1998 Score All Score Team Gold #3
Despite being
a genuine Score product - its murky origins are what keeps it from official
recognition by the major guides. When I purchased this card from a collector
in Washington State he could only relay a secondhand story from yet another
collector whose name he couldn't remember. Pretty much putting the kibosh
on the paper trail needed for provenance. I could type in the whole story
that was told to me - but no point - if SCD/Bob Lemke can't track this back
to the original source then the story might as well be about the Sasquatch.
UPDATE (08/22/05):
Krause SCD's Baseball Standard Catalog (2005 Edition) has acknowledged this
unusual variant. Although, there is still no concrete information about why
or how this variation was disseminated into the hobby.
And no surprise: Beckett still "hasn't heard" from the hobby about
this unusual issue. Yup, it's only been 8 YEARS guys! Keep up the great
work! (Beckett Conspiracy Issues?)
Okay.
Now here are my reasons why I know this to be the real deal:
1) As a graphic designer and former printer I can attest to the high quality
of the printing. Extraordinarily difficult and costly to produce even by a
seasoned counterfeiter.
2) A counterfeiter will focus on a big ticket item - a rookie card or a high
dollar insert - make hundreds, maybe thousands of fakes and attempt to make
a quick killing. Similar to the 1990 Leaf Sosa Rookie Card scam which the
FBI busted in Operation Foul Ball. Or along the lines of the Topps
Desert Shield counterfeits. Big production=fast easy money. I mean, why go
through all the trouble of cloning the common Silver All Score Team cards,
even down to a perfect matching paper stock and foilboard printing - just
to produce a limited quantity of a marginal product line?
3) The Score Authenticator on the back is perfect. One turn of the card properly creates the rainbow effect and more importantly on the other turn it produces a Score code. I double checked the code, which reads: PBI 98. And I can tell you that in 1998 the technology to reproduce this would have been impossible by even the best scanners and programs available at the time. Maybe a top flight designer could reproduce the graphics with a willing top-notch printer backing him/her up on the presses, but the code - no way. It's virtually impossible to reproduce - even with today's desktop technology.
Bottom line: Who in their right minds would fund something that's a money loser from the get go? No, this is a real card.
BTW, the above example was just one card in what was purported to be the "only complete set" of these Gold All Score Team cards. Printers don't print one of anything, just the prep alone will produce dozens of prepress checks to get the ink coverage right, and eventually getting the foil printing accurate. It's called 'spoilage', usually 5-10% of the total run, which is intentionally lost for accuracy's sake. So where are all the rest?
If you know anyone who was working at Pinnacle Brands in 1996-98, please ask him/her to give me a holler. We gotta talk. :-)