ALERT: Watch Out When Buying These 2022 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Chrome Refractor Autographs

The 2022 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Chrome set consists of (90) cards.

Collectors ripping through their packs/boxes have noticed that the Refractor parallels of these cards contain the Topps autograph COA printed on the back. The only problem is that these specific cards were never meant to have that COA printed on them.

As you can imagine it wouldn’t take much for a scammer to forge the player’s autograph on the front, and attempt to pass it off as the real thing. An individual who didn’t know any better might look at that card, see the COA, and believe the autograph is authentic.

It looks like this is isolated to just the regular non-autographed Refractor parallels. Non-autographed Orange Refractors #’ed/99, Pearl White Refractors #’ed/30, Gold Minted Refractors, and SuperFractors #’ed 1/1 do not have this COA printed on the back.

If you’re looking for an authentic 2022 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Chrome Refractor Autograph not only should it have the COA printed on the back, but the front should have the “TOPPS CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH ISSUE” message as well. It should also be serial numbered.

A similar situation took place with 2021 Topps Archives Baseball.

ALERT: Watch Out When Buying These 2021 Topps Archives Baseball Autographs

Archives Baseball means retro designs and on-card autographs.

Collectors picking up singles on the secondary market need to carefully watch what they are buying.

Due to a printing error, every 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis insert comes with the “Topps Certified Autograph Issue” message printed on the front. The COA which states “The signing of all Topps autograph cards is witnessed by Topps representatives to guarantee authenticity.” also appears on the back.

The 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis come in two different formats – autographed and non-autographed. Only the autographed cards are suppose to have the COAs. Unfortunately the non-autographed inserts also have the COAs printed on them, and made their way into the product.

As you can imagine, printing COAs onto cards that weren’t meant to be autographed opens the door for a lot of scammers. Nothing is stopping someone from forging the player’s signature, and passing it off as a pack-pulled autographed card.

The following list of players have legitimate 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis autographs:

• Byron Buxton
• Bryce Harper
• Barry Larkin
• Christian Yelich
• Dylan Carlson
• Darryl Strawberry
• Freddie Freeman
• Frank Thomas
• Ichiro
• Joe Carter
• Joe Mauer
• Juan Soto
• Ke’Bryan Hayes
• Kyle Lewis
• Luis Robert
• Mariano Rivera
• Mike Trout
• Pete Alonso
• Paul Goldschmidt
• Rod Carew
• Rickey Henderson
• Yordan Alvarez

That same list of (22) players in addition to (28) others also have non-autographed 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis. Those non-autographed cards with the accidental COAs printed on them are what scammers will take advantage of.

Legitimate 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis autographs are hand-numbered to (20) copies. It wouldn’t take much for a scammer to hand-number a card they forged a signature on.

Unless you pull the card directly from the pack and/or are an autograph expert, purchasing any of the (22) 2021 Topps Archives Baseball 1989 Topps Big Minis autographs on the secondary market could be an authenticity gamble. You just can’t tell if it came from Topps autographed or was signed by a scammer. Obviously, if you find an autograph out in the wild of someone who isn’t on the above list it most definitely is a fake.

Topps did alert collectors about this mistake.

A similar situation happened with 2018 Panini Illusions Football.

What A Disgrace

Lets face it, you need to have some serious balls to purchase a pack of cards that cost $2,000.00+ per pack, and contains only one card.  Razor Oval Office Edition is the first of its kind, and certainly is the most expensive pack of cards ever created.  Today, Autograph Alert announced that some of the presidential cut signatures might not be authentic.  This has to be one of the biggest disgraces the hobby has ever seen.  How would you like to be told that the pack of cards you just spent over $2,000.00 for could contain a questionable autograph?  I probably would hed to the bathroom and throw-up.  There is absolutely no reason why some of the autographs should be considered questionable, other than the fact they were cheaper to purchase.  Its not like Razor had to control thousands of these packs.  They only made 99.  Talk about quality control going down the crapper.  Collectors should never have to question the authenticity of an autograph when it comes directly from the manufacturer.  Its going to be a dark day in the hobby when you can’t even trust the very companies that provide the cards we all enjoy.

 

Donruss/Playoff Redemption ALERT!

I’m sure that you have heard that Donruss/Playoff has started their new online redemption format this year.  What I didn’t know was that they changed the way their redemption cards look.  Before, Donruss/Playoff redemption cards looked like this:

Now they look like this:

I am bringing this to your attention because if someone doesn’t know that they changed the design, it can be easy to view the new cards as filler cards that collectors usually throw out.  When opening new packs of Donruss/Playoff cards, be sure to look at the front and the back of the white cards in the middle.  You don’t want to throw out one of your hits.

eTopps Fraud

I am surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.  eTopps as put out an alert stating that they have disocovered that people have been scamming customers buying and selling eTopps cards.  If you look at an auction page of an eTopps card you will see that they all look about the same.  If the seller doesn’t have the card in their hands they will just use the stock photo from Topps.  Some sellers have been stealing photos from Topps and other auctions and selling cards that they don’t have.  All they have to do is a little web design to make the page look like a real auction.  One of the best ways for you to avoid getting scammed while buying an eTopps card online is checking out the card’s ID number.  On all authentic eTopps auctions the card’s ID number will show up.  For more help please read the full alert from eTopps by clicking here.