Article in 2/19 NY Daily News about UD controversy

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Posted By: Richard Simon

http://www.nydailynews.com/02-19-2006/sports/baseball/story/392741p-333046c.html

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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
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We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: warshawlaw

They should be falling all over themselves to make things right. They could have paid off the man and gone public with a "we messed up but we've reformed and we stand 100% behind our product" storyline. Instead, they let themselves be villified in the press. How many thousands of casual collectors or would-be collectors are going to read the article or see the HBO piece and conclude the UD is dishonest. Paying $85,000 to cover one stupid error isn't worth millions of eyeballs on bad publicity.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

There are more questionable cards out there, besides the $85,000 card.
The Brill Report submitted scans of cards to an unnamed authenticator, who deemed several of them to be forgeries.
I have also displayed 4 cards on my website which have been deemed by many to be forgeries.
www.richardsimonsports.com/hofauto2.htm
UD has opened a whole can of worms here and they won't be able to put a lid on it.
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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

Maybe this will finally scare the adults out of the modern card market. Imagine a world where collectible trading cards are made for kids! What a concept.

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Posted By: Larry

Bring Back Gum cards with gum or candy in series' only,no sets obtained directly... maybe a promotional card in a pack occasionally(autographed or limited edition) and make it fun again, maybe young kids will care about cards o/w, we are dinosaurs.

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Posted By: Mark Holt

The Book 'Card Sharks' details Upper Deck management and business practices from 10 years ago. Great to see nothing has changed.

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Posted By: barrysloate

While this is not exactly a forgery, at Sotheby's last auction there was one of these autographed cards with a cut of Alexander Cartwright. Interestingly, a few years ago I handled some documents that came from the Cartwright family that were family trees written in Cartwright's hand listing generations of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. When I saw the cut I recognized that is was from one of those documents. I went back to my photocopies and determined that it was not a signature at all, but Cartwright merely listing the name of a descendent sharing the same name. While it was in fact in his hand, it was not his signature. The way one signs a check is not the same way one would write his name when say filling out a form. I pointed it out to the higher-ups that this was not a signature and even brought my photocopy with me to prove my point. As you might imagine, it fell on deaf ears and the piece I believe sold for five figures. Is that an autograph? I think not.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Barry - do you still have the catalog from that auction?
If so can you scan me the card?
richsprt@aol.com

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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Richard- I have both the catalog and a copy of the document. I can scan both for you, but it will have to be tomorrow night. I won't forget.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

If "Ty Cobb" wrote "Ty Cobb" on a sheet of paper, to me that is a Ty Cobb autograph. He may not have been "signing" at the time, but so what, he still wrote his name.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

I have been sent copies of a number of UD cards with major questions. Cards with names of one player and signatures of a different player and more cards with questionable autographs. The ones with questionable autographs have been viewed by several reputable dealers, all of whom do not think the autographs are authentic.
They are all illustrated on my website. I will illustrate one here. It has a picture of Eddie Collins and an autograph of Edd Roush.
www.richardsimonsports.com/hofauto2.htm

This problem is broadening by the hour.
Guess I won't be the new authenticator for Upper Deck, will I?
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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Adam- with response to your last post, there were a long line of Cartwrights named Alexander- the organizer of the Knickerbocker BBC was the III, and Alexander IV is currently alive and well. On this document, he was recording the name of an ancestor as part of a family tree. If you had been named after your grandfather, and you wrote on a piece of paper "my grandfather's name was also Adam Warshaw" would you consider that an example of your signature?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Richard, I found humerous the Ray Dandridge card with the signature of his wife, Henrietta Dandridge. You don't have to be an autograph expert to catch that.

I suspect that a lot of the mistakes had to be do with things being done hastily, probably having lowers down putting the cards together under the clock. Though they are ultimately responsible for quality control, I doubt Upper Deck exectives assemble or print any of the cards.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

I am sure execs at UD do not assemble the cards, but how about the person in charge of the buying program? It appears to me that his knowledge of autographs is lacking, look at the results.
Forgeries, misidentified autographs, ghost signatures (every autograph dealer in the hobby, with any experience knows wht Earle Combs' ghost signed signature looks like), etc.
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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: matt

Take a minute and check this out. Well worth the time!
Thank you

www.richardsimonsports.com/hofauto2.htm

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Posted By: Richard Simon

It appears that the New York Daily News will have another story on the UD mess in the edition of Feb 26. I will post a link here, when the story is up.
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I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss