As a collector whose interest in this hobby is fading, I could not agree more with you TIOT. The only question I would have is "who buys this crap?". I mean look on the first page of the Coach's Corner Sports Auctions page and you will see two Lou Gehrig baseballs. Are they not completely identical?
The forger has but one black fountain pen (ocassional blue) that stands out as "so obvious", does it not? And then when you click on "baseball" in the browse bar in fact you see that he has authored more than his fair share of goods for these roaches.
http://www.myccsa.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=baseball
But of course in saying this, who gets the final laugh in all of this? What, twenty-five years of this? Tens of millions if not hundreds of millions in sales where a book seller in nearby area does a smidge of these sales over a few years and he gets a proper sentence for his crimes? And now they are bringing Barry Halper back to life in the form of fifty-eight authenticated items?
People "like this" potential buyer is the very reason why forgers have success and why it is a growing business and very, very lucrative. There are actually people on the other end of these sales that spent good money for worthless merchandise. Who would have thunk it, but I bet we all know people who have purchased from Coach's. I do. How many $100 items that should sell for $5,000 end up in retail stores with a $5,000 price tag and are in fact sold? I bet quite a few. Lots actually. Upon my travels I have seen it.
The number question is "how are these guys never caught?" and that the fact of the matter is that they are so brazen (perfect word) because it's been twenty-five years and if they were able to allude a few stings back when, do they actually foresee any harm coming their way in the future? So five years from now it looks like they will probably have a new authenticator, baseballs signed by William Shakespeare and Jesus Christ and we will still be complaining about them on message boards while we work hard for an honest living you have to wonder what the point of being honest actually is if this is allowed? C'mon FBI. I know you are very busy with ISIS, but this is the ISIS of this hobby. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Sorry for the rant, but I, like tens of thousands are truly disgusted with it all and the only way to combat our frustration is with message board complainin'.