BGS to begin grading Star Basketball cards

johnsmithysmithy

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Hello Old School Basketball lovers,

Not sure if there a discussion on this forum as yet for Australian collectors, I think its great news.

Since collecting basketball cards in the early 1990s, they always listed these cards and I thought when I was young dreaming of having a 1984/85 Star Co Michael Jordan XRC #101 would be awesome but for $3000 bucks back then and hardly ever seeing Star Co I thought they were so rare, Then I learnt no one wanted Star Co cards and 1986/87 Fleer was the real deal with old school basketball collectors and every grading companies had a piece of the pie and Star Co was just floating only to be graded by GAI.

Now that BGS have come on board, it will be good to get them to come alive again, there are alot of fakes out there but if it wasn't for Star Co, there would of been a huge gap with topps stopping after the 1981/82 season, Star Co had alot of sets and subset and there so many Jordans in the 1984/85 set, I really think people should get into these cards.

So what they ain't real RC cards, thats another story, I think they are real RCs in bag set, Star Co came around trying their ideas with the bag sets and basketball was a joke to most everyday Americans in the early 1980s.

I think the 1983 to 1986 Star Co set are great, too bad they ain't around today If Star Co hanged around for another 3 or 4 years, they might of made some profit but I reckon we should be proud of them, in believing in basketball where Topps and Fleer just gave up.

I hope these cards get notice in the next few months, they are already getting listed in BGS graded covers on ebay, good on them Beckett :)

Here is the story

Beckett Grading Services to begin grading Star Basketball cards The Beckett Blog
 
What makes BGS think they can actually do it??

BGS are known for passing fake autos, being piss poor graders of vintage and older cards already.

And to top it off the fakes are actually be re produced with the original printing plates making it almost impossible to spot the fake cards from the original cards.

I trust some of the other companies to grade them but based on track records BGS have no idea unless its a modern card and they are only grading condition. Thats pretty much fact in the hobby.
 
What makes BGS think they can actually do it??

BGS are known for passing fake autos, being piss poor graders of vintage and older cards already.

And to top it off the fakes are actually be re produced with the original printing plates making it almost impossible to spot the fake cards from the original cards.

I trust some of the other companies to grade them but based on track records BGS have no idea unless its a modern card and they are only grading condition. Thats pretty much fact in the hobby.

Surely they are genuine if BSG says they are genuine.....:lol:
And i guess in reality thats what a large segment of the market will think. It will be interesting to see what % they reject as reprints.
 
Yeah I'd like to send in some bad fake and a real thing and see what they say LOL

Wonder how the secondary raw market will react to this news and how many dodgey sellers pop up now with cards like the USA cards that should be rare and only in small numbers?

At times the number for sale nearly exceeded the print run for some sets and thats not accounting for cards already in peoples pc's.
 
Its not going to be about fakes being rejected, its going to be about the reprints ending up as the genuine article. What Chad says is 100% correct - they were reprinted using the original plates so they are going to look exactly the same and impossible to differentiate between the reprints and the originals. How does BGS suppose they are going to tell the difference - carbon dating ??
 
What makes BGS think they can actually do it??

BGS are known for passing fake autos, being piss poor graders of vintage and older cards already.

And to top it off the fakes are actually be re produced with the original printing plates making it almost impossible to spot the fake cards from the original cards.

I trust some of the other companies to grade them but based on track records BGS have no idea unless its a modern card and they are only grading condition. Thats pretty much fact in the hobby.

Well they hired the big dog Steve Taft, he was working for GAI but now offering his services to BGS for a large contract, Im not sure how good Steve is but I guess alot of people might jump onto BGS and the value of GAI graded cards might go down, If it can work, it will be good, maybe we will see a BGS 10 1984/85 Michael Jordan XRC #101 , another RC that might
add some more attraction and If the Jordan is limited, it could be sky high! maybe more than 1986/87 Fleer RC #57 BGS 10 of $150,000

Who knows
 
Its not going to be about fakes being rejected, its going to be about the reprints ending up as the genuine article. What Chad says is 100% correct - they were reprinted using the original plates so they are going to look exactly the same and impossible to differentiate between the reprints and the originals. How does BGS suppose they are going to tell the difference - carbon dating ??

Not carbon dating, but if they are serious about it they could tell the difference from the different ink that would have (likely) been used to make the originals and the fakes. Question is are they serious...
 
