Learning how to spot fake football trading cards is a tough business. There are many scam artists out there who employ more and more sophisticated ways to fool buyers.
With modern printing hardware and software, making a convincing fake is very possible for the average scammer with a bit of time on his or her hands.
Fortunately there are many elements potential buyers can pay attention to in order to make an informed purchase, so we are going to share our top tips right here. Hope they are helpful!
Investigate The Seller
The first step a buyer can take to establish the authenticity of a card on an online aucti
on site is to look at the seller’s profile. One of your best friends is the Feedback section of these sites.
If you see a seller has made their feedback section private, warning bells should be ringing in your ears. There is no reason for a seller to make their profile private if they are making legitimate sales.
You can also look at the profiles of bidders. If there is a particularly valuable card and the high bidders all have private profiles, you could easily draw the conclusion that they could be fake accounts set up to drive a bidding war orchestrated by the original poster who wants to offload a fake card.
Investigate the Product
Another basic tip that is easy to employ against scammers is to use their own product picture against them. Often times scammers will Google search an image of the card they wish to fake and use it as their auction picture.
Simply copy that picture and paste it into Google search and attempt to find other example of the same picture. If the card on auction is legitimate, why would the seller use another picture of it?
If at all possible compare the size of the card to other existing cards. What many sellers may do is attempt to trim bad edges off a card by literally trimming the card with a cutting tool and in the process making it smaller.
You can also attempt to get a magnification of the card’s surface. What you need to look out for is small dots that make up the image.
This will mean the card is a fake as most vintage football cards will have images printed using bars or cross hatch-printing techniques. You can also look out for deep and rich card colour, which will mean a fake vintage card.
One thing is for sure; it is a lot easier to spot a legitimate site for sports betting NZ activities than it is to spot a legitimate vintage football card!
Make Use Of Grading Companies
The professional people to employ when you are unsure of a card are the grading companies. These organisations employ talented staff to decisively say if a vintage football card is fake or legitimate.
These companies include PSA, BGS, Mint and SGC. If you see a card carries an endorsement from them it is a pretty good sign of legitimacy but if you still have uncertainty, why not contact them and check on the seller’s claims. Additionally, if the player signs a card as well, you should expect a Certificate of Authenticity to come along with the card.
All in all it can be a pretty intimidating experience purchasing vintage football cards. Learning how to spot fake football trading cards is a very important part of the process, but at the end of the day, nothing beats experience.
Have you accidentally bought a fake football card before? Let us know how your experience was. Feel free to share your tips and tricks for avoiding fake football cards, especially when purchasing online.