Card of the Day: 2009 Topps Heritage Raul Ibanez
Yesterday I broke four packs of 2009 Topps Heritage and in the first pack was this Raul Ibanez card, the first featuring him as a member of the Phillies.
Now you and I know this card is Photoshopped. A good number of the images used in this set were snapped during spring training 2008, and during that time Ibanez was a Mariner — hence the gray undershirt with blue
trim. But this brings up a good question: Does Topps Heritage get a “pass” from collectors when it comes to doctored images?
Many people were up in arms over the 2008 Stadium Club Manny Ramirez card and I’m wondering if it would have been the same if that Manny card were featured in Heritage.
cardboardicons.com 
March 13, 2009 at 9:22 am
Although photoshopping a player into a different uniform is altering reality, it’s been going on for decades, with airbrushing, etc.
The thing that made the Ramirez Stadium Club card different for me is that they altered the reality of the entire photo. They turned Fenway Park into Dodger Stadium and said “these people here watching the game? They went to Dodger Stadium to watch this game.” When in fact they were in Boston! Then there’s the whole ad for a restaurant that doesn’t even exist in L.A. The missing umpire. It just went way beyond a traditional photoshop job.
Then add the fact that they did have time to get a photo of Manny in a Dodger uniform. They had all of August and September. Although, maybe because Stadium Club came out in November, that made things more difficult.
March 13, 2009 at 9:37 am
The point about altering reality — particularly an in-game image — is a great point.