Steve knows his stuff but is he going to look at every star card that goes thru the place. And even then its pretty bloody hard to tell the diff even for an expert. A lot of it will be guesstimating not verifying.

I agree with Doc, get the inks tested LOL
 
But it doesn't say Steve will be looking at every single piece

BGS will be working hand-in-hand with Star Co. basketball card expert Steve Taft to authenticate, grade, and slab the collection before its release. Graded cards will carry a label designating it as part of The Schonco Sports Collection inventory.

Says nothing about him actually doing any of the cards into the future.

Oh well, good luck to them.
 
Steve knows his stuff but is he going to look at every star card that goes thru the place. And even then its pretty bloody hard to tell the diff even for an expert. A lot of it will be guesstimating not verifying.

I agree with Doc, get the inks tested LOL

It's pretty easy, you don't need much kit to be able to tell if there is a significant difference in the chemistry of the inks used between the real deal and any fakes printed at a later date. Even if they used the real plates, it is unlikely they would have used exactly the same inks. There are a number of techniques used in examining heritage art which could equally apply to collectible cards.
 
But it doesn't say Steve will be looking at every single piece



Says nothing about him actually doing any of the cards into the future.

Oh well, good luck to them.

Steve, will just have to train others tho, Just like GAI are grading now without him.

Actually Steve is selling a few cards his already graded, the bugger is trying to make some money but his set his minimum bid price at a high price

1985-86 Star Co. NBA #117 MICHAEL JORDAN BGS 9 MINT - eBay (item 250332321798 end time Dec-02-08 15:04:49 PST)

Check out the Star Co cards his selling and grading doesn't start until Dec 1st lol
 
It's pretty easy, you don't need much kit to be able to tell if there is a significant difference in the chemistry of the inks used between the real deal and any fakes printed at a later date. Even if they used the real plates, it is unlikely they would have used exactly the same inks. There are a number of techniques used in examining heritage art which could equally apply to collectible cards.

Don't they normally have to take a small chip of paint to to that type of examination though? Or is there some way to chemically analyse the ink on the card?
 
Don't they normally have to take a small chip of paint to to that type of examination though? Or is there some way to chemically analyse the ink on the card?

No, there are plenty of non-destructive techniques, you can image whole paintings and see differences in the paints between originals and copies. Unless the inks used are essentially identical, they will have some characteristic spectroscopic signature, like a fingerprint, that can be used to distinguish them. If the original plates were used to make the fakes, then their only options to legitimately and accurately tell them apart will be by differences in the card stock or the inks.
 
No, there are plenty of non-destructive techniques, you can image whole paintings and see differences in the paints between originals and copies. Unless the inks used are essentially identical, they will have some characteristic spectroscopic signature, like a fingerprint, that can be used to distinguish them. If the original plates were used to make the fakes, then their only options to legitimately and accurately tell them apart will be by differences in the card stock or the inks.

Sounds good, but if they are going to go those lengths it likely to cost a fortune :lol: somehow i don't see that being part of the BGS service.
 
Sounds good, but if they are going to go those lengths it likely to cost a fortune :lol: somehow i don't see that being part of the BGS service.

Well, as I said in the first post, it doesn't cost all that much to set up the kit to do it...it is a very small amount especially when you consider what a highly graded Star Jordan XRC might fetch, get one of those wrong and you have already made a bigger $ mistake than the kit costs!

But as you say, it probably won't be part of the BGS service.
 
Here's a excerpt from the link above posted by Beckett

PSA did not stop grading Star to be “honorable”. They simply did not have the expertise to grade them, and chose to no longer deal with them after they graded some of the counterfeits.

Allow me to clarify the real story on Star, as many people have fallen prey to the myth that “everything Star was reprinted and it all looks the same.”

The only standard Star cards reprinted from the original plates were the 1985-86 second series (#’s 95-172). All other counterfeits have simple ways to clearly distinguish them. There were also several sets created by Star in the 1990′s that they backdated to appear old, but they are really fantasy issues, not counterfeits, since there was no original set in the first place (and BGS does not grade those). As far as the 1985-86 #’s 95-172, there are differences in the printing quality, card stock, and cutting techniques used on these, making it apparent whether a card was from the original printing or a later printing. Frankly, the only thing you need is knowledge, and we contracted with the foremost authority on Star basketball for training and ongoing verification.

Mark Anderson, Director
Beckett Grading Services

So really, it's impossible to tell if it is the original or a reprint unless you have the card in hand. You are taking matters into your own hands if you buy a raw card sight unseen.
 
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