Legendary Problems

[sports-rings]

Hi All,

Just wanted to make you aware of some problems in the new legendary auction. Sorry for such short notice on this. I alerted Legendary on Tuesday evening and "they are looking into the matter" and if they are convinced or validate my findings they will pull the item or alert the winning bidder of these issues.

Item #259 is a 1949 Yankees Salesman Sample. The problem with yankee salesman sample rings from the 40's-60's is that they are fake. I have never seen a real one. This one is blatantly wrong in that the forger did not research the real ring and got the side shanks entirely wrong! I sent pictures of player Tommy Byrne's ring to Legendary. It is so authentic, Tommy even kept the leather ring box! Legendary acknowledged the email and replied to me that they were looking into it. The first 3 pictures is Tommy's ring. The 4th picture is the shank of the ring in Legendary's current auction. Please note all rings from this time period had identiacal left and right shanks.

Additional problems: lot 275 - Eli Grba's ring. Legendary finally acknowledged that the ring they are offering is 10K and that all rings from this Year should be 14K. Another problem which they are not acknowledging is that the the engraving is an obvious fake and did not come from Balfour with that engraving. If you look at the Balfour mark (oh boy, you have to see this to believe this and the engraving you will see how unusual the inside of the ring is.

Last is item no. 515. A player superbowl II ring that the auction house claims is in "magnificent mint condition". as I wrote yesterday to Mr. Allen, the reason it's in such great shape is that the ring was made many years after the superbowl was played. The real Packer rings were 14K gold. The ring in the auction is 10K gold. The real packer rings were marked inside "JOSTEN 14K". back in the 60's that's how Jostens marked their rings (no "S"). this ring has the later mark "JOSTENS 10K". My original Packer ring that I own has two holes inside the ring called tubes to hold in place the top of the ring. Legendary's offering does not have tubes so the top must have been glued in. It will be interesting to see if Legenday will post these issues on the auction.

[mr.ginter]

Thank you very very much for that post. I asked them to pull my bids.

[Rob D.]

Based on what you posted about JOSTENS vs. JOSTEN in the 1960s, what would you conclude about the 1968 Ohio State salesman's sample ring?

http://legendaryauctions.com/LotDeta...x?lotid=110779

Thanks.

[sports-rings]

a real salesman sample ring can be made at any time. so if it's real, there is nothing wrong with the more modern stamping. sadly, many of the salesman samples are fakes. I am not sure about this ring. sorry.

[sports-rings]

Doug called me about my emails to his company today. Doug was a gentleman and shared with me that the superbowl II ring had some issues. also the 1960 Yankee ring was updated on the internet and now mentions that a the original rings were made of 14K not 10K.

Doug requested that I update this post to let people know that he is trying to do the right thing.

However, I almost fell out of my chair when Doug refuesed to agree that the 1949 Yankee ring on their site is an absolute copy and that the shanks are wrong. Doug feels he needs to do additional research and that he feels he has paperwork that shows the ring was made by Balfour. I asked him to share the paperwork and tell me more but he did not have the time to discuss this matter.

He does say he will stand behind the sale and that the buyer can return the ring. My question is how will the buyer know? I mentioned that if this was an item in Robert Edwards, the item would be pulled, end of story.

Oh well, I tried!