an AH auction."

    This statement is right on the money (so to speak).
    Collecting 1970 Topps baseball
  • handymanhandyman Posts: 5,237 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • 70ToppsFanatic70ToppsFanatic Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭✭
    Thanks for adding the link Derek.

    For those who want to see what a true red, white and blue 1963 Topps BB 5 cent pack should look like here is one from a 2013 SCP auction:

    1963_Topps_BB_Pack_USA

    Note that there is nothing on the back of the wrapper about "printed in Canada" or Canadas favorite gum.


    Dave
  • MULLINS5MULLINS5 Posts: 4,517 ✭✭✭
    I never offer an item of significant value for sale in my shop unless I know the entire printing history of that edition. It surprises me that an AH as big as Heritage would do this, keep in mind, I've never bought sports cards from them, so I can't speak from personal experience, but as a first-time, uneducated buyer I'd trust them to know exactly what it is that they're selling.
  • 70ToppsFanatic70ToppsFanatic Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I never offer an item of significant value for sale in my shop unless I know the entire printing history of that edition. It surprises me that an AH as big as Heritage would do this, keep in mind, I've never bought sports cards from them, so I can't speak from personal experience, but as a first-time, uneducated buyer I'd trust them to know exactly what it is that they're selling. >>



    That is the assumption they are counting on you to make!

    As I said, my guess is that they used the original Mastro auction write-up as the basis for what they wrote up for this lot. I highly doubt that
    they ever checked it out themselves. And considering the packs they are offering say things like "Made in Canada" and "Young Canada's Favorite"
    right on the backs of the wrappers you would think that such an obvious disconnect would get checked out by a major player like Heritage.

    That was EXACTLY my point. The AH's primary mission is to facilitate the sale of items consigned to them. They really don't have the in-house expertise
    to verify that what they are offering is legitimate. They are basically accepting TPGs certifications and LOAs as the infallible truth, and hiding behind
    their "all sales final" and other disclaimers to avoid dealing with the issue even when things are obviously other than what they appear to be like it
    is in this situation.

    That doesn't mean Heritage or any of the otehr major players are evil or unethical. What it usually means is that they are lazy. We would all like to
    assume that such large players would have some reasonable level of expertise, that may not be a realistic expectation. On the other hand, they
    should at least be able to read the words "Made in Canada" on the backs of these packs and know that they cannot possibly be US packs.

    As I said initially, you need to understand where the AH focus is and do the leg-work yourself to make sure you are bidding on what they advertise
    items to be. For vintage unopened it is essential that we as collectors do this. With slabbed cards the chance of errors is significantly lower, but for
    any big ticket item I would still recommend that people do their homework, as I think I have proven that the AH is not doing so.


    Dave
  • flatfoot816flatfoot816 Posts: 2,194 ✭✭✭
    Dave--are you saying that you think there are OPC cards in the pack? Or that they are regular Topps cards?

    I have no personal knowledge but I think that they are regular Tops cards that were distributed in Canada. That would mean that they printed the cards in USA but were packaged in Canada. It was the same as the 1954 box that surfaced in the Mastro auction back then. I thought the consensus was that they were regular Topps issues--but were packaged for sale in Canada

    Of course IIRC--that '54 box sold for a ton of $$--and then was flipped (or sold for a substantial loss) almost immediately
  • gemintgemint Posts: 6,064 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>Dave--are you saying that you think there are OPC cards in the pack? Or that they are regular Topps cards?

    I have no personal knowledge but I think that they are regular Tops cards that were distributed in Canada. That would mean that they printed the cards in USA but were packaged in Canada. It was the same as the 1954 box that surfaced in the Mastro auction back then. I thought the consensus was that they were regular Topps issues--but were packaged for sale in Canada

    Of course IIRC--that '54 box sold for a ton of $$--and then was flipped (or sold for a substantial loss) almost immediately >>



    My guess is US version cards distributed in Canada with fewer cards per pack and therefore 36 packs per box instead of 24.

    I too have concerns about several unopened items in this auction. Aside from the grocery cellos that we all know about, there are questionable seals on several of the cello packs.
  • handymanhandyman Posts: 5,237 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Seal?
    Not sure if the dust is in the cello or in the case or outside of the case. But this one looks off. A common series as well for this set.
  • 70ToppsFanatic70ToppsFanatic Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭✭
    What I can say for sure is that these packs are not what you would have been purchasing when you walked into the local
    US newstand/candy store/retailer/etc. in 1963. The wrappers are not the same, and there is no way to be sure whether
    the "Printed in Canada" that appears on the outside applies just to the wrapper, or if it speaks to the cards inside as well.

