Let the Sports Illustrated commercials for champion’s gear commence! Your Baltimore Ravens are Super Bowl champions! With that, as I explained a few weeks ago, there will be some astronomical shifts in the value of the cards for the guys who played exceptionally well. Obviously Ray Lewis and Jacoby Jones will get a bump, but Joe Flacco should take the cake. Being that he was a first round pick in 2008, and has come under fire for his play this season, a Super Bowl win has put his cards into the stratosphere
.
Here is the issue.
FYI: Im not implying that all of these are fakes, or that the sellers are responsible, but these are all too tough to tell real or fake 5 years after release:
2008 Exquisite Joe Flacco Rookie Patch Auto – Top Part of Sleeve Logo
2008 Exquisite Joe Flacco Rookie Patch Auto – Bottom Part of Sleeve Logo
2008 SP AUTHENTIC Joe Flacco Rookie Patch Auto – Top Part of Logo
2008 SP AUTHENTIC Joe Flacco Rookie Patch Auto – Bottom Tip of Logo
Flacco (and Ray Rice for that matter) came into the hobby when Exquisite and SP authentic were at their best. Not only that, but the fake patch scammers were also at their best. Unlike today, where Panini has the rookies wear 35 jerseys at the premiere so they can put a logo in every card, it wasnt as bad back in 2008. Because the Ravens have the best patch in football on both shoulders of their jersey, you can understand why the scammers wanted to put it in as many cards as they could.
Both Flacco and Rice were cheap enough at the time that you could easily buy a ton of their cards and insert the fake patches into them. I would go as far as saying that a huge portion of the patch run for Exquisite now has a fake patch in the card. Many of them were authenticated by Beckett to prove the a legitimacy that wasnt true. It was that bad. Dont believe me? Take a look at the stupidity present in this search
. Its almost impossible to find a one color Flacco or Rice these days. All of them were bought up and altered back during the offseason of 2008 when the cards were at their cheapest – and even more over the course of the last 5 years. Even though Beckett and the grading companies MAY have learned their lesson in authenticating the card and not the patch by now, they didnt know anything about anything back in 2008. You cant trust anything anymore.
Here is what you need to know. The targets of the scammers were the 2008 Exquisite Rookie Patch Autos and the 2008 SP Authentic Rookie Patch Autos. For some reason, National Treasures didnt feel as much of the craziness, most likely because Exquisite was worth so much more. Obviously, I wouldnt touch any of the cards if you see those Ravens sleeve patch. Graded, ungraded, authenticated, it doesnt matter. Even if they are in a BGS slab, it doesnt make them trustworthy. I wouldnt touch anything above a 3 color.
It really is sad that we have gotten to this point, but it is what it is. As long as YOU educate YOURSELF, you wont have any problem staying safe.
Here is a link to SCU Scam School, in which I discuss the situation further.
How do they get the original swatch out and replace it?
Do they cut the card in half right behind where the swatch would be and then insert the new one and glue it back together
or do the pull the swatch out thru the existing window and put the new one back in?
Even though they obviously go for quite a bit, it seems like it would be easy to see the impact of the change..
If companies are going to continue putting patches in, do they have any responsibility to keep a database of what each card with a patch in it looks like?
Or the create a set of rules for what type of patch and where it comes from determines what product it is in… i.e. only NFL logo man is in a one of one card, Team logo/nameplate patches only in high end product, numbers in another level..
Think of the possibilities for the companies, they could call it Panini Plates and Patches!?!?
Oh…. never mind…..
Simple solution….STOP COLLECTING PATCHES!!!
It’s called sports card collecting….not patch collecting…..
Start caring about the cards themselves, instead of all the crap manufacturers stuff in/on them….
Does it really matter if it’s a fake patch or not? I mean, hell, the companies load a player up with 30 different jerseys at once at the rookie premier, and the back of cards say, “not from any specific game or event” – who’s to say the companies don’t just purchase an NFL jersey and cut it up themselves. Jerseys and patches are a joke nowadays anyways. The authenticity of an autograph is more important now.
I think that is a good point. I just think that if collecting cards is anything like collecting in general, Tampering always devalues the item – regardless of what the item represents. Collectors thrive on items that are as close to manufacturer’s state as possible. This affects that.
Obviously it’s too late to go back in time and change past cards. But with fake patches currently being such a horrible problem, why aren’t the card companies doing anything? Would it really be that hard for the companies to create a picture database of the most faked sets? When I see an RG3 rookie patch that looks too good to be true, it sure would be nice to be able to match the serial number with it’s online pic straight from the company. I literally will NEVER buy a patch again until something like this is implemented.