[CarltonHendricks]

Just a little more on fake signs...Sure there's a lot of fake sports signs out there but there can still be finds of real ones....this proliferation of repros just makes it where you have to be more careful...careful not to get taken and careful not to pass on a legit one. That said, eBay would have to be the worst place to examine one...you're looking at a photo....not the sign in person...If you pull the trigger on a piece from a dealer that states no returns...you really better know it's real...

About twenty years ago I was at a large sports memorabilia show at the Mosconie Center in San Francisco...I was just getting going in this...Those fake Ted Williams Root Beer signs were all over the place in the antiques world...There was a guy set up named John Spalding from San Jose I think..and he had a real Ted Williams Root Beer sign on cardstock...same size as the fake metal ones...Novice that I was I could still tell it was real and bought it for $50.00....Josh Evans was there and I proudly showed him my find...He asked what I paid and I told him...he goes, do you what to sell it?...I said how much and he put up two fingers...I ended up flipping it to him for the two hundred...

There is a chasm between veteran collectors and newbies whish we veterans usually don't stop to consider...We've been around this stuff for decades and take our experience for granted...we can usually tell a fake pretty easily...but someone new can't. Dan Knoll pointed that out to me once in a discussion...about his trepidation at having to tell people offering him things that their stuff was bogus....He said as much it killed him to have to tell someone who had put a lot of money into things which they were counting on to pay there children's college tuition with...that their stuff was no good...said as much it was devastating to people and he had to quit because of it.