To Catch a Signed T206 Forger

[Jobu]

Ebay removes your ability to click on and or search for older sales. However, if you have the exact link from when the sale was made, you can still see the page -- though it is without the pictures. This works back to at least early 2016, though at some point they may fully take pages down rather than just removing the index to them, I don't know because I don't have anything older.

Just a heads up for anyone who likes to over do it on the record keeping. (I quit saving links in favor of screenshots when I realized the pictures disappeared.)

Originally Posted by chalupacollects

I think because the listing has fallen off eBay's radar... usually 90 days... Watchpoint.com didn't have it either...

[oldjudge]

I don’t collect these, but my heart goes out to those who do. This is a horrible situation for the hobby, but one that must be cleaned up as quickly as possible. Leon, can you make sure that Brian sees all this? My guess is that, given the recentness of some of these forgeries, that the FBI could find the forger or forgers pretty quickly.

[T206Collector]

I've got a lot of feelings today - anger, sadness, frustration, deep deep depression...

...but, I also want my entire collection vetted by Manny and all of the sleuths out there. I don't want to own well made garbage. I want the real thing. And I want it to stand up to any test of authenticity available. I've spent the last several hours combing through Worthpoint on any T206 I got from an auction house in the last several years, and if anyone wants to play along you are more than welcome.

I'm going to be spending a little more time identifying and preserving the provenance of the items I own, including date I picked them up. Most of my cards were purchased in 2008 and earlier. But, including the Sullivan, I do have some real-time exposure on some of my more recent (and expensive) pickups.

I still love my signed T206s, just not the ones signed by Frank Abagnale, Jr.!

[robertsmithnocure]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

Most of my cards were purchased in 2008 and earlier.

Not to be the bearer of more bad news, but there were lots of fakes before 2008 as well.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by robertsmithnocure

Not to be the bearer of more bad news, but there were lots of fakes before 2008 as well.

Sorry, yes. Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Just that the dollars at stake for a signed Rube Marquard back then was sub-$400. My first two signed T206s of Rube cost under $100 on eBay in 2004.

[topcat61]

I have a few questions for the grading companies and the auction houses... but they're either complicit or incompetent -or probably both.

1) How long to these grading companies spend on examining an autographed card on average?

2) who grades them?

3) what qualifications do they have?

4) Besides the forger, is anyone held legally responsible? How about for authenticating and grading a forged card?

I would think that the FBI should look at this and I'd probably start with SGC first since it looks like they've been authenticating most of these cards.

I'd also start looking at the auction houses and grading companies with a forensic financial investigator. My gut feeling is that these grading companies are giving preferential treatment to the auction houses over collectors and dealers because they're the ones giving the most amount of money. I also suspect that these grading companies are spending an inadequate amount of time on each card because either A) the company doesn't have a copy of the signature on file or B) they're behind on submissions.

[SetBuilder]

Originally Posted by topcat61

My gut feeling is that these grading companies are giving preferential treatment to the auction houses over collectors and dealers because they're the ones giving the most amount of money.

I can think of one historical parallel.

Credit rating agencies during the run up to the financial crisis: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/cre...ng-controversy

"The "Big Three" global credit rating agencies—U.S.-based Standard and Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s, and Fitch Ratings—have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the global financial crisis. Meant to provide investors with reliable information on the riskiness of various kinds of debt, these agencies have instead been accused of exacerbating the financial crisis and defrauding investors by offering overly favorable evaluations of insolvent financial institutions and approving extremely risky mortgage-related securities."

"Most criticism of credit raters centers on the "issuer pays" model—employed by each of the Big Three—whereby a bond’s issuer pays the rating agencies for the initial rating of a security, as well as ongoing ratings. The public (and investors) can then access these ratings free of charge. The popularity of this model grew in the 1970s, following years of "subscriber pays" dominance, in which investors paid for the ratings instead. Issuers, who needed certain ratings in order to sell their bonds to regulated financial institutions, may have been more willing to pay for these services than investors were, according to a 2010 OECD report [PDF]."

"Critics argue that the ratings agencies failed to take into account the potential for a decline in housing prices and its effect on loan defaults. The agencies’ inflated ratings also failed to account for the greater systemic risks associated with structured products, and they were accused of sacrificing quality ratings to win a bigger share of the lucrative sector. By 2006, Moody’s had earned more revenue from structured finance—$881 million—than all its 2001 business revenues combined."

[topcat61]

Now the latest, and a lot of the people on here and elsewhere know this was going to happen eventually -

https://prewarcards.com/2018/12/06/f...oHFOQV5WcQ64oE

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by topcat61

Now the latest, and a lot of the people on here and elsewhere know this was going to happen eventually -

https://prewarcards.com/2018/12/06/f...oHFOQV5WcQ64oE

Since this site is his source it's probably not necessary to link to his article

[HobokenJon]

The authenticator in question in my view tossed his reputation out the window with this letter to the court on behalf of Mastro -- after Mastro had been convicted.


And think about it . . . How would anyone know if a purported autograph of an obscure ballplayer from 100+ years ago was real, even in the absence of forensic evidence that it was fake?

[Jobu]

Not so sure I trust the sig on that letter.

Originally Posted by HobokenJon

The authenticator in question in my view tossed his reputation out the window with this letter to the court on behalf of Mastro -- after Mastro had been convicted.




And think about it . . . How would anyone know if a purported autograph of an obscure ballplayer from 100+ years ago was real, even in the absence of forensic evidence that it was fake?

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Jobu

Not so sure I trust the sig on that letter.

I kind of had the same thought. I would think in a few hours one with some technical savvy and a notary embosser could forge those letters all day long.