There is a difference between "is" and "was".

Leon - What do you call someone who is pointing out some of the biggest problems in the hobby? If he is going to do that and in that process expose questionable practices and if he asks me for my opinion about certain things (as he has asked Ron Kerujian and a number of others on this board) then I am going to give him my opinion. If he asks me a question and wants to quote me in his blog, well Michael O Keefe has done that too. Does Heritage think he might be the Cooperstown Forger.
Many members have been happy to start new threads here linking to Hauls of Shame website. Many members apparently believe his allegations. Many members have had problems with Heritage. The number of members complaining about Heritage far exceeds the number who praise them.
Regardless of possible illegal allegations against Peter Nash, none proven at this time, I will respond to questions from him until he is accused of some criminal action. If you want to call that working in conjunction then go ahead and do it but only Heritage has accused me of doing that and I truly don't believe members here would accuse me of doing that just because I give him an opinion on an autograph and give him permission to quote me on Hauls of Shame.
I see all these complaints about Heritage posted here on Net54 and sort of just go ???. I deal with Lelands, Alexander Autograph Auctions, RR Autograph Auctions and Henry Yee. I have never had to make a complaint against any of them, either as a buyer or as a seller. I have never had an untoward incident, either as a buyer or as a seller. They are the cream of the crop and as to getting barred by Heritage, well my barrel of tears has already been disposed of.

Halper would buy up anything and everything and probably ate up the story that went along with it...is there any proof that the stolen items in his collection were stolen by him or at his behest? Was he duped into buying fake jerseys, misidentified photos or forged autos? Halper strikes me as a rich dude that was easily fooled and made up stories to go along with the items in his collection.

The Cooperstown forger is in another league.

"Making up stories" when you sell an item is also known as fraud.

Here we go with the "allegedly" again. Proof should be needed before banning someone from Heritage based on an allegation.

Yeah, no doubt, but did Halper know his items were fraudulent? Did someone sell him the Jackson Jersey and Halper made up the story about how he got it still believing the jersey to be legit? I think he got stuff from Al Stump who we now know was forging Ty Cobb items...did Halper know that? There was a lot of bad stuff in his collection, but I think at the time he sold it we can't be sure that he knew it was bad. Did he know that items he was buying were stolen from the Hall of Fame or the NYPL?

Maybe you need to listen to the audio tape court hearing of Peter Nash's that I have? The judge totally ridiculed and reprimanded him. He then denied his motion and granted every single one of the plaintiff's motions against him. Maybe you need to read this too....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...ash/index.html

Now, all that being said....maybe Nash is trying to out fraud in the hobby and, in and of itself, that is a good thing. But when he is allegedly the biggest fraudster (and in that article I believe he admitted to it more than once) then maybe you need to rethink who you help. Totally your call.....and I do appreciate anyone that helps to rid the hobby of fraud. But I think I will help folks who aren't admitted hobby fraudsters. That's just me though....

why say maybe and allegedly? if it's not proven then you can't fault someone with an association with someone who hasn't had anything proven against them, and if it IS proven, then don't say maybe he is trying to do this and that he is allegedly that. This is about getting banned from heritage for allegedly. just think of the employees of Heritage and their allegedly. is it fair both ways or not?

Did he know that the 500 HR sheet he claimed to have had signed in-person bore the same Ruth forgery as other items in his collection, such as the "Ruth's hair" piece?

I could go on. Was a very successful New Jersey businessman really as gullible and innocent as you'd like to believe?

How about Shelly?

As soon as you own an auction house you can make the rules. Until then you can continue to do whatever else you want to. And as for me saying "allegedly" it is because I don't have first hand knowledge. However, here is a line cut and pasted from the story I posted from SI...

"The court found in favor of Lifson, and eventually Nash signed a court order in which he admitted to having committed fraud, without specifying how"


So again, with that quote, how is Richard not working with a fraudster?

Going back to the "is" and "was". Shelly has admitted his mistakes and paid the price. I have no issue with Shelly whatsoever.

BTW, I will be GONE for the next 3 hours or so.....so I am not ignoring comments I am just leaving for a while....back later.....

If Peter Nash is going to go down then a lot of people are going to go down with him, and I think that's the only reason his website exists. It's hard not to want to get involved in helping bring the bad guys down, even if that means supplying information to the bad guy. Look at the comments on his site and you'll see some pretty famous people (Within the baseball historian/author world) helping him out. Dave Grob wrote an entire article that showed up on his website and his reputation in the hobby is GOLD. Whatever Nash's motivation for rooting out the bad (while obviously ignoring his own participation) I don't fault anyone for trying to help uncover fraud.

But I thought you just said that Peter admitted his mistakes in court. And Peter has done far more for this hobby--and has the knowledge to continue doing so--than Shelly ever has. Shelly is nothing more than an "expert"in his own transgressions--he can recognize Marino forgeries (who can't, though?) and nothing else.

