Forged Goudey Cards Begin to Surface Following T206 Scandal

Posted on December 6, 2018 by Pre-War Cards

Days after the Net54 discovery of forged T206 autographs, fake Goudey signatures surface

Well, it only seemed like a matter of time, right?

As I wrote a few days ago in the wake of the numerous fake T206 autographs that were outed by Net54 members, I suspected similar issues would surface in other sets. One of the types of issues I mentioned were Goudey sets as there is a relatively high number of autographs from those releases. I’ll explain why in a bit. Now, we’ve got some confirmation on that, it seems.

Autographed Goudey cards that aren’t legit have recently been discovered by the Net54 group and, like the T206 fakes, they were found by discovering recent scans online of the same card unsigned. Here, for example, is a 1934 Goudey card featuring Hall of Famer Bill Terry. This is some more great work done by some dedicated collectors over there.

As you can see, the creases and damage I’ve circled appear in the same location on both cards, making it pretty clear that these are 99.99999% likely to be the same card. I’ll fight with you over that .00001%, if you so choose. The vertical crease I have circled is faint on the signed card but it is there. This one has not been authenticated (at least it currently doesn’t reside in a slab) and neither was a Sam Rice autographed Goudey card, also in that Net54 thread. But a third card, a Rick Ferrell 1933 Goudey, was authenticated by SGC. SGC was mentioned quite a bit in the T206 forgeries. That’s three discovered today and it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if more are found.

The interesting thing here is that the others discovered last week were authenticated and two of these were not. Is it possible that we’re seeing some that have been rejected by authenticators and being offered up anyway? Impossible to say, obviously. Authenticators would know but I would not expect them to say publicly.

Now, the T206 fakes are big, no doubt. But a large uncovering of 1933 Goudey cards has the potential to do even more harm to more people. That’s because they are more common.

While the T206 cards were printed from 1909-11, the Goudey issues didn’t come around more than 20 years later. They’re still very old cards but many of the players in them, as you would expect, have passed on more recently. Ferrell for example, didn’t pass away until 1995. Some players lasted even longer. Of course, collectors were pursuing autographed cards with great regularity by then and it is much more common to find Ferrell’s autograph as opposed to almost everyone from the T206 set.

Because of that, many collectors chase autographed Goudey cards today. They also aren’t as expensive as T206 cards so that means a larger number of people can buy them. Case in point: while common T206s usually top $1,000, some common Goudeys can be under $100. They’re not all that cheap, of course. However, they are significantly less than T206s and, as stated, that makes it easier for them to be collected. If a large number of Goudey cards are found to be fakes, that could affect a good bit of collections.

Yikes.