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  #1  
Old 03-20-2010, 10:22 AM
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David McDonald
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Did a little googling around and found this article about BB cards by Jamieson at Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2224864/ . Guy looks to be an entertaining writer. Love the Über-nerd self-reference. Plus Crazy '08 author Cait Murphy's dust jacket blurb counts for something (that was one helluva book) so just ordered a copy of Mint Condition from Amazon.
Hey, Barry. Do you know if they had any good vintage baseball card shops back in 1910?
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Old 03-20-2010, 10:28 AM
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You would have had a pretty tough time making a living as a baseball card dealer back in 1910. Maybe you could sell Old Judges five for a penny, or something like that.
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  #3  
Old 03-20-2010, 10:36 AM
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I guess I'll leave the time-space jokes to Steven Wright from now on.
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Old 03-20-2010, 11:07 AM
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Appreciate the heads up Barry-just ordered one.
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  #5  
Old 03-20-2010, 12:27 PM
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It's a great read Dave. I'm a little deeper into it and I am learning something new each chapter. Jamieson takes subjects we already know something about but handles them in great depth. Everyone on the board should read it.
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  #6  
Old 04-20-2010, 09:11 PM
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Brian Wolf
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Default Thanks & question on Operation Bullpen

Thanks for the tip; just ordered my copy as well!

Another book-related question: has anyone read the book Operation Bullpen, which is recommended by REA in the back of this year's auction catalog? Any thoughts?

Brian W.
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  #7  
Old 04-21-2010, 06:23 AM
justmike justmike is offline
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Originally Posted by wolf2039 View Post
Thanks for the tip; just ordered my copy as well!

Another book-related question: has anyone read the book Operation Bullpen, which is recommended by REA in the back of this year's auction catalog? Any thoughts?

Brian W.
Operation Bullpen is a fantastic read.If own autographs you will never look at them the same again though.It was another book I couldn't put down for 2 days.I have read it twice more since.
Mike
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  #8  
Old 04-21-2010, 06:37 PM
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Default Operation Bullpen

I recently read Operation Bullpen too and definitely recommend it. It's sad how many people got duped with worthless fake autographs between the mid-1990s into the new millenium and I'm sure it's still going on today.

Some of the highlights include how the scammers would take brand new baseballs, remove the modern stamping, age the balls, put on an old manufacturing stamp on the ball, put a fake signiture on it and produce a convincing high-priced vintage fake. Another story describes how they would go to used book stores and a buy real old books and tear out the first several blank pages and use those for vintage autographs. Another big problem is that fake Certificates of Authenticy were almost as common as the bad signitures.

One other good story is how the Feds caught some crooks by seeing if they could get Muhammad Ali autographs on a stack of rare photographs of him boxing a Japanese sumo wrestler in 1979, which Ali's agent guaranteed that Ali never signed during his career. Sure enough, the crooks produced autographs on those furnished photos claiming they had Ali sign them privately on a certain date in New York while it turns out he was in Miami on that same day.

It also mentions Shelly Jaffe's involvement, who later posted on these boards after getting out of jail.
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  #9  
Old 04-21-2010, 06:47 PM
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Default O/T Book Review: I also recommend "Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay"

I recently read another book that any eBayer would find interesting even though it's not sports related but the same thing could and probably has happened with fake cards or bogus sports memorabilia. Here's a mini-capsule review:


The book Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay is a true story of a young attorney named Ken Walton, who meets up with a former army buddy from years past, Ken Fetterman, who introduces Walton to the new world of internet selling on eBay in the late 1990's. Fetterman's specialty was selling art paintings and appeared to develop a very lucrative business in the early days of this on-line flea market. Shortly after reuniting, Walton and Fetterman worked as a team in Sacramento, CA selling these paintings on eBay. Their business model was rather simple: go around to all the local antique stores and thrift shops and find all the quality works of paintings they could find and resell them on eBay. But it wasn't quite that simple - there was a twist to their business model. Their operation included several unscrupulous business practices that helped generate consistently profitable sales including shill bidding (artificially inflating the bidding by using numerous phony accounts) and forging high-demand artists signatures on art pieces made by good amateurs.

Their main ploy that kept them from being accused or indicted of fraud was using the "naive seller" routine, where in the auction description they would claim that they knew nothing about art but found this painting at a garage or estate sale and would make no assurances of the painting's authenticity, but they would show close-up scans of the artist's signature and by doing this would entice sophisticated art collectors to bid on their bogus