Second Shoeless Joe Jackson Rookie Card is Alleged to be Altered

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Pre-War Cards

The five-figure card is among the most iconic pre-war cards around

The Blowout allegations on altered cards seems to be disappearing a bit from the limelight. But over on the site, plenty of more pre-war cards are still being discovered daily. Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth — if you take a look at the main thread there, you’ll see new cards continuing to pop up.

I’ve gone without mentioning those because, frankly, there’s only so many posts you can make on them. But as stated before, I certainly want to still call out the really key cards as they surface. And one of those that recently did was a second Joe Jackson E90-1 American Caramel rookie card.

The good news, if there is any, is that the alleged alterations to the card did not result in a grade bump as so many others have. The card in question was a PSA 1 and the alleged regraded version was also a PSA 1. Like others, the ‘upgraded’ card was sold by PWCC.

The allegations made on Blowout cite recoloring and chemical whitening, though, those are not as clear cut as other examples of altered cards that have been alleged.

Despite the fact that the apparent card did not receive a bump in grade, it still sold for just over $2,300 more than it originally did only a few months earlier. The card is said to have sold for $10,800 in November 2017 and then resold by PWCC in March 2018 for $13,101.01.

Part of that could be due to the alleged card’s somewhat upgraded appearance and part of it could be that the PWCC sale included the card with its PWCC-S sticker, which essentially means they believe it has superior eye appeal for the technical grade. Those cards often can sell for more money.

I’ve avoided mentions of other noteworthy cards but am calling out this Jackson card for two reasons. First, it’s quickly becoming one of the most iconic pre-war cards. It’s always been desirable but with even low-grade cards like this one selling for five figures, it’s a card that has been on the rise. Second, there just aren’t many of them out there so anyone time one is found to be altered, the population of untouched ones shrinks by one.

Altered examples from more plentiful sets, such as T206, are still notable. But there are generally more of those cards around. Altering rare cards from tougher issues should draw more attention — particularly ones that are expensive rookie issues of star players.

PSA, to date, has graded 88 of them. But keep in mind that there could be some duplication there. Assuming this is indeed the same card, it actually is counted twice in PSA’s certification database. As of now, anyway. I entered both certification numbers in and both are still showing as listed in their system. So while they may have technically graded the Joe Jackson E90-1 cards 88 times, that doesn’t mean they have graded 88 different ones.

The Blowout thread I mentioned in the beginning of this article began back in April. And now even in July, new cards continue to be discovered.