TV Show About Sports Autograph Fraud on Friday
 

TruTV (Channel 43, Time Warner East Coast) has a show called Masterminds which will air an episode entitled "Foul Ball" at 3 P.M on Friday, February 12th.

This episode looks at autograph fraud and those who flooded the market for five years before Operation Bullpen caught them and shows you how these guys did it and how they got away with it. Saw it a few months ago, very interesting show.

DanC

DVR set! Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for the info. In New York City, the 5 boroughs the channel is 79. at 3pm.

I had never heard of that channel before so I assumed we didn't get it...wrong! Just found it and set the DVR. Thanks for the heads-up!

It used to be CourtTV, but it seems live broadcasts of court cases really aren't that riveting to viewers. And once Nancy Grace left, well, they needed a new angle.

I just watched it... a little too slickly produced, and a bit superficial. And this guy made millions of dollars, ratted on his friends, and only got six months in prison. Sounds like crime does pay.

I just watched the show.
And while Marino did do a better job on Mantle forgeries then the other Mantle forgers out there (those guys were a joke, the big loops in M shook like crazy) the Ruth forgeries were awful. And Wayne Bray's aging of baseballs was visible, to me and any experienced collector or dealer from 50 feet away. The fake aging was an open joke to dealers, collectors and authenticators who knew what they were doing. Shame of it is, is that those balls are still out there and I still see them bought and sold.
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The Ruths were pretty crummy. Hard to believe so many people fell for this garbage.

not to mention, all you have to do is look for "GAI" Global certification on any Mantle photo on e bay to see all Marino's fine work. it's been a LONG, LONG TIME since I've seen a Global cert that has an authentic Mantle. They are just Curt Flooding the market with Dime store phoney's...STILL. It is about 500-1 these days....Brought to you by, E-bay and their approved 3rd party authenticator! thanks E-bay!:D

What I found most amusing is how much Upper Deck cared about having the signatures of their exclusive clients sold by others in fraudulent form. Where are they now? Upper Deck has LeBron James, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and are they doing anything at all about their signatures?

I went to a show a few weeks ago and a guy had a binder full of those GAI certified Mantle's.

The bust was well in fine then, but did that change the hobby for the better?

Nope.

DanC

I totally agree those GAI certificates on Mantle on just a joke. I would never buy anything w/ a global cert. they are pure trash.

I agree that this show was a bit superficial. This all happened in my backyard and my buddy actually had a card shop in the same town as Bray. The dirty little secret is that a lot of collectors knew to stay away from him because he sold a lot of bad stuff, but I don't think they knew how much stuff he was turning out on the market.