Tips/Hints on spotting fakes/reproductions on Ebay?

[Sharpshooter]

Hi all I'm a newbie who's become interested in collecting match tickets, but undoubtedly cautious about the authenticity of buying match tickets on Ebay.

Is it correct to go by feedback rating as a reliable guide? Or are there people pretty good at acquiring 100% feeback score and scamming people at the same time?

I've always thought about buying a reproduction ticket from a given WC for cheap and using it as a guide to judge whether a ticket is real or not, but some of the reproductions are so good its impossible to tell over the internet just by looking at them.

What's tips and advice can you give for a beginner to suss out fakes? Is it fair to say tickets from the 1970 WC and earlier are the one's primarily prone to scams and tickets from later WC's are mostly a safe bet?

[overlap]

From personal experience the 1962 WC fakes are printed on thinish paper, the genuine ones were printed on stiff (and fairly thick) card.

On the 1958 WC fakes the advert on the back is of a smaller dimension than on priginals. Also there are less perforation tabs on the side of the ticket where the counterfoil is torn off.

If memory serves me right, the difference between 1954 World Cup fakes and the originals is down to size of numericals on the ticket (there was a discussion about it on this board many years ago if you can find it).

There are reproduction 1986 World Cup tickets where there is a colour difference between the genuine and fakes, original tickets had green letters, the replicas red.

Also, nearly all 1930 and 1950 WC tickets are fakes. I am not personally aware of issues around 1970 tickets but am sure someone on here could tell you if there were, given the other fakes from south America.

I would not take 100% feedback as a sign a ticket was genuine, as very often the sellers are genuinely unaware of the above.

[Sharpshooter]

overlap wrote:

From personal experience the 1962 WC fakes are printed on thinish paper, the genuine ones were printed on stiff (and fairly thick) card. On the 1958 WC fakes the advert on the back is of a smaller dimension than on priginals. Also there are less perforation tabs on the side of the ticket where the counterfoil is torn off. If memory serves me right, the difference between 1954 World Cup fakes and the originals is down to size of numericals on the ticket (there was a discussion about it on this board many years ago if you can find it). There are reproduction 1986 World Cup tickets where there is a colour difference between the genuine and fakes, original tickets had green letters, the replicas red. Also, nearly all 1930 and 1950 WC tickets are fakes. I am not personally aware of issues around 1970 tickets but am sure someone on here could tell you if there were, given the other fakes from south America. I would not take 100% feedback as a sign a ticket was genuine, as very often the sellers are genuinely unaware of the above.

Appreciate your response. What would you say are typical prices I would expect to pay for unused match tickets? (not including the final). Just so I don't get ripped off lol. I've noticed unused tickets for some WC's tend to go higher than others. Spain 82 tickets tend to go as cheap if not cheaper than tickets from 2002 or more recent WC's, often less than £20, why is that? Unused tickets on the other hand tickets from Mexico 86 often go north of £50 and are much more expensive. I'm trying to gauge what a reasonable price range would be, but there are a lot of inconsistencies from what I'm seeing on eBay at the moment.

An unused 3rd place playoff ticket from 1966 is currently at the same price as two group matches from the 2002 WC, all £10.50 with 5 hours remaining. It might not finish that way but it just looks weird.

[1980Cossie]

Here is an original 1954 WC Final ticket and a fake below.

The auction house selling the fake ticket at the time stated “No reproduction allowed” in the picture. Yet the ticket was a reproduction!

The fakes all came from Uruguay about 10 years ago and there were other fakes not just the final. Another was for the West Germany v Turkey game.

There really easy to spot there is no perforated part and the number in the bottom right is usually typed or stamped on in a small font size.

[martino]

You could get a quide to prices from Auction House past sale results e.g. Sportingold Auctions.

You should be able to search "World Cup ticket" or similar for each auction and that should throw uo quite a few.

[Legend64]

On the subject - can anyone price a used ticket - Mexico v Rep of Ireland 1994 World Cup match creased in the middle.

[garyspain]

Legend64 wrote:

On the subject - can anyone price a used ticket - Mexico v Rep of Ireland 1994 World Cup match creased in the middle.

One with faults sold for £7.11 on ebay and a better one went for £14.99 BIN.

[holtie96]

Hi everyone
I have just purchased a 1962 World Cup ticket that looks and feels genuine but I have just read on here that the tickets were more like card? Can anyone confirm? Mine is thin paper but has the tale tale signs of age
Thanks for any help