Fake autographs run rampant in the hobby for years and eBay seems to be overran with sellers trying to move them to uneducated and unaware buyers. no longer is it safe to assume that just because an autograph appears on a manufacturers printed card, that the autograph is 100% legitimate. There has been rumors of card being back-doored, handed out to friends and family, and even potentially stolen prior to being forged and trying to be sold to the secondary market. This article is aimed at attempting to educate you in how to find authentic and pack inserted, certified, autographs from 2009 Topps Football Rookie Premiere.

Take a look at these two cards and see if you can notice some glaring differences between the two:

The first thing that jumps out at me is obvious forged autograph of the version on the left. However, some forgers have made a real art into duplicating an athletes signature, so that may not always be a tell-tale identifier in the case of the Donal Brown above.

The best identifier I have found is attempting to locate the “Topps Certified Autograph Issue” label on the card, directly above the autograph. As you can see, the pack issued cards have it printed directly on the card, while the forged version is missing the the label. Now, this does not mean the cards can’t have authentic autographs on the cards. Here is an example of a Michael Crabtree that the card may have been back-doored, then actually signed by Crabtree, however, the card is missing the “Topps Certified Autograph Issue” label.

Let’s take a look at some more:

Here are some eBay auctions of some fake Rookie Premiere Autos:

• Aaron Curry
• Andrew Brown
• Chris Wells
• Donald Brown
• Hakeem Nicks
• Jeremy Maclin
• Josh Freeman

Here are some eBay auctions of some authentic Rookie Premiere Autos:

• Knowshon Moreno
• Mike Thomas
• LeSean McCoy
• Mark Sanchez, Matt Stafford, Michael Crabtree, Jeremy Maclin Quad
• Josh Freeman

One week after the release of 2011 Bowman Baseball, here is a small glimpse into some of the recent eBay sales for the autograph inserts in the product.

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Today, Panini released the print runs for the short printed 2010 Playoff Contenders Rookie Ticket Autographs. There had been much speculation swirling around the Internet in regards to who everyone thought would be a SP or an SSP in the set. With this years addition of the Retail blasters and a guaranteed autograph per box, some of the numbers got a little skewed from peoples original thoughts.

Below is the published production runs for some of the Rookie Tickets autos:

Panini recently released images of the 33 on-card autos that will be available in their upcoming 2010 Playoff Contenders release. The cards, which pay subtle homage to the 1998 release of Contenders Football, feature large crisp images of each player along the left side of the card and continue with the ticket theme along the right side with stadium and team information. The card also features a bold, on-card autograph on the bottom of the card.

Contenders Football is always a fan favorite, and the 2010 set looks to be as great as any.

Two of the most highly sough after rookie cards from the 2009-10 Panini National Treasures Basketball set have been placed on eBay within a few days of each other. The Logoman Autographs of Blake Griffin and Tyreke Evans are both for sale via Buy It Now on the web site.

Each card features an NBA logoman patch along with a on-card autograph from the player and is machine numbered 1 of 1. These cards, considered by most, as the crown jewels of any collection, have steep price tags. The Evans is prices at $10,000, while the Griffin is priced at $32,000.