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Originally Posted by gnaz01
I agree LL. Here's my initial thought: If they are fake (which for all intents and purposes I am in agreement) wouldn't they be all over the place?? I've seen maybe 2-3 in the last several years which lead me to think they were maybe some kind of counter display....
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Why would they have to be all over the place? How much, other than his time, do you think the maker of these has invested in them? He could walk one of these into a show, find someone to give him a couple of grand for it, and he's back out and thinking of what other fakes he can make. If he can do that with several of these, all the better. Eventually, the buyers will realize they have been screwed when they are rejected by auction houses, and they will end up on eBay to recoup at least a few dollars by those willing to take a chance or maybe even just have a nice fantasy piece to put on the wall. I've had autograph experts tell me that their very first look at a piece is usually the best, that an opinion that would be rendered right then is almost always confirmed by further study and technology. I'm certainly not the expert on memorabilia that some of the big boys that have seen just about everything are, but I have seen a lot of old stuff over the years, and neither one of these pieces looked right even at first glance. Real aging has a look to it, fake aging has another look. Real distress and wear looks real, it's not uniform, it's a corner that has been exposed when the rest of the piece was covered, a tear in taking a poster off a wall at some point, it's haphazard. Even staining should normally only be in one area and the rest should be fine, not all stained up with numerous blemishes like the back of this Hassan piece. What was it lying in, mayonnaise? Memorabilia can be tough, a lot of things just don't have many exemplars around. The real one of these--owned by my good buddy and legendary collector Ron Menchine, by the way, is the only one known. How can that be, you say? I don't know, but I do know that I've handled, and still own, some things that are the only ones I've ever seen in 40 years of doing this. Bottom line is that the only solid rule to go by here is the one we've all ignored at some point over the years and hopefully learned our lesson: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."