Card Identification Forum

This one was an intersting find.  Unsure if it warrants listing in the DB as a variation, so posting it here for discussion.

At a glance, this appears to be a pretty standard 1975 Topps card.  However, the front of the card shows Willie Davis (card #10) while the back of the card shows info for David Wayne Roberts (#558). So at a glance, a pretty copmmon error that might have occured, right? Wrong card pairing between front and back.

But wait... there's more.

In this case, the team and colors on the front of the card match the team and colors for the David Roberts card... so the error is really that the photo and name on the front of the card were incorrectly applied to the remaining design for card #558 instead of correctly including the photo and name line for David Roberts.

I can tell you now that it will not be listed here as it is a production error in the sheet going through the wrong press or at the wrong time.  It is still an intersting card as it does give insight into the production of the 1975 set though in that the sheet must have gone through the border coloring process before the pictures of the players were then printed on it.

Wrong backs are just a printing glitch and don't get listed here.  But this looks like a sloppy attempt at a frankencard.

Actually, it reeks of being fake to me. Card stock does not look the same and none of my set has any color bleeding at the separation between the 2 colors on the front, an this one has a green middle there. All of my set is sharp contrast between the one then the other. I think this is a fake.

If it is a fake (and it may be), I have to wonder why anyone would counterfeit a common card.

I was looking at the sloppy front. But, yes the back shows what looks like the wrong cardstock.

For that reason, "why would anyone fake a common card?"  To make you think it must be a real, super rare printing error.  Nobody would fake a common card...right?

I was considering your question and I think I have the answer... risk.  I'm no lawyer so I might totally be wrong here but if you are caught faking a $1 baseball card vs caught faking a $50,000 wouldn't you risk a harsher punishment?  Perhaps a scammer was testing to see if they could get away with it and instead of taking a high risk, they started small with a common, figuring they could "test the waters".

On a side note, I posted an article as a new thread about identifying fakes.

When I first saw the back of the card, I scrolled down to see if it was an O-Pee-Chee card as the card stock is very much like the Canadian version.

Yep as the OPC versions were IIRC always printed on a white card stock while Topps versions were always on a grey stock