Before 2010, the SP authentic rookie patch auto was one of the most collected rookie cards of the year. Not only was it popular in one sport, but all four sports in some years. As I have said many times before, the SPA designs never disappointed, never under-delivered, and that was a main reason why so many people want them. On the same front, because they were so desirable, there are and were a ton of fakes that tried to capitalize on their success.

However, because of a simple and welcome parallel structure, some of the fakes can be very obvious in just about any situation. For instance, when you see a card like this Mike Wallace NFL logo tag, you know its fake. The reason being that SP Authentic had one logo per player in the entire set, and it was a 1/1 logo patch. The tags were never used in SPA during any year, so its easy to identify a card like the one above as not real. However, as the years moved on, more and more team logo patches were used, and that is where the true problem lies. However, there will NEVER be a real card like this Eddie Royal Broncos logo tag, as these types of patches arent ever used in an SPA patch card. You just need to know what to look for.

You can also see in a card like this NBA logo, that there is no way its real. Again, only in the 1/1 logos were the actual patches used, and NOT any other version of the card.

Basically, as long as you know a LITTLE about what is going on, you can save yourself the trouble of buying fakes. Now, if only we could get some of the actual collector news sources to let people know. You would think that they would actually take the time to educate rather than just ignore.