After determining the James Franco sold by eBay seller sharpmarbles was likely counterfeit I was contacted by the buyer of sharpmarbles’ Alicia Silverstone autograph who was concerned about it’s legitimacy after reading about the Franco. The Silverstone is a tough card to find, and there aren’t many good scans out there that are easily accessible. Looking at the card I was a little concerned that the signature didn’t look quite right. . . but I didn’t really have much to compare it to.
Since I couldn’t directly help that buyer with the Silverstone I decided to take a look at sharpmarbles other items, and something about their Maggie Grace didn’t sit well with me. After staring at the card for a while I realized that it was simply the last little line in the zig-zag under her signature wasn’t smooth. Obviously that’s not something that’s impossible, for sure, but I too sometimes add a line under my name when I sign, and it’s always the smoothest line in my signature because it doesn’t mean anything — it’s just a little ‘zip’ on the paper and it’s done. . . it might be too long, or short, or in the wrong place, but it’s always smooth since it’s done so quickly.
I forwarded it to Steve, who I nearly always collaborate on this stuff, and he didn’t seem too concerned about my zig-zag, but he didn’t like the placement of the Inkworks seal on the card. He said it was too far to the left, and was a bit on top of the ‘LOST’ logo. I wasn’t too concerned about his logo, and he wasn’t too concerned about my zig-zag. . . but we were both concerned. . . so I decided to look closer.
Thankfully, in this case, there are a bunch of Maggie Grace cards on eBay in current and recent sales. Obviously you can’t compare zig-zags reliably, but Steve was dead on — this was the only Grace Auto out of about a dozen I looked at where the ‘Inkworks Authentic’ logo touched into the LOST logo in the background of the card.
I grabbed a bunch of the better scans of the Grace autographs and started to examine them pretty closely. The first thing I noticed was that Maggie’s hair at the top of the sharpmarbles card didn’t have the dark highlight that it has on all the other cards I saw. If you look above her left eye all the way at the top of the card you’ll see what I mean — there is a wave of hair that swoops from right to left and around the side of the card — above the peak of the wave, at the top of the card, there is a dark highlight on all the non-sharpmarbles cards. Finally I noticed that all of the other cards have a little swatch of hair that shows up directly above the ‘SH’ in Shannon, that doesn’t appear in the sharpmarbles card either. At that point I was convinced there was something going on . . . Is it counterfeit? Well Inkworks is out of business so I highly doubt they will ever confirm this is a counterfeit, and no one I know has seen this card in person so everything I’m going on right now is based on scans. . . but based on what I’ve seen I wouldn’t buy it.
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Here are scans of the Sharpmarbles card (first) and one from Razor (plucked from eBay):
If you have a pack pulled Maggie I’d love to hear your comments.
Ohh — and just for the record Sharpmarbles never responded to my email about the Franco.
Jon
I just noticed these items for sale from eBay seller collect-er-bills (items 260542184759, 220545084108, 260542183799, and 220545084799). . .cool card, I have one in my collection except it doesn’t have this great inscription — or that odd white stripe at the top of the card. . .
The guys over at the Cult-Stuff blog (
This James Franco Spider-Man 3 autograph card just sold on eBay yesterday — sorry for the late notice — I was passing the image around to some other folks, like Steve… the guy who identified the first fake Franco. We agree that this card is questionable and likely counterfeit. It was eBay item 110483015792. I contacted the seller this morning, but haven’t heard a response yet. 
I keep seeing crappy ‘cards’ for the biggest licenses out there, they were made for shows like Twilight and Avatar. I’ve never bought one of these, so I know little about them. . . they aren’t actually signed, and I’d bet they were made in someones basement or garage (i.e. not professionally). What really bugs me is the two cards here sold for nearly $100 total on eBay. I highly doubt the ‘manufacturer’ Starz Cardz has obtained the appropriate rights to the logos or images used on these cards — which, if true, makes these illegal to produce.
So they aren’t real. . . then what are they imaginary? If they aren’t intended to be real can I bid and pay with Monopoly money? Notice the seller doesn’t deny copyright infringement. . .
I just saw some of the chase cards from Breygent’s Paranormal Activity set posted on card talk. For the most part the chase look great, and I applaud Breygent for stepping up and grabbing more licenses. . . but the 9 card puzzle chase set bothers me a lot.
#1 is a VERY easy pick for me, and that is 5FINITY’s Mandy card set. You may have never even heard of this set as it completely sold out from 5FINITY within 7 days of release with little advertising. These new manufacturers have bypassed the traditional (broken) distribution model for cards — they distribute the cards themselves, so when 5FINITY has sold out that means all the packs are gone — it doesn’t mean that you can still go and order from Diamond or another big distributor. Sold out means all the 
packs are in the hands of collectors and dealers. Mandy seems to be the set where 5FINITY really hit their stride, the artists were clearly enthusiastic about the topic as the art in the set is fantastic. Packs from the set cost under $15, and Sketches for the set start at about $8 — very few sketches are actually that cheap though and most sell for $25-75. There are some great high end sketches that will bring over $100 as well. The bottom line is that 5FINITY produced a set that created value, virtually every pack you opened was going to contain a card that you could sell for quite a bit more than the pack cost. Sadly (for me) not that many people sold cards, so at the end of 2009 the set I’d most love to buy more of is Mandy, and there just isn’t much of it for sale.
#2 was also obvious for me. . . Ink Vault. It was a great release with a lot of value in every box. Unlike Mandy Ink Vault is still available although it’s popularity drove the box price up a bit, and the flood of Inkworks autographs drove the value per box down a bit so it’s not the great buy it once was, but I still pick up boxes when I see them. Some of the Inkworks autographs have already started to climb back up in value — one day we’ll look back on 2009 and wish we could go back and buy cards at the prices they were selling at after Ink Vault and Ink Archives.
#3 was a bit tougher. To be honest I totally forgot about this set until I read Ryan’s blog. . . I’m not a Trek fan so I didn’t really consider buying boxes from the Star Trek Movie set. It turns out I loved the movie — so did everyone else. . . but what I really think drove this set was the incredible autograph line up. Simon Pegg and John Cho where high on my list. Not that I would complain if I pulled a Chris Pine — I mean the Pine autograph is good enough to counterfeit so it must be a great card.
Target Autograph packs. $15 for 1 mid to low level Inkworks autographs and 6 packs of cards. I love the mass merchant reach of this product, and that while you never hit a home run with one of these packs you, as a collector, were almost always content with your pulls.
I’ve purchased a bunch of the blasters, and been burned by lots of blasters missing the hits. For the most part I’ve avoided sealed hobby product due to price, but just before Christmas I picked up a hobby box on eBay for $55 shipped. . . 
Pack 1: Richard Petty Legends Swatch #017/100