I can't believe that Toy Story came out 19 years ago.... Wow I was 11. Anywho, enough about me feeling old. Last time I went on for a while about buying an authentic jersey and how you need to be extremely careful and know what you're looking for. Again, as the old saying goes, if it's too good to be true it probably is. However, it's not just jerseys that are being counterfeited in the sports collectors market there are many other things as well. Tickets to major sporting events are a big one. Rookie cards of big players such as Gretzky, Lemieux, Michael Jordan, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe and the rest of the Parkhurst 50-51 series. Autographs are also being counterfeited. Fake autos have flooded the market almost as much has fake jerseys. All of these counterfeits and fake mercy bring in around $1 billion U.S. That's an insane amount of money. The worst part? 80% of people know they have a fake jersey or other item and don't care because it's way cheaper to buy then a legitimate item. Which makes things difficult for serious collectors. TSN aired a program this past winter about counterfeit merchandise and how easy it is to get it. There was a sports collectors expo in Toronto and there are companies there that will authenticate your autograph. So that means they take your item, review it and compare it to the real thing, put a hologram on it and supply you with a certificate of authenticity. Pretty sweet eh? So TSN wanted to see how good these authenticators are so the asked a few art students from a major art school to replicate some signatures on pictures. They "autographed" these pics and to be honest, it looked like the real deal. The reporter took these to all the booths that were authenticating autos for people. Guess what? Only 2 companies said these were not legitimate signatures. 2 out of 8 places that know the business and sell legitimate autos knew these were fake. I was totally amazed. Of course TSN contacted these companies and said they were fake and how did you authenticate it etc and they all had a statement about the odd one getting past the process and blah blah. Long and short of it? They F^#%ed up. So what does that do now? That makes me question the legitimacy of those companies. Are they selling counterfeit merchandise? The sad part is, I bought an autographed Bure photo ( my 2nd fav player of all time) from them a few years back. It looks like the others I have seen and I don't doubt it's legit, but it makes you wonder. What I'm trying to get at is make sure you know what you're getting and where you are getting it from. Just cause it's a company, doesn't mean it's legit. After my last post I went online and found a website selling "wholesale jerseys". This site however had some jerseys that were autographed and had MeiGray game used patches. That blew me away. I almost ordered one of these autographed jerseys just to see what it looked like. I didn't but I can imagine the quality. When looking for an autographed item, puck, jersey, photo etc I trust 3 sources completely. They are Frameworth, Frozen Pond and Hockey Ink. If you want to have an autograph verified, Beckett Grading services are good or PSA DNA from the USA is one of the most trusted sources of autograph and historic memorabilia authenticating. Again, be careful buying online. eBay is a fantastic site that offers many legit items but there are still sellers trying to sell something fake for a big pay out. BE CAREFUL!!
As a serious collector, you are gonna have to dish out some cash for good items. Trust me!
Thanks for reading, no more rants! For now....
Until next time, keep that stick on the ice!
Atrain
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