I recently added this card to my collection. At first glance, this may look like a rare and highly desirable T206 front/back combo. There’s one big problem though. The combination doesn’t exist.
Walter Johnson (Portrait) was printed with the following backs:
- El Principe de Gales
- Hindu
- Old Mill
- Piedmont 150
- Piedmont 350
- Sovereign 150
- Sovereign 350
- Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 25
- Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 30
- Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 Overprint
- Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 25
- Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 30
This combo shouldn’t exist, but there it is at the top of the article. So what’s going on?
If you took a quick look at the scan and thought it looked real, you were partially correct. The front is real, and so is the back, but they are each parts of a different card. Sadly, two very nice looking cards were ruined in the making of this Frankenstein card. If you take a close look at the top edge you’ll see that the front scan shows a bit of the back of the card protruding above the edge of the front. Likewise, if you look at the right edge of the back. you’ll see a bit of the front half extending out beyond where the back ends.
I bought this card from a friend who had it for over 20 years, with full disclosure as to what it is. Back then there was less information available to people about which front/back combos are possible for a given pose. This was not the only impossible front/back combo that was created by card doctor(s) back then, but I haven’t seen any of the other cards in a long time. I’ll tell that story in a future article.
The purpose of this article is to make collectors aware that this type of card doctoring exists, and has for a long time. Though the front and back of this “card” do not line up perfectly, it’s still pretty scary how good a forgery this is. It’s hard to believe that the front of a card can be removed from it’s back without creating a single crease.
This particular forgery is easy to spot because the combo shouldn’t exist. The card doctors have gotten smarter since this one was created however. For the most part, the fake “rebacked” T206s I have seen in the last few years have all been of confirmed front/back combos. This makes it tougher to spot the forgeries. Now you have to physically spot the alteration, or rely on a grading company to do it for you.
When buying expensive T206s (like this one would be if it were actually a legit card) it is always smart to stick with graded cards unless you are an expert at spotting alterations. For one thing, it’s just smart to get a second opinion. Second and perhaps most important, if you see a raw card for sale that should be worth four figures, your first thought should be, “Why isn’t this in a holder?” The reason for that line of thought is simple: A seller is typically looking to maximize the sale price of their item, and getting it graded is an easy way to do that. If they don’t haven’t done that, you have to wonder why not. Perhaps they tried and the item was rejected by the TPG, or perhaps they already know it won’t pass authentication.
Next week, I’ll dive a little deeper into “rebacked” T206s and talk about ways to spot them.
