Is there really any way to stop patch forgers if.....

[SenatorsFan]

......they themselves were the ones to pull the card, thereby eliminating the possibility of visual evidence of the card's original state? Someone could pull a Mason The Cup Rookie with a blank white patch (perhaps $500-700 on ebay), go to the store and pick up a Blue Jackets Jersey for $150, pick out the sweetest looking square inch for the card, and then could likely earn upwards of $2000 (possibly even more). Is there any way to defend against this?

What if UD were to take photos of all the high-end patch cards prior to packaging and post them online for public reference? Is this a plausible solution?

It seems as though the hobby has a great problem on their hands and it doesn't seem likely to stop any time soon unless the manufacturers themselves take the initiative to implement prevention techniques.

[RGM81]

I believe that there has been talk about getting UD to do exactly that, but it's a time-consuming thing to photograph thousands of cards and store them. I know that the issue has been brought up with them and they're examining ways to improve anti-counterfeiting technology, but there will always be people trying to stay one step ahead of the system in order to make a few extra bucks.

[gregmal05]

Right now, no. If the forger is smart he will never get caught. But as you said, he can not be doing it buy purchasing cards on Ebay or at shows. He has to be busting cases and using his own cards so there is no proof of tampering.

[30ranfordfan]

Just get upper deck to stop using lame 1 color patches on cards that would be worth counterfeiting :)

[Drewk86a]

I don't think UD would have any interest in this at all. I'm sure they will say that it would be too costly and too labor intensive.

However, (going slightly off topic) I did see a show about the US Treasury and they have a laser scanner that takes a picture of every sheet of bills printed looking for errors. UD could use the same process and take pictures of completed sheets instead of individual cards.

(I wonder if that would reveal collation trends? If the Mason patch is next to the Price patch on the same sheets will they be in the same box? Case?)

Anyway, my two cents

[cnshockey]

there was a guy, his name slips my mind right now, but he takes the scans from every one of the top tier cup rookie patch autos and puts em in his bucket. its a nice database and then if theres a suspicious patch, you can check in his bucket and see if it is in there or not and find out if its fake. guy does an awesome job. i expect he will do the same this year

[SenatorsFan]

I don't think UD would have any interest in this at all. I'm sure they will say that it would be too costly and too labor intensive.

However, (going slightly off topic) I did see a show about the US Treasury and they have a laser scanner that takes a picture of every sheet of bills printed looking for errors. UD could use the same process and take pictures of completed sheets instead of individual cards.

(I wonder if that would reveal collation trends? If the Mason patch is next to the Price patch on the same sheets will they be in the same box? Case?)

Anyway, my two cents

I would have thought that jersey/patch cards are prepared individually and manually (of course after they are separated), therefore the finished cards would never be together all at once, unless they are all completed simultaneously, I don't know.

[SenatorsFan]

there was a guy, his name slips my mind right now, but he takes the scans from every one of the top tier cup rookie patch autos and puts em in his bucket. its a nice database and then if theres a suspicious patch, you can check in his bucket and see if it is in there or not and find out if its fake. guy does an awesome job. i expect he will do the same this year

Yes I remember seeing that at one point, that's a very useful database. But again, if the card hadn't surfaced yet, there would ultimately be no visual record.

[Prime B]

Yes I remember seeing that at one point, that's a very useful database. But again, if the card hadn't surfaced yet, there would ultimately be no visual record.

That's my buddy Jeremy (gomaz). He has done terrific work with that.

UD will never spend the time or money to compile a database.

But then again with UD, how do we even know if that Gretzky Oilers swatch is indeed from his jersey and not Dave Semenko? We don't.

[cnshockey]

That's my buddy Jeremy (gomaz). He has done terrific work with that.

UD will never spend the time or money to compile a database.

But then again with UD, how do we even know if that Gretzky Oilers swatch is indeed from his jersey and not Dave Semenko? We don't.

ahh yes. gomaz. thanks for the help there barrie.

and i agree. you gotta wonder how many gretzky jerseys UD has to make cards...