I am sending this message to warn all nonsport card , and perhaps baseball card, collectors, of a seller on EBAY who is auctioning REPRINT nonsport cards that he is cleverly disguising as authentic. The cards are from sets such as Big Little Book cards (flash gordon), Tarzan and the Crystal Vault of Isis, Dick Tracy Caramels, G-Men, etc.. The cards are expertly aged to look real, as the scans he provides will attest to. Nowhere on the card, front or back, does it say "Reprint". In the ebay description for each card he auctions, he starts out by giving a lengthly text about the cards year, what set it is from, the manufacturer, etc.. only then, briefly, does he say the card is a reprint. You really have to read the description quite cautiously to see it is a reprint. I dont know where these cards are coming from, if the seller is producing them, but this is a scam and will possibly effect our hobby as the cards do not say reprint on them anywhere. Here is the Ebay sellers info so you can check this out for yourself and see what I am warning you about:

EBAY NAME - LOTZTASELL59
LOCATED - SOMEWHERE IN NEW YORK
EMAIL - TYCOBBGREEN@AOL.COM
SELLER NAME - Danielle Price ?

I have emailed this seller and told them that they must put the word "Reprint" somewhere on the card to be ethical and fair to collectors of original issues. I made a mistake and won one of the cards, and despite the seller reimbursing me my money after I complained, was essentially told off by the seller who claims what they are doing is not deceitful or unethical in any way. Please post replys to this as I would like to know if this seller is breaking any type of copyright or printing laws. Hope this info helps.

below entitled ebay reprint or something like that.........

what they're doing is essentially okay I guess. They do say 'reprint' somewhere in the auction body. As far as copyright to the images/etc of the card, I don't know. Maybe some of the lawyer-types could attest to that. The biggest one I could see is reprinting the Babe Ruth checks that they're reprinting as maybe some type of financial issue. I'm sure they're printing them on a color printer on some type of cardstock and then cutting them, rounding corners, creasing, aging them, etc to make them deceitful.........it is clear, if you know the issues, that the backs are screwed up and not printed well. They have HUGE borders all the way around them. Still, it's a far cry from responsible selling, but ebay isn't going to do anything about it, so what do you do?

Tom: As I mentioned in the other thread, I do think he is violating eBay policy with his baseball card reprints since he's not listing them in the reprint section. We don't have a reprint section for nonsports, but apparently we are going to need one.

Do not sugar coat this. If he is manufacturing cards and artificially aging them, he is not reprinting. He is counterfeiting.

It makes no difference what he says in the listing since a buyer can always resell the cards as authentic.

This should be criminal activity, something like abetting fraud (by the secondary seller.) Can someone verify? We must have a lawyer here.

Yes, I agree with Alan Miley, do we have any Lawyer(s)in our nonsport card hobby who can help shut down or prosecute the EBAY seller know as LOTZTASELL59 who is counterfeiting vintage cards and selling them within the hobby. Please, if you are in the legal profession and are a collector, help shut this seller down. Eventually, if he produces enough counterfeit cards, this will ultimately drive down the prices of our cheerished vintage cards, and render them worthless. Besides enjoying the nonsport card hobby, lets face it, our collections are good solid investments that we would hate to see take a nosedive. Please, again, if we have any Lawyers in our hobby, help shut down this counterfeiter. We all will benefit in the long run. Thankyou.

Here is the info again on this scammer:

EBAY NAME - LOTZTASELL59
EMAIL ADDRESS - TYCOBBGREEN@AOL.COM
LOCATION - SOMEWHERE IN NEW YORK
PERSONS NAME - DANIELLE PRICE ?

Yes, I agree with Alan Miley, do we have any Lawyer(s)in our nonsport card hobby who can help shut down or prosecute the EBAY seller know as LOTZTASELL59 who is counterfeiting vintage cards and selling them within the hobby. Please, if you are in the legal profession and are a collector, help shut this seller down. Eventually, if he produces enough counterfeit cards, this will ultimately drive down the prices of our cheerished vintage cards, and render them worthless. Besides enjoying the nonsport card hobby, lets face it, our collections are good solid investments that we would hate to see take a nosedive. Please, again, if we have any Lawyers in our hobby, help shut down this counterfeiter. We all will benefit in the long run. Thankyou.

Here is the info again on this scammer:

EBAY NAME - LOTZTASELL59
EMAIL ADDRESS - TYCOBBGREEN@AOL.COM
LOCATION - SOMEWHERE IN NEW YORK
PERSONS NAME - DANIELLE PRICE ?

I just reported several of the listings to eBay as counterfeit. If others do the same, as Ralph suggested in the other thread, maybe we can get them pulled.

