How to Tell if a Baseball Card Is Original

Baseball cards are time-honored sources of enjoyment for both collectors and fans of America's favorite pastime. Baseball cards also offer an up-close look at the players and teams who make up the rosters of Major League Baseball. Due to their popularity, cards sold with authentic signatures or as vintage cards usually hold a higher monetary value, forcing collectors to make a diligent effort to verify the authenticity of their cards. Luckily, many manufacturers incorporate features into their products to make verifying their authenticity easier for the buying public.

Things You'll Need

  • Baseball card
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Instructions

    • 1

      Research the card's maker to ensure that the card belongs to a series created by the card maker. Visit the manufacturer's website or contact the manufacturer by phone to authenticate the series or card number.

    • 2

      Verify the player and team. Confirm the player's career information and history, including uniform style and statistics, via a written biography, team webpage, or player information website.

    • 3

      Examine the card's hologram. Many cards are sold with claims of authentic signatures. The authenticity of some baseball cards can be verified by a hologram placed on the back of the card. These holograms feature images of baseballs or baseball caps in a series. Though not all cards are manufactured with holograms, missing holograms or holograms that fall off can indicate that the card is not authentic.

    • 4

      Compare cards. Compare the card to an already authenticated version of the same card. Make sure that both cards were produced by the same manufacturer. Compare the size of the cards to ensure that no dramatic differences in size exist. Check the photos on the cards for evidence of tampering. For example, review the coloring on the card to ensure that the same types of colors are used on both cards. For vintage cards, magnify a solid or continuous color area of the card and examine it carefully for the appearance of fuzzy dots. New and fraudulent images are made of dots instead of the small lines, commonly known as crosshatch, used in authentic vintage cards.