Hello fellow collectors:A while back I posted in this forum about the 51/52 Parkhurst reprint set that was being listed on E-bay. My main concern was what some of the buyers were going to do with the cards in those sets after purchasing them. I've always felt that any reprint card should clearly be identified on the card as being a reprint. I've been following those sets as they've been listed on E-bay and decided to bid on them if I could get one at a reasonable price mainly so I could see these cards side by side with my originals. On Sunday I won one of these sets but I was contacted by the seller, AJ Sportscards, to make sure that I wasn't going to give him any grief over them. I want to make it perfectly clear here that I wish this set had never been produced and that my druthers were that if it was going to be produced that it would be clearly identified on the cards as being reprints. However, AJ Sportscards did not produce them and if he wasn't selling them then someone else would be. This is a great hobby and 98% of the people I have encountered in it continue to make it such. But, just as sure as God made little green apples I know that somewhere out there in these 1000 sets someone is going to be trying to finangle some of these reprints out into the market as the real deal. I'm sure that there is more than one collector out there who was ecstatic when he finally completed his 66/67 Topps set with the acquisition of the Hallowed Bobby Orr card only to find out later that he'd been duped with one of those unmarked reprints that was and still is going around. Once again, I have no problem with AJ Sportscards, the problem will be with the con men out there.

In my opinion if a set of reprints has no obvious identifier as such. Then its a counterfeit set. It shouldn't be sold on Ebay. Personally, I think these sets will now prevent me from buying raw 51's on Ebay unless I have a good repoire with the seller.

Ted,

Please let us know what you think of the cards when you receive them.

John

Is this guy (uwantityougotit) selling 51 reprints as real ones?
A few auctions are ending later today. I'm just wondering why to sell 51 cards in NrMt not individually but as a group...

They are reprints. Check the photo of the back of the cards. They all have a dot in the same place on the back of each card.

Just to let everyone here in this forum know, I do not condone the selling of counterfeit cards as genuine. I email a warning to everyone that buys from me that these cards are not for this purpose, that reselling these as genuine is illegal (fraud). These sets are intended for those that cannot afford to shell out mega bucks to complete the famous set. I personally bought my first Viper set so I could frame it and put in on my office wall (something you would never do with the original's).

A few notes for those that do not understand what "Viper reprints" are:

The cards are produced on a similar card stock as the originals, but they are easily distinguishable from the real ones in several ways. The real 51-52 Parkie's were produced on a greyish card stock called chipboard or liner board that isn't made anymore (today's liner board is brown and fiberis) . The stuff was so cheap that it nearly destroyed the printing presses they were produced on.

The light brown color you see on the front of the vintage cards isn't the actual color of the card stock, but rather colored with age. This cannot be reproduced. The real cards tend to have greyish backs with the light brown front's.

Vipercards are all brown (front and back) with ribbed backing.

The print quality is terrific, printed on a digital offset press that didn't exist back in 1951. What this means is, when you have the real card under a magnifying glass with a vipercard you will see that they both have tiny dots in the print, however, the real card has bigger print DPI dots then the viper set (fine DPI dots) that could not be produced on any press from that era.

I completely understand the concern of the card community about these cards, but its not the product that is evil, it's people and what they do with them that is.

I can get that. Reprints are not a problem to me so long as they're clearly reprints. Anyone attempting to sell them as originals are scum and deserve the full brunt of the law for their fraudulent ways.

It just sucks to think that somebody new and naive to the hobby thinks they're getting this big find and they get burnt hard.

Yo, Jason:That goes back to the old "if you think it's too good to be true, then it probably is". That's kind of like the ex girl friend or ex wife who is selling their boyfriend or husband's cards that he left there. I actually backtracked on a couple of these scams and found where this seller had went out on E-bay and purchased large lots of cards at a very cheap price. I guess the seller's scam was working so well that they had to replenish their "ex's" supply. Common sense says that even if this situation was for real that the ex wouldn't have left anything really worth while there to be sold on E-bay. I guess if you put your head on a chopping block someone with a guillotine is going to come along.

You're absolutely right. If its on Ebay then it likely hasn't gone unnoticed.

Howdy:I just got back from a few days camping and the reprint set was waiting for me when I got here. The reprint cards are darker than the real McCoys and, although I can't say why, the print on the real cards seems more desirable. Also, the appearance of the actual features of the players and their uniforms is more distinct and not blurred on the real cards. I had heard that some of these reprint sets had a distinctive print dot on the back of the cards but the set I received does not have this dot. I was especially interested in seeing card #15 which might be the best card in my set, condition wise, and I would be very disappointed if my card was that blurry. I'm sure there are some artistic geniuses out there who maybe could rough some of these cards up, put some glue on the backs and maybe tape the backs and then remove the tape to try to pass them off as rough older cards but as far as trying to pass them off as NM or Mint I just can't see any experience collector buying that. I don't have the labratory skills to give you any more data on these cards but maybe one of you could send them into your local CSI boys and see what they say. Hope this helps someone. Ted

Thanks Ted. Since I posted that I also purchased a set only because I will never be able to afford or want to put the effort into obtaining the real thing. The set does look pretty darn good but I appreciate your comparison comments for reference.