This is a duplicate post, but since this matter is hot, I think we need to concert together. I for one, will do just as the last person suggested and notify EBAY of my alarm. I have 495 stars with them and I earned each one the honest way.
I am tempted to buy one of these creepy cards just to have an example of the brummagem in my possesion.
Alas, I am not an attorney. I am quite sure that I correct in saying that the seller is not technically breaking the law, inasmuch as he is declaring these to reprints. To commit fraud you need to show 'intent' to defraud. Some years ago a huge fake counterfeiter of signed baseballs, aged with shellac, was arrested for fraud. Probably a relative.
Comparing this aged fake to a real TCVI, at least I see an obvious difference on the reverse. The text is boxed up in the center of the card and doesn't go up as high up to the top as a good one.
check one out:


I am collecting this set, so it has me especially on the alert. Someone could easily buy this card on EBay and resell it as an original.
As I mentioned on the other post, The Hobby Protection Act of 1973 does not help us.

I'm conflicted.

I respect the persons who posted above. In a perfect world we would all band together and report this fellow to ebay et al. Then run him out of the non sport world tar and feathered.
But here is the rub.
Let's say our combined efforts are successful. Then said person or more likely persons(as it is hard to believe he/she operates alone)simply creates another ID or multiple ID's and starts anew? What if they get hip to our eyeball's and start mixing in REAL lowgrade cards with a fake or 2? What if ,out of desperation he starts going the wholesale route! He finds others, innocent or not to buy for resale and the virus spreads out of control on a larger level than we have seen thus far?
At that point,us as individual collectors will have to be very aware (as we should be) about things we buy.
We will be right back where all of this started,full circle with even more sellers to watch and keep up with!

We may do better to just keep this information close to our non sport forum chest I.E. play tight.

Meanwhile, this seller goes about their slimey week to week auctions. All the while he/she/they are under our microscope.

Keep your enemies close <wink,nod>

Just my thoughts.

I forgot to mention. This post and ones like it ARE what makes this board different from all the others out there!

The idea of a fellow non sporter checking in with others,confering with others and SHARING (thanks ralph)with others.

This is one of the main reasons I come here. To see what others are collecting,opinions,sugestions,advice AND warnings about all things non sport that are suspect.

fini

Please be aware that this EBAY COUNTERFEITER, LOTZTASELL59 , is still printing high quality counterfeit vintage nonsport cards, and needs to be STOPPED!!!! If he keeps this counterfeiting up, he very well may ruin our cheerished hobby. He is actively auctioning off high quality, aged looking, cards, in his daily ebay auctions. The cards do not say "reprint" anywhere on them, neither front nor back, and because the cards are so authentic looking, they eventually will diminish the value of our vintage nonsport cards, as people will not be able to determine a real card from a counterfeit one, much like the dick tracy caramel 121 - 144 card sequence. The counterfeiters info is as follows:

EBAY USER NAME - LOTZTASELL59
EMAIL ADDRESS - TYCOBBGREEN@AOL.COM
LOCATION - NEW YORK
PERSONS NAME - DANIELLE PRICE ?

He/she usually starts the auction at $2.99 and postage is free. I, and as have other collectors, filed a report with ebay against this scum-bag, that he is in violation of "unathorized counterfeit copying", and that he should be removed from ebay, and hopefully, prosecuted for deliberatley attempting to sell counterfeit items to the public. If there are any lawyers in our hobby, which I know there are, now is the time to step up and put a stop to this guy immediately before too many counterfeit cards are put into the hobby stream. Please lets not put this to rest, this is probably the most important issue to address right now in our hobby. Thankyou to all our honest collectors out there.

The auctions that were turned into ebay, was there any action on their end? If not, we could present our case at the "Live Help" link on their main page. I have used it a few times when I had buyers try to take advantage of certain situations. They were actually very helpful and always pointed me in the right direction. I dont know, just an idea.

My dad is a lawyer I will ask him to look at the thread when he gets bback in town later this week. I know he has said copyright law is mostly handled by specialists.

Caitlin

Thankyou Caitlin; Hopefully more lawyers will help nail this guy before he does too much damage.

These "reprint" cards (at least the N/S ones) come out of the book "The Great Old BUBBLE GUM CARDS and some Cigarette Cards" issued by Nostalgia Press in 1977 containing 137 different "punch out" cards.

Here's a sample page (scanned in 2 pieces) that shows where this seller is getting the initial card source before all of the "doctoring" begins:



Here's the back of that same page (for a selected sample of cards); NOTE, the "doctoring" included the removal of the "A NOSTALGIA PRESS REPRINT". Also note that for the Lone Ranger card # 6, the paper loss at the bottom right, in the Series Title, remains apparent in the listing.



Here's a side by side comparison (duplicated from the other thread:

Good detective work, Mark. I have that book and I looked at it and you are right on the mark. The preface page was written by Woody Gelman & Len Brown of Topps and they take great pains to remark that the pictures in this book ( The Great Old Bubble Gum Cards) are clearly marked as reproductions. I have already filed a counterfeit claim with Ebay and now I am going to emend it and send them more info.
On top of everything else, this book is copywrited (1977) by Nostalgia Press Inc.
If everyone with an EBAY account would pitch in, we might make a dent in this evil scheme.