    That being said, there are two possibilities:

    1) The cards inside were printed in Brooklyn, shipped up to Canada in bulk (probably in sheet form) and then (once in Canada) cut, wrapped, boxed and distributed
    2) The cards inside were printed locally in Canada (i.e. 100% manufacturered in Canada using photos and printing plates provided by Topps under license)

    My best guess is that its the first one. I don't think it would have been economical to do it the other way back in those days, as we really didnt have anywhere
    near the kind of imaging and printing technologies we have now. Getting copies of the printing plates made would have been costly, and there almost certainly would have been minor differences in the printing results from doing the work in different plants (think about the 1962 green tints that occurred just a year earlier or the 1968 MB cards as manifestations of exactly the kind of variations and discrepancies that we would see).

    Assuming that I am correct, then from a content standpoint I have no doubt that cards pulled from these Canadian packs would be indistinguishable from ones that were pulled from packs purchased in the USA.

    HOWEVER, these packs are unlikely to be purchased by someone who would consider ripping them. At this age and price point these items are almost certainly going to remain unopened. Their collectibility at this stage is basically as vintage unopened items. As such, they should not be advertised as 1963 US Topps BB packs. They are OPC nickel packs which probably contain Topps cards (and without opening one of them we cant even be sure that they would contain the same number of cards as found in the packs that were sold in the USA).

    If these packs were cracked out of their existing GAI holders and submitted to PSA, I would expect Steve Hart to tell PSA that they could be authenticated as 1963 OPC packs, not 1963 Topps Packs. You could not take these 24 packs, put crack them out of their GAI holders, place them in an empty US 1963 Topps BB box and claim that you had a 1963 series 2/3 wax box. Even if the card count was the same, the pack wrappers would not go with the display box (at least it would not match a full box that had been purchased in the USA in 1963 and stored away).

    That's my point about with what Heritage has done with this offering (and what Mastro did with it in 2003 and the 5 boxes of 1954s years ago that they got around $90k/box on). Their description of the offerings gives the impression that they consist of US-produced, Topps packs ("...as American as baseball, hotdogs, Apple-Pie, etc...") that just got boxed and distributed in Canada, when in fact they do not.

    What is discouraging is that a big-time operator like Heritage (and many of the other AHs) is more interested in making the money than investing the negligible effort it would take to make sure that they accurately describe what they offer in their auction. You did not need to have much expertise to figure out what these packs really are.

    And with the kind of price that items like this are coing to realize, I think it serves as a "beware" for all of us who bid in these auctions. If they are so lazy as to do this with vintage unopened, then are they doing any significantly greater due dilligence with any of the other kinds items they put up for offer in their auctions?

    I cant speak for anyone else, but I can say that because of situations like this it has been quite a while since I took anything said/printed by an AH about any lot they are offering at face value.


    Dave
  • LarkinCollectorLarkinCollector Posts: 8,975 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>That being said, there are two possibilities:

    1) The cards inside were printed in Brooklyn, shipped up to Canada in bulk (probably in sheet form) and then (once in Canada) cut, wrapped, boxed and distributed
    2) The cards inside were printed locally in Canada (i.e. 100% manufacturered in Canada using photos and printing plates provided by Topps under license)

    My best guess is that its the first one. >>


    If the first one, would you expect a typical OPC rough cut on these Topps cards? It would be interesting to see if any differences can be noted for 63s coming from Canada.

    Would you expect something similar for 64, before the official OPCs?
  • grote15grote15 Posts: 29,477 ✭✭✭✭✭
    OPC baseball cards weren't printed till 1965 and there's no way a counterfeiter would use a different wrapper variation so I'd say Manny's speculation as to the origin of these packs is the most likely scenario. In that sense, I wouldn't necssarily mind these packs as an unopened collector, though they may not be the US version, they may actually have a higher premium as a scarcer version for the variation collector.

    ETA: I believe similar packs were packaged by Topps for Canadian distribution in 1964, IIRC.


    Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
  • esquiresportsesquiresports Posts: 1,360 ✭✭✭
    A few of my thoughts: "Printed in Canada" may be applicable to just the wrapper. I have researched this too and never seen a claim about baseball cards being printed in Canada prior to 1965. Heritage is repeating what has often been said and never before contradicted that I know of. PSA has never graded a 1963 OPC baseball pack (or a 1964 OPC baseball wax pack, but u have seen the wrappers). PSA has never graded a 1963 OPC baseball card. There are a bunch of 1954 Topps wax packs with similar OPC backs (four card packs). PSA has never graded a 1954 baseball pack that it labeled as OPC. So in my mind it's a win-win. Either they will be treated as Topps packs (for distribution in Canada) by PSA or they will be the first PSA graded 1963 OPC packs in existence.
    Always buying 1971 OPC Baseball packs.
  • flcardtraderflcardtrader Posts: 788 ✭✭✭
    I have seen more than my fair share of GAI Authenticated packs turn out to be anything but - and I am relatively new to the unopened vintage market.

