[Exhibitman]

I acquired a lot of my stuff in the good old days, and when I look at what I paid versus what it is worth now, all I can say is, good riddance to the good old days.

I never was bitten by the autograph bug, excepting when it was fun to get them myself, and even then, it was on cards, so no doggies in the fight. The only signed ball I have is a dual Ryan-Koufax, and that was a fun story. My cousin was working with Ryan on an Advil campaign and got me a signed, inscribed ball. Many years later, a client was a friend of Koufax from Brooklyn and asked me if I wanted to have him sign something when he was in town. I gave him the Ryan ball and asked that he have Koufax inscribe it the same way. He called me a few days later and said that Koufax refused to sign it; he told me Koufax said: "Why the f*** would I want to be on a ball with Ryan?" I was floored. Of course, he was joking, and presented me with the signed ball shortly after that.

As for the underlying story, I tend to agree with Ryan as to outcome. I do think that provenance is going to play an ever-larger role in value.

I am also dubious of the magnitude claims of the mastermind Lemieux; I have no doubt he filtered lots of bad stuff into the market but I tend to discount the claims of a suicidal fraudster to have perpetrated a fraud on the order of the annual budget of a small city.

Jeff, those royalty signed balls are insane.