Fake ring in Huggins and Scott Auction
 

This evening I sent an email to Bill Huggins that there is a ring in his auction that is a fake 1949 Yankee Ring.

Here is a copy of the letter. I hope Huggins and Scott will take the ring out of their auction and the purpose of this email is to warn other collectors that this ring is out there and this is the 2nd auction where the consigner has attempted to sell this bogus item.

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Hi Bill,

we have spoken in the past about rings and did not see eye to eye on some rings that you decided to keep in your auction.

I am writing to help you out and hopefully you can agree that the following ring has issues and I am looking out for your company's best interest and trying to help you avoid selling a ring that is not real.

The Ed Lopat 1949 ring is an obvious fake ring.

it is fake because a real 1949 ring has a completely different shank.

the person that made this ring (It was Irv Learner and his associates) did not do proper research and thought that the 1949 ring must have the same shank as all the Yankee championship rings from the 1950's.

In fact, that is incorrect. the 1949 ring had a different shank.

I am enclosing two pictures: The lower left ring is the item in your auction. The item on the lower right is a ring I own. Every 1949 Yankee ring I have ever seen has had this shank.

If you don't believe me, please check with any other ring expert.

The two I could recommend are:

Scott Welkowsky
TJ Kaye.

if you need their contact information, please let me know.

by the way, every time I see that "BALFOUR 14K" mark where the 14K almost touches the "Balfour", it is the same mark that you see when Irv Lerner sells his fake Yankee salesman sample rings. I have never seen that exact mark on any of the real Yankee rings, only the fake ones and the ones that Irv sells.

This ring in your auction was submitted to the Robert Edwards auction and was ultimately rejected and withdrawn from the auction due to the issues I mentioned above.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I will be publishing this letter on net54baseball.com to warn others about the ring and to give them the heads up should this ring continue in your auction or wind up for sale someone else.

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I want to just clarify that Irv Lerner, a well known baseball card collector and author, and a collector known as the "Ring Man" has been selling fake rings for several years. If anyone doubts this, I can send you a pdf of his newsletters where he boasts the ability to make many superbowl and Yankee rings with any name and number on the shank,

Furthermore, if Irv would like to sue me I would welcome the opportunity to go through the discovery process and find out where all those salesman sample rings come from that he sells that never look 100% correct or as good as real salesman samples

I would be very interested in seeing such newsletters. Could you post them here?

just wanted to post and let you know I spoke to Bill Huggins and a member of his staff. It is quite obviousthat Bill wants to get the items in his auction right and is looking into this matter. He will take the ring out of the auction if he feels it is not a real ring.

I sent him photos of real rings from 1949 and I believe he is looking into the matter. Bill and his staff were great to deal with and I appreciate his time and assistance.

I am not sure how to post pdf's here, but if you email me, I would be happy to send them to you.

The ring is being pulled from the auction as we speak. Thanks for the heads up, Michael. We truly value the opinions of those with extensive knowledge in specialty areas.

Thanks
Josh Wulkan
Vice President
<a title="Sports Auction selling Baseball Cards, Football Cards, Graded Cards, Signed Autographed Vintage Sports, Boxing Memorabilia and Topps - Buy Online" href="http://www.hugginsandscott.com" target="_blank">www.hugginsandscott.com</a>

Michael, nice job and great work looking out for the interests of ring collectors.

Thanks Josh, Bill, and Chris. Bill showed a lot of class and really kept an open and objective mind until all the facts were researched and confirmed.

This was the 2nd auction the consigner has tried to use. Hopefully he can come clean witht he next auciton house. There is nothing wrong writh stating the ring is a copy. In fact, it would be a desired item although would not get near the price as a real ring.

Two people requested I upload the pdf of the ringman's newsletter where he clearly states that he will make Yankee rings with any name on the shank (football rings too).

here is the link to the pdf file: http://www.SportsCollectingNews.com/theringman.pdf

thanks and thanks...
 

Thanks Michael. We all appreciate your diligence in rooting out bad, or improperly noted, items. When I saw the thread I immediately sent it to Josh, who had not heard about it yet. I am sure he and Bill spoke and as always, they did the right thing. Thanks too, Josh.....LL

Hi Scott. Thanks for the insight on the ring. How come the makers Jostens, Balfour etc do not go after him. I have about 15 rings, a couple came from you. It makes me want to not collect them.

That is a great question that ring collectors ask all the time. Irv has been reported to:

Jostens
Balfour
MLB Fraud Department
NFL
NFL Security
Ebay

when I would see a blatant fake ring on ebay that Irv was selling, I would put the same, real ring for sale at the same price so they would sort next to each other. I would show photos of both rings side by side and point out the differences.

Either Irv, or someone who does not like me or what I do would tell ebay and they would throw off my listing.

Irv has sold dozens of bad rings over the years to many people. To my knowledge, nothing has been done by any of the organizations listed above.

Wish they would have arrested him at the National too!

I would like to see the newsletters as well. If you can't post them and are willing to email them: abravefan@msn.com

Huggins & Scott should also be commended for doing the right thing.

please check the earlier message, I posted a url to download the pdf.

Thanks Michael, I missed the earlier link.

I loved this thread! Kudos to Michael and Huggins and Scott. This type of sharing of information and education is invaluable for all of us as collectors no matter what area we are interested in.

Ricky Y