    Thanks for the knowledge ....quite an amazing thread with a wealth of experience being shared here.
    flcardtrader@yahoo.com
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  • 70ToppsFanatic70ToppsFanatic Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭✭
    My theory remains that they are cards produced in the USA (Brooklyn) that were shipped up to Canada
    and then packaged in country.

    I cant say for sure that they were shipped as full sheets (and the cut in Canada) or whether they would have
    been cut in the USA and then shipped to Canada as individual cards, so I am not sure about the question on the
    typical OPC "rough cut" edge. However, it does make me a it curious, as we already mentioned the similar 1954 packs
    earlier in this thread. I've seen a fair number of Aaron RCs and other 1954s with rough cut edges. Could they be US-produced
    Topps cards that were shipped up to Canada in sheets that were then rough-cut north of the border? Interesting to speculate
    about this one.

    There is one other possibility that I have not posted yet, and that is that the wrappers were produced in Canada and then
    sent to Topps in the USA where the cards were packaged for the Canadian market in Brooklyn and then shipped up to
    Canada for distribution. Not sure if the economics of the times made it more cost effective to do it that way or if my original
    hypothesis made more sense.

    In my mind, I would never consider these as examples of the Topps packs that I collect. I collect what a person could have walked into
    a store and purchased here in Brooklyn, NY (or any other outlet in the USA) whenthe product was being sold. Not to take away from
    anyone else who collects a broader form of vinatge packs. I don't do OPC. I think of these as OPC since the wrappers are clearly
    Canadian.

    I stand by my assessment, that since you could not put this packs in a US display box and have the equivalent to a box that was purchased
    here in the USA in 1963 and stored away, I think PSA could not accept these as simply Topps packs. Just like they distinguish between 1 cent packs
    and nickel packs, this would either have to be considered the Canada variety of a 1963 Topps pack or an 1963 OPC pack.



    Dave
  • grote15grote15 Posts: 29,477 ✭✭✭✭✭
    David,

    If any of these packs were to be holdered by PSA, I would expect them to be holdered as 1963 Topps nickel packs but the Canadian wrapper variation. Labeling them as OPC packs would be inaccurate as the packs contain Topps cards and OPC cards weren't produced till 1965.


    Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
  • GriffinsGriffins Posts: 6,076 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Dave--are you saying that you think there are OPC cards in the pack? Or that they are regular Topps cards?

    I have no personal knowledge but I think that they are regular Tops cards that were distributed in Canada. That would mean that they printed the cards in USA but were packaged in Canada. It was the same as the 1954 box that surfaced in the Mastro auction back then. I thought the consensus was that they were regular Topps issues--but were packaged for sale in Canada

    Of course IIRC--that '54 box sold for a ton of $$--and then was flipped (or sold for a substantial loss) almost immediately >>



    From what I heard there were 5 boxes in that Canadian '54 find. One sold intact, one sold as packs, and 1-2 ripped. At least one box was supposedly stashed for later but could've been sold privately.
    IIRC the Canadian cards were printed on different stock, perhaps gray backed. My pack (one of the individual ones, bought as a lot of 3 in Mastro) was different from the regular US pack. The green in the wrapper was much lighter and brighter, and the pack contained 4 cards instead of 6, reflecting the lower buying power of the Canadian dollar at the time.

    Always looking for Topps Salesman Samples, pre '51 unopened packs, E90-2, E91a, N690 Kalamazoo Bats, and T204 Square Frame Ramly's

  • 70ToppsFanatic70ToppsFanatic Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭✭


    << <i>David,

    If any of these packs were to be holdered by PSA, I would expect them to be holdered as 1963 Topps nickel packs but the Canadian wrapper variation. Labeling them as OPC packs would be inaccurate as the packs contain Topps cards and OPC cards weren't produced till 1965. >>



    Tim,

    I'm good with that, or OPC wrapper variety. It's Topps cards in an OPC wrapper,
    so either would be an accurate description. No quite like 1971 in a 1970 wrapper
    or 1976 in a 1974 wrapper, but consistent with that approach.

    From my collecting unopened focus (Topps) they are in a gray area if this would
    be considered a wrapper variation. And in any event they certainly aren't what
    the AH is trying to portray in their write-up.

    .


    Dave
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