1990's Ebay Printing Plates (Real of Fake???)

[EmmittSmurf]

So, in the past many 1990's plates have been proven or at least shown with great evidence of being faked. Most of the time you can see the foil that was printed on the card that should have been overlaid in a separate process than printing etc, and most are the same shade of color with a slightly different shadow focus.

However these new ones hit ebay recently (mind you from the same seller that sells thousands of the "considered to be faked" plates. so that sets off the first red flag.
However these do have totally different colors and transitions for each color are sharp and don't have the rounded corners like many of the old ones. Each color also is more focused in its own areas.

Are they just getting more advanced or better at faking them for profit or do people believe these are more of the real deal?

Note: they have multiple players with the same set and all 4 front and all 4 back in one lot of each player. (they made roughly 3100 sets and 2000 sets of 2 variations of this card, were these the only plates used to make over 5100 cards? Thanks for everyone opinions.

1996 COLLECTOR'S EDGE BIG EASY DAN MARINO PRESS PLATE SET *51586 | eBay

[sthoemke]

Those look way too perfect/clean to be actual used printing plates.

[byronscott4ever]

I'm wary of any plates from lesser companies and of big time cards

[corndog]

I can tell you without a doubt that those are not cut from plates used during the printing of the original cards.
When a print run is finished and the plates are removed, there are always areas of smudging, ink roller streaks, water form roller streaks, drag lines from plate removal and other issues that would affect the image area since the ink stays wet for hours after.
The cyan (blue) plate pieces do not have cyan ink. The blue is too dark and a cyan ink can't achieve that shade even when ink density is increased.
Where is the yellow plate? Orange ink isn't used when printing 4 color process (black, cyan, magenta, yellow). Even chrome yellow isn't that shade.

Anyone with a prepress background can take photos of cards and then separate the colors using c,m,y,k programs and make plates.

I have been in printing pressrooms for years.

They are counterfeit.

[RaiderMike]

Always funny when you want to know more about the item but it's 5 words to describe it and 14 pages of shipping info.

I noticed I have been doing it a lot lately myself.

[Prenticles]

Why fake printing plates? Although I don't do it, autos seem more profitable

[CCSportsCards]

At the national this year there was one table that had at least 50 collectors edge plates in his $1 box. No names that I could tell and I didn't want to mess with them but these things seems to be everywhere now

[EmmittSmurf]

Originally Posted by corndog

I can tell you without a doubt that those are not cut from plates used during the printing of the original cards.
When a print run is finished and the plates are removed, there are always areas of smudging, ink roller streaks, water form roller streaks, drag lines from plate removal and other issues that would affect the image area since the ink stays wet for hours after.
The cyan (blue) plate pieces do not have cyan ink. The blue is too dark and a cyan ink can't achieve that shade even when ink density is increased.
Where is the yellow plate? Orange ink isn't used when printing 4 color process (black, cyan, magenta, yellow). Even chrome yellow isn't that shade.

Anyone with a prepress background can take photos of cards and then separate the colors using c,m,y,k programs and make plates.

I have been in printing pressrooms for years.

They are counterfeit.

That is as good of an explanation as any. I was thinking the same thing but without having any background in this. Seems like the fakers are stepping up their game. Somehow I think those plates are a multi hundred thousand dollar a year business now. - Thanks for your responses