Below are two Adrian Peterson Autographed Rookies from 2007 Bowman Chrome. At first glance, both look nearly identical. Both look to contain a certified autograph from Topps, which typically lends itself even more creditability.

Both of these cards also feature a Topps certified authentic sticker on the back of the card, once again extending ones perception of a legit card. Up until 2009, these stickers were placed on the rear of cards as shown in the image below:

The fact is, one of these is a blatant fake, and one is an actual pack-issued, certified autograph. Can you tell which one is the fake? If you can’t, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. These fakes have been selling for good money on eBay to other unsuspecting buyers.

Let’s take a look at where the sticker autographs are placed on the front of each of the cards. As you can see card on the right has a small opaque window over the players image and below the sticker autograph on the front of the card. This is the tell-tale criteria for identifying if you have an authentic, pack-issued, certified autograph from the set.

As you can see, there is a small gap of a lighter shaded area surrounding the autograph, presumably so that the machine or person who applied the autographs to the cards had an indication of where the sticker belonged on the front of the card.

I have lightened up the areas on the two cards to show the area that I am talking about.

There are possibly other 2007 Bowman Chrome Football fake autographs on the market, but the Adrian Peterson version is the most commonly faked. Hopefully this article can arm you with a little more knowledge when you are looking to buy one for your collection.

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