One of the earliest forays into prospecting for me came during the 1990-91 NHL season with the arrival of Eric Lindros in the 1990-91 Score set. The card was instantly hot and exclusive to the company. Lindros had a ton of hype behind him, deservedly so, and despite what many think today, he had a pretty solid career. To this day, the 1990 Score Lindros Future Superstar and the 1990-91 Upper Deck French Sergei Fedorov Young Guns cards are two of my favorite “worthless” junk era items to pick up. While hockey junk wax and it’s rookie classes haven’t exploded the way that NBA cards form the same time have, these two cards remain icons of the period and may eventually see their moment as well.

By 1991, warnings of counterfeit O-Pee-Chee Premier cards (the other mega-hot product at the time) and 1990 Score Lindros cards began to pepper the hobby magazines. Not that I had the money to be stocking up on the Lindros card in any sort of bulk (or any OPC Premeir, for that matter…) but this info always sort of alarmed me. I recall being hyper-vigilant about it, analyzing every copy I encountered at the shops at that time. It was a thing and lasted for a few years until players like Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya came along and took the hobby’s attention away. By this point the knowledge of counterfeit Lindros cards was relegated to a little blurb in the Beckett listing for 1990 Score: “BEWARE LINDROS COUNTERFEITS”

So what happened to them? Based on details from the research done at the time (see pics below), I have never been able to locate a copy and while I haven’t been looking the entire time, at every copy presented for sale online, I have checked in to sites like COMC.com and eBay on occasion. COMC is obviously perfect for this as you get to review zoomed-in images of both the front and back of cards on the site. Typically there are hundreds of the Lindros cards available there at any time and I’m fairly certain I’ve checked them all out. Not a single iffy, suspect, maybe-phony card has shown up. Don’t get me wrong, I believe they exist, in fact, I would that say I’m in the market for one and if multiple counterfeit types exist as posited by SCD in the Sportscard Counterfeit Detector book, I’m in the market for both! But, today, this card, at best, is a $1 nostalgia purchase. A card produced in the millions with far fewer collectors for it so I don’t expect many people to be analyzing their copies too closely. If anyone does have a copy, for sale or otherwise, even a scan, or anything solid to add to this article, please comment below.