Fake Jersey Cards and How To Spot Them

Buying a beautiful multi-color patch or swatch jersey card on eBay is always exciting as these cards seem few and far between when opening up packs or boxes. Typically these cards sell for a premium over just plain or single color jerseys cards making them very popular with collectors.

With prices sometimes hitting the $1,000's for NFL logo's or Reebok or Laundry Tag style jersey cards, the money is huge. Whenever you have big money, you undoubtedly have crooks.

One of the best ways to identify Fake Jersey Cards is to visit a large forum of sports card collectors. I visit as many boards as I can (even if its just to read what others are saying) and I see the threads about fake jersey cards.

Check out this thread at Sports Card Forum for an example of what I'm talking about.

Starting a thread like this when you're about to spend some decent money on a card might not be a bad idea. Collectors have seen a lot of these cards and they'll be able to give you their best advice if they think it is fake.

3 Things To Know About Spotting Fake Jersey Cards

1. Larger print run jersey cards #/100, #/250 ...ect tend to NOT have patches and NEVER league logo's (at least I haven't seen something like that) These patches and logo's on the jersey's are saved for low print run cards (25 or less) or expensive high end products like Exquisite, National Treasures, SP Authentic...ect.

2. Sellers with poor feedback. If they do something like make fake jersey cards....they're doing other shady things and their feedback should reflect that. Also sellers with auctions or stores just filled with nice patch jersey cards. Sure, there are sellers that have nice eBay stores..but not every card will be a patch.

3. Common sense. If someone is selling a Patch/Logo jersey card for less than what you've seen it go at auction before...it might be fake. If the jersey piece doesn't fit tight under the edges of the cutout of the card, be careful. The card companies do a nice job making cards these days, the jersey fits tight under the window they cut out.


Hope these tips help the next time you get one of these nice trading cards. Jersey and Patch cards are really nice and you want to make sure you get the real thing when you spend the hard earned money on it.

Check out a show I did a while back on the subject of Fake Jersey Cards over at Sports Card Radio Show #7 Fake Jersey Cards + Prospects


Good luck with your collections, have fun but be careful out there.