Right -

Is all of this going to just disappear as if nothing happened?

That would be unfortunate. Let's all "ostrich up" and bury our heads in the sand now.

How do we call out Clean Sweep and JSA? They really need to provide some insight and answers to this - at least to let us know what they're doing to prevent this crap from occurring again.

I'm not sure why this should be an indictment of Clean Sweep. Sounds like they had one of the most reputable autograph authenticators validate the auto personally, and he made a mistake. No auction house is going to refute the opinion of a top authenticator, even knowing that person is fallible. So what has Clean Sweep done wrong here to this point?

Can it be determined from the Worthpojnt site who the buyer or seller was?

The buyer/forger/consignor should be held accountable. That is such a small window between being purchased, then forged and then consigned to Clean Sweep. This is what is needed to stop this sort of thing from happening. I really do hope that someone is held responsible, things get swept under the rug too easily in this hobby.

I didnt read it all...again but

Were there consecutive cert numbers with other cards from JSA? After the DiMaggio ball?


There were were some signed in a similar felt tip?

Some ended up at clean sweep?


They came from different sources....doubtful

There is no such thing as coincidences

No, I tried to figure out who the seller was, but eBay scrubs all auction records after 90 days and it's impossible to access the listing after that.

James, you read that wrong. There was no indication in the post that says anything about wrong doing by either Clean Sweep or JSA. The point is that Clean Sweep and JSA should not just "ignore this". They need to go after the perp of the crime. Yes, I would believe this is a crime.

+10

The only indictment on Clean Sweep is that they are the ones with all of the information so let’s see how they choose to deal with it. Their reputation is on the line and if they choose to do nothing it would be tough to make a case for buying from them again.

I have dealt extensively with Clean Sweep and Steve Verkman for thirty years and i would put his integrity at the top of the industry. I trust him above all others. Things happe to all. Steve has honored his word for years and if a mistake is made he has always done the right thing.

This is the ebay seller of the card on Feb 7 2018 before the fake signature.
If anyone knows who this is maybe they can contact him/her and find
out who purchased it from them.

https://www.ebay.com/usr/teri781?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

I've found that some people on the board don't like Verkman, why - I don't know.

I, for one, trust his auctions because I've bid many times without my max bid being reached. I think more than anything Steve would want to clear this up so that nobody will have any reservations about bidding in the Clean Sweep auctions.

As far as JSA goes - if the submitter wasn't Clean Sweep, then I sure hope they cough up some information on this.

Note that there was about 3 weeks between the time JSA authenticated the signature and the start of the auction.

Teri781 has never responded to my emails to Theresas email account

I trust Verkman as well, but was a little surprised when he sent me this


" We do make it explicitly clear in our auction rules that we only use and recognize JSA for these lots and that if you want to use another authenticator, to do so before bidding. Also given the nature of selling larger autographed lots, we do also make it very clear in our rules that any lot with 10 or more cards can have secretarial autographs.

I hope the other cards can make up the difference for you.

Thanks much and sorry again for issue - Steve"


6 of the "scarce" cards they specified in the lot failed psa or sgc, and one came back as unable to render from JSA, when it had a JSA auction LOA

I sometimes think that spending as much as we do on baseball cards is nuts, but you have to be a special kind of batshit crazy to spend big money on autographs.

My tablet won’t work at the moment but usually I can scroll down feedback to just after the sale data and see who gave feedback or if seller gave it. Plus isn’t there an offline program that tracks feedback?

I recall a story from a national goer where someone buying an autographed t206 from them with just the letter also had an identical problem. It was submitted to PSA for grading and they rejected it.

This person was essentially told tough crap because it came with the letter. Find it funny how when standing at a table in front of them their answer was vastly different for the exact same issue then when called out on here.

I couldn't find where the buyer left feedback but the seller did.
The only thing I know about the buyer from this is that he/she has
feedback between 10,000-24,999 so they do a fair amount of buying/selling
on ebay.

Attachment 335533

You mean a fair amount of scamming. The f***f buyer should be easy to find with all the sellers on this site.

Great work guys, now let's see if we can find him. I've never sold anything to him. I can try reaching out to Teri, but again, they have never responded.

All of this rabbit hole searching for the forger and, even if you find the rabbit (forger), there isn't a snowball's chance in hell you get any authority to care about this. Autograph forgery is very, very difficult to prosecute. And authorities don't seem to care too much unless it's headlines grabbing stuff. Good luck and I hope the scammer does get caught or at least have really bad Karma :)>

Lemme guess...the forger is a paid advertiser here??

Asinine comment by an ass.

Seems pretty irresponsible/assinine that the owner of this forum is discouraging people from seeking justice/cleaning up the hobby.