David, I don't find him to be innocent at all...he was without a doubt a liar, a lot of the rest is up for speculation and hard to prove now that he's dead. I just think (my opinion) that he is not in the same league with the Cooperstown forger. Most of Halper's crap was pretty easily detected to be crap with a little homework.

Leon - Maybe my focus is narrow but I look at the work he is doing now and also, as you, think it is a good thing. If someone wants to do that type of work now, and wants a quote from me or would like my opinion about the authenticity of an autograph, then I will give him the quote and look at the autograph.
This is not excusing things in his past but unless evidence becomes available to the public proving him to be the Cooperstown Forger then nobody can really say that he is the Cooperstown Forger.

Halper was certainly not in the same league as the Cooperstown forger skill-wise, knowledge of baseball history-wise, and, most importantly, intelligence-wise. But (in my opinion), he is (was) every bit as much as a crook.

Leon - why do you keep saying I am working with him?
Are you quoted in various other blogs on the internet? I assume so.
Are you giving an opinion on various cards when people ask you about them? I assume so.
Do you consider that you are working in conjunction with those people who ask you for a quote or your opinion on cards?
If you consider those things to be working with someone tell me because our definitions are different in this matter.

+1
At least we can agree on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell

Believing that someone did something is one thing, but taking action based only on allegations is wrong. "you are an associate of Richard Jewell? Well, he is allegedly the olympic park bomber so I can't let you rent this townhouse from me." What kind b.s. is that?

Auction houses need to either take away "allegedly" or apologize for taking those actions based only on allegations. But have a spine one way or the other.

so allegedly is good enough for heritage? They can run their auction house the way they want, yes, they can. That's what the original criticism was all about. Many thought they weren't running it in a particularly fair way.

For that people got banned, and I think Heritage discussing the specifics of why people got banned privately with Leon isn't right or fair for a professional auction house to do. They either need to post it openly for all so we can defend ourselves, or keep quiet.

Remember, whatever Ivy says is on behalf of Heritage and if I was Ivy and someone asked me (remember, I am heritage) exactly the circumstances why someone had their account banned, the proper answer for me would have been

I am sorry but I cant discuss company policy and private bidder information and communications with you.

Can I just call up any auction house and ask questions of any bidder they have and what this bidder, said, has done and what their emails say? I don't care if they release emails, but do it out in the open so everyone can decide.

I said they lied when they posted auction items open for live bidding that said "jsa auction loa" when even by their own admission, Heritage said the loa's wren't issued yet.

Saying something that ain't true is lying. When they ignored me I went to the top, Steve Ivy, Chairman and CEO, and I got no response, then I was banned.

Jonathan already said why we were banned. Evidently you wanted the dirt and the "real" story. Well if you did, ask them to have Jonathan put it all out here for everyone, because if they just tell you only, and you say you agree with Heritage that they did the right thing, then you let people draw their own conclusions without THEM having any of the facts- only based on the fact that "if leon agrees, then they must have did something bad".

Poor way to do it by a professional auction house.

Halper said that he got ruth's auto in person on babe ruth day when Halper was a kid , then he said his dad gave him the sheet with ruth's auto already on it.

then they find an envelope and letter with (incredibly) the same type of ruth's signature on it. Jsa calls it a non-malicious secretarial ruth signature.

Halper says he played baseball at miami with foxx as his coach. proven to be impossible as foxx left before halper enrolled, and none of the teammates remember halper as he never played basebal there and is not pictured with the team in any photograph.

Halper then says his coach Foxx asked him to come into the office with the sheet because Ott was visiting tomorrow so he brought the sheet into his office for Foxx and Ott to sign.

In another story halper says that he brought the sheet to the field to have Foxx sign it.

Halper had stories on how he obtained both mantles rookie jersey and reggie jackson's rookie jersey. He used these provenance stories to bolster the jerseys until he talked up mantle and reggie and convinced them that this was their rookie jersey and had them sign letters to that effect. Then he dropped his original provenance stories and used mantles and jackson's own signed letters as provenance and Jackson's jersey even had the wrong number on it.

Whether he knew mantles and jackson jersey were definitely fake I don't know, but he knew how to upgrade provenance, that's for sure.

How about this take on Peter Nash...

This is just speculation but makes a weird kind of sense...

ALLEGEDLY,

He is a business man who is trying to get rid of the competition...maybe he is outing fraud as a means to increase his profit. If he can become the best supplier of faked, inaccurate, and fraudulent material, then he will make the most money. A little bit of misdirection on his part will create a better business and profit margin for his "stuff." Sort of like the cigarette companies giving millions of dollars to cancer research or the mob setting up orphanages.

Just a thought.

Joshua

You will help folks who aren't admitted hobby fraudsters.


