The Hobby Boards

Just find this from an auction site from China. Checked with the sports card database, looks quite legit. (I saw a Jordan Team Skybox on EBay awhile back seems fake with BGS slab and I guess it is a fake)

I made a video earlier this year on 90's fakes and even go over these exact Team Skybox rubies cards as they get faked quite often. Duncan looks legit as far as I can tell.

mindcycle wrote: ↑Thu Jul 06, 2023 9:43 pm I made a video earlier this year on 90's fakes and even go over these exact Team Skybox rubies cards as they get faked quite often. Duncan looks legit as far as I can tell.

thank you for your service!

Alright guys, need your help here. A buddy of mine ran across what he believed was a highly suspect looking 97 Bowman's Best refractor auto of Chauncey Billups. He’s a big Billups collector and owns a ton of his autos.

He then proceeded to look at what other cards were listed with the seller and found a bunch more 97 Bowmans best refractor autos also listed.

*Note: dcsports87 is a cosigner, so likely selling these for someone else.





I started doing a little digging and found graded examples of several of the autos listed by the seller.

On this Mutombo the 55 looks pretty off IMO compared to the BGS graded example.






A few more examples..









Best guess is these are backdoor or sheet-cut that someone scribbled on. I’m going to reach out to the seller to give them a heads up, but lmk if any of you own any of these cards graded/authenticated and can provide additional photos, or have any experience with some of the autos shown. Thanks!

If those are fake autos, they're pretty high quality. Is your concern in the pen used?

green_stiller wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:25 pm If those are fake autos, they're pretty high quality. Is your concern in the pen used?

My main concern are the autos themselves. The Mutombo is the most glaring example. If you look at the 55 it looks completely different between the two photos. If he was signing those during the same session I would imagine they wouldn't be that far off from each other.

The other autos look different enough from graded examples that I figured those with auto authentication experience can chime in and let me know. They look fairly off to me, but there are often tell tale signs that those more familiar with authentication can likely quickly point out.

I'm obtaining a photo of a 97 Bowmans Best Billups auto that my buddy has in his PC that we can compare to as well. I'll post here once I have it.

Here's the Billups currently listed on eBay.



My buddy mentioned that Billups has some "fatigue" autos out there for sure, but he's usually pretty consistent.

He told me the C on the one on eBay feels wrong. His B is almost always taller than the C. And to me, the C on the eBay one looks pretty elongated compared to known real examples.

Here’s a close up example of one from his collection.



More to compare.



And finally these examples we pulled from the web, including a graded example.

Those autos do certainly look suspect, especially when sold as a group, presumably from the same source.

Here's a few more sales of Mutombo, none of which match the questionable eBay listing.

https://mavin.io/search?q=best+mutombo+auto&bt=sold#

I heavily collected Chauncey and I'm almost certain those are not authentic autos. Your friend is right about the C and the B. There's a difference between a rushed auto and an attempt to make it look rushed/sloppy. The ones on ebay seem to be the latter

Appreciate the replies guys. I reached out to dcsports87 on IG and eBay. I'm hoping they see my messages and can pull these (or at least verify authenticity through a third party or something) before they get sold. It would suck to have fake autos floating around out there.

For an additional comparison, here's the Mutomobo from the listing.



Here's a couple real copies from my friend's PC he grabbed a photo of for me.



Here's another couple more previously sold photos from the link above. Thanks auburn.

Have you heard back from the seller yet? I think the pictures are pretty telling at this point.

Deadshot wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 9:31 am Have you heard back from the seller yet? I think the pictures are pretty telling at this point.

They did! I tagged them in an IG story post about and hour ago and a couple people messaged them I think.

They will be looking into it today. I’ll update this thread once I hear back.

In addition to the other markers, I don’t think I’ve seen a legit example where the 2nd bottom line that cuts across his sig intersects the loop connecting the M and U. Sometimes you see it very slightly, but it never intersects that high. The “bracketing” of the letters in his auto should be much tighter.

My friend also pulled his auto from a Bowman’s pack a few years ago and all the letters/connectors were well within those 2 lines.

dcsports87 has removed all of the 97 Bowmans Best autos. Thanks for your help everyone!

Matt Geiger reports that card every chance he gets. Even the real ones

mindcycle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 3:29 pm dcsports87 has removed all of the 97 Bowmans Best autos. Thanks for your help everyone!

I'm glad they took them down, but I wish they could pursue it a little bit further. They're the only one that knows who submitted those cards.

Deadshot wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 8:51 pm I'm glad they took them down, but I wish they could pursue it a little bit further. They're the only one that knows who submitted those cards.

Agreed. Their two replies to me were like one sentence each so no additional info as to what would be done, but i'm hoping they at least blacklist whoever cosigned those.

A trimmed 1997 Skybox star rubies Tim Duncan was sold to a USA buyer in China auction. To my surprise the seller has been bluntly honest that it is a smaller card.

siuwongkee wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 9:24 am A trimmed 1997 Skybox star rubies Tim Duncan was sold to a USA buyer in China auction. To my surprise the seller has been bluntly honest that it is a smaller card.

Sucks to see.. With so few of those out there it's always discouraging seeing a hacked up copy.

mindcycle wrote: ↑Tue Jul 25, 2023 3:57 pm

siuwongkee wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 9:24 am A trimmed 1997 Skybox star rubies Tim Duncan was sold to a USA buyer in China auction. To my surprise the seller has been bluntly honest that it is a smaller card.

Sucks to see.. With so few of those out there it's always discouraging seeing a hacked up copy.

I thought of buying it, in the end it is numbered to 50. But at the same time there was an Ray Allen rubies 1998 PSA 8 so I go with the Ray allen. I mean at least the seller is being responsible and telling you it is trimmed. I suppose many will just sell it casually and then the buyer will just send it to grade and back a PSA 6 or BGS 7.5.

2 more trimmed 1997 Medallion Tim Duncan, not sure if it is backdoor/fake. Sold by the same seller.

The fake 97 Bowmans Best autos someone tried to move through Dcsports87 are starting to show up on eBay again.. Two different sellers this time.





For reference, here’s the Van Horn atomic outed above when it was listed at Dcsports87. Looks to be the same card listed by co-689099

Oh crap, I was actually looking at that Van Horn Bowman from co-689099, glad I saw this. I can't believe someone would fake Van Horn autos. I can forget about ever buying one of these now.

Here's another one from ra_619161 (that eBay ID.. ).



And here's a Malone they tried to move through Dcsports87. Scroll up in this thread a bit for examples of real Malone autos.

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:03 am Oh crap, I was actually looking at that Van Horn Bowman from co-689099, glad I saw this. I can't believe someone would fake Van Horn autos. I can forget about ever buying one of these now.

Yeah it's really too bad. My guess is they were sheet cut and then scribbled on.