Alan Hager - not off-topic exactly, just weird . . .

[Howe’s Hunter]

there was supposed to be a big show in Omaha, so drove from Lincoln to there, it only to find three dealers set up. Seemed something had gone wrong there, so all the dealers drove the 50 miles to Lincoln and set up shop in the lobby of a shopping center. At that time, I was trying to get a back of each of the 16 brands of T206s, and he had several I didn't have, including stories of how Lenox cards were sold only in New Orleans, Old Mill sold only in Memphis, EpdG really were from Havana and were basically smuggeled in to the country, etc. Walked away thinking "this guy has published a book, and doesn't know as much as me?"

[cardinalcollector]

I believe this Ebay seller is Alan Hager. It looks like his stuff anyway.

http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI...jacollectibles

I bought his book for about $50 when it came out. I was not an expert in vintage at the time, but the errors and typos were very apparent to me.

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by cardinalcollector

I believe this Ebay seller is Alan Hager. It looks like his stuff anyway.

http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI...jacollectibles

I bought his book for about $50 when it came out. I was not an expert in vintage at the time, but the errors and typos were very apparent to me.

Here is GOTJA Collectibles past eBay's User Names. Take notice of the Third one down...

The box below contains the User IDs that this member has used on eBay.

eBay Member User ID History

User ID Effective Date End Date

gotjacollectibles Feb-10-09 Present


treasuregalleryinc Jul-07-06 Feb-10-09


ah-collectibles Dec-04-00 Jul-07-06


****************@hotmail.com May-31-00 Dec-04-00



eBay hides parts of User IDs with "*" to protect member privacy.

[slidekellyslide]

That is definitely Hager's ebay ID.

Some of the things included in his lawsuits were hilarious too. He even included as part of his suit against the ANA and RCC that a member of RCC had called his wife a "screaming fishwife". I don't know what that means, but it still makes me laugh.

[barrysloate]

Dan- I guess you figured out it wasn't a compliment.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Alan Hager did invent, or at least claimed to and received a patent for, the first "slab" as we know it.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4979619.html

[tbob]

Interesting. I wonder if the card grading companies have to pay royalties to Hager or if subsequent patents were filed when the slabs were "modernized" and altered. Note that the slab Hager patented allows the card to "move around." Sounds like the one PSA used.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by stuckinomaha

epdg really were from havana and were basically smuggeled in to the country

[uffda51]

I only bought a few cards from his auctions. Most of them failed to cross over.
I got my money back after lots of haggling.



This one now resides in an SGC Authentic holder. It was graded an ASA 8, although there were no oversize slabs at the time, so you got the card in a CardSaver sleeve, along with with a printed label. Pretty hard to tell if the card measures short when there is no slab to bounce around in. Over time, ASA's crediblity became on a par with that of PRO.

One of Hager's claims was that there are either one or two complete sets of Darby Chocolates known. Dennis Purdy offered $1000, if I recall correctly, to anyone who could produce a complete set. No takers yet.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by uffda51

One of Hager's claims was that there are either one or two complete sets of Darby Chocolates known. Dennis Purdy offered $1000, if I recall correctly, to anyone who could produce a complete set. No takers yet.

One of the problems with his book was that Hager assigned values to cards which were not known to exist. He also assigned values to cards which did not (do not) exist in the higher grade conditions.

[paul]

The basic problem is that he wrote the entire book for the purpose of inflating the value of his inventory.

[Bob Lemke]

I regret that I never kept a copy of the issue of 1980s Barron's magazine that had a lengthy Hager interview. As I recall he admitted to a number of downright fraudulent activities in the coin field. I've never even had any luck googling Hager/Barron's to try to find the article, although I haven't tried in 5+ years.

He loves to sue people, but when you win a judgement against him, good luck collecting. Krause once obtained a decent four-figure judgment against him but never saw a dime. We "caught" him at a San Francisco show and got a sheriff's deputy to try to collect the judgment out of his inventory, but he slithered out on a technicality and by the time it was cleared up, Hager was nowhere to be found.

His wife royalty? Diane Hager is only a royal pain in the ass. They are truly a match made in hell.

[bigtrain]

I believe you may be correct that he is "gotja collectibles". They are out of Sanford, Florida. Last I heard of Hager, he was in Longwood, which is just a few miles from Sanford. The name "gotja" is a bad joke.