Did the photographs sprout legs and walk out of the NYPL or did someone get caught and admit to it to SI? Glad their banner ad is not allowed here lest we say one thing and do another.

Not accusing anyone of anything, just asking a question, playing devil's advocate.

Travis- Your analogies are so off based I am not even going to respond to you anymore. You really should find a hobby where you get enjoyment. Be happy my friend. Have a good day and happy collecting.

from SI

"The hobby is mostly filled with low-life hucksters"

That would be a hard point to argue on a lot of days.

He is under so much scrutiny right now I don't think he would dare...I think the simplest explanation is that he got caught and is now trying to take down everyone with him.

have a super day,

just thought it was a no tolerance policy and not a sliding scale, whatever, moving on.

the reason haulsofshame deserves peoples support is that it is one of the biggest, most aggresive website trying to combat the problems in the hobby.

Most people agree the hobby is suffering from forgeries in the autograph realm, helped along by tpa's and auction houses that either trust the tpa's or don't do their own investigations into the fakes, reprints, preprints, autopens, secretarials, stamps, reproductions, copies, laser copies, etc.

A lot of collectors won't even mention a TPA name online for fear of reprisal. Or an auction house. You do and you get banned from an auction house, pigeonholed, castigated, harangued, and worse. People will ask you to leave the hobby if you hate it that much. They ask you why you don't want to help the TPA's to make the hobby better, but if helping them pass a stamped Campanella signature is helping the TPA's, then count me out. It's a closed loop system. You aren't invited to help the TPA's get better. They are comfortable with what they are doing now.

People putting their neck on the line by standing up to subpar authentication and auction house policies are trying to HELP the hobby. Would Heritage have done anything about the premature "auction loa" listings if we just gave up after the first round of a ten round bout? NO, hauls of shame keeps hammering, collectors keep hammering, and it took a nash article on a ty cobb ball that had one of these auction loa when there wasn't one - for Heritage to FINALLY do something, and then act like this was some type of a new problem, and they will fix it for the good of the hobby and that they never posted and item with a premature auciton loa that was up for live bidding. (not true and we proved it and posted the weekly internet auctions where that was happening on numerous occasions.) I threw up my lunch.

I love the hobby, I hate the system of backdoor authentication based on who is submitting, the limited or non existant expertise in many areas (boxing anyone?) that promulgate the growing population of these preprints, forgeries and secretarials that are increasingly showing up in a slab with many humming the same chorus, that it is encapsulated for unquestioned authenticity.

The tpa's website say that, along with the tagline that they have pooled together the world's experts. Did they really search over the whole world? Why is everyone from the U.S. then? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The people who work there keep saying the same thing over and over again. That is you see an LOA from them, you can be assured you are getting the real deal, an authentic autograph. Oh please!

How many websites out there are trying to combat the fakes and stolen stuff? Not many, Hauls of shame does, and I support any effort that does. I commend Richard Simon for supporting these efforts too.

How terribly sad that statement is. Sad and true.

[QUOTE=travrosty;1005915] I threw up my lunch.


It's enough to make a man puke up his soul.

Obviously you don't spend much time on the Vintage Card Forum. You can't throw a stone without hitting a post ranting about "TPA's suck", "here's another trimmed card with a numerical grade", "since when does a card with paper loss get graded EXMT", etc...

So if during the height of Prohibition Al Capone published a newspaper devoted to exposing mob influence in all areas except those he was involved in, you would regard him as one of the good guys deserving of public support?

I had my mind blown twice in this thread...

1. The "Cooperstown Forger" is allegedly Peter Nash who maintains Hauls of Shame...crazy but more shockingly...
2. Peter Nash is the white guy from 3rd Bass!?!? Pop, pop, goes the weasel indeed!

Back to your regularly scheduled program...

I am tired of the word allegedly, that word doesnt mean anything to me, because i have seen too many people in the autograph industry allegedly do this and that and the other thing. one guy on a forum somewhere asked people if i was a forger. so that doesn't do a lot for me. anybody could just then start a thread saying i was allegedly a forger because someone somewhere else brought up the question. so that's just stupid.

a nameless author doesnt mention any names and people infer allegations, it's not even direct allegations, and that is suppose to impress people?

I allege that former heavyweight boxing champion Robert Fitzsimmons was a forger and he forged a lot. What what kind of credence do people put in that if I don't have any proof?

Here's a photo of him forging, along with an example of a forged piece of his.

details of Fitzsimmons photo display
 

What are the details of that great Fitzsimmons photo and horseshoe?...is that from your collection?...what are the photo dimensions, and their history etc?

no, its not from my collection,i just found it on the web.

Being a blacksmith by trade, fitzsimmons made several of these type of presentational horseshoes that he would give out to friends of his. They are valuable collectors pieces and they come up at auction from time to time.

Can someone tell me who Peter Nash is? I've heard his names many times, but nothing really about him.