To the contrary. I have spent a lot of hours and some money on trying to root out scammers in the hobby. No doubt much more than you. I encourage everyone to police the hobby. That said an easy case of high level forgery was brought to authorities not long ago (see Daniel Desmond thread) and they don't seem to care. And the victim, a board member, brought the same issue to his local authorities and no one seemed to care. I know Richard Simon has brought a lot of things to authorities with mostly the same outcome.
So instead of just spouting off crapola as you do I actually have data to back up my statement. But by all means please keep quacking. :) Your comment was completely out of line as there isn't, and has never been, any protection on this board concerning advertisers. So much so that several companies won't advertise here because of the way our members took their companies to task. Fine by me.....but making idiotic and false statements as you did will get you comments like I made every time. Now if you want to say something truthful then contrary comments wouldn't be made.

I stand by my comment that what you said Leon was irresponsible. There have been numerous incidences of big names in this hobby being taken down and it all starts with examples just like this. even if this incident sets the gears turning so that someday this person may be brought to task... then venturing down this quote unquote rabbit hole is worthwhile.

Hey, I hope the scammer gets caught and thrown in jail. That would be justice.
Even putting heat on the forger is better than nothing. I am all for that stuff but I am a realist too. I stand by everything I have said also. Your initial comment was f'd up. Period.

Hey man, if you want to pursue it, go ahead! Leave Leon alone, he said nothing wrong. Justice is very difficult and often way too frustrating to seek,
Esp on things like this.

Very rarely do you have an example of the before and after -- with the unsigned card and then the "signed" card. Forgery is extremely tough to prove in most instances, but certainly not this one.

I know, I know, but this is worth a read on Mr. Spence.

This can't be the only one. Each T206 card has a unique appearance that acts like a sort of fingerprint.

We should put together some kind of distributed research project where a high resolution scan of a signed T206 card appears side-by-side with all of the scans of known auction records. If the card isn't a match, you hit "next" over and over until all are viewed. Multiple people can go through 100,000+ cards fairly quickly.

I think this is a great idea for anyone looking to purchase a signed T206 that hasn't been identified yet. I have a pretty good database (or at least paper trail) on perhaps close to all of the signed T206s known to date, which would include any that have come up for auction since at least April 2007, if not earlier. If a new one pops up, part of the evaluation of the card's legitimacy for a prospective buyer should include a search through recent auctions for unsigned versions of that card. Obviously that will not always be practical or even possible. But it is an additional step in the right direction.

If PSA and SGC keep scans of all the cards they grade, would it be possible for them to release a data disc for research purposes?

I'm not sure they do, and I'd guess they wouldn't share with the public even for research purposes. The problem will really be that the most likely to get used for a forgery attempt would be the lower grade ones because the risk is much lower. There are still plenty of raw versions of those floating around. But, I would say that it is worth at least a quick google image, ebay, popular auction search before purchasing a signed T206 card going forward.

Leon is right. The authorities don't care about autograph forgeries, generally. It is definitely hard to prosecute, so they won't dedicate limited resources to it.

eBay certainly doesn't care. Fraud sales are worth the same to them. Their fraud reporting process is a notorious farce.

Collectors care a lot, naturally, and should absolutely be constantly and actively policing fakes, of course. Manny deserves an award, and is a model of the kind of hobbyist that everyone should strive to be. Tremendous contribution!

Collectors need help. I think the best place to get the help is the authentication services and the auction houses. After all, their credibility is at stake.

I would think the services and the houses would want to know every time a decision of theirs can be proven wrong, or even highly questionable. I would think they would want to know about notorious forgers as soon as possible. As prices escalate, we all know that this activity will only increase. Now is the time for collectors, authentication services and auction houses to be actively and directly communicating about fake autographs. If they set up these channels, collectors will come.

Another FBI operation like Operation Bullpen would be very productive.

As far as the "never know" about autographs, because you weren't there" argument against autographs, I get it, but I have to disagree. I believe in most cases these autographs can be definitively authenticated. Many are "no doubters." Some autos will be questionable. Stay clear. Authentication services will never hit 1.000. Collectors should learn to do their own authenticating, and the Internet makes that possible, with the many examples that are now provided.

I definitely get why some think autograph collectors are crazy. I think part of the appeal is actually the danger/risk, to some anyway. It's a very harsh environment for the inexperienced and the uninformed. Doing a thorough, independent analysis of the autograph, and consulting with known, experienced collectors is a big part of the game. Everyone has been burned, but everyone improves over time, and can become as good or better than the paid authentication guys. No one is going to get it right every time. But the best come close.

You Net54 guys are so wise. If you were provided with direct fraud channels of communication with the services and houses, everyone would benefit.
You could thwart most of this forgery activity.

Let me ask my question in this thread also--did Steve Verkman say where the card came from? If he can identify the consignor them perhaps the ownership chain can be constructed and the forger can be found.

PSA does not, and does not even allow for you to request it. Would make their whole digital set registry (another source of scans....?) much easier to complete, but their costs would have to go up.
SGC announced earlier this year that they were going to start scanning every card graded by them, but I don't know when that will start.

pretty good idea if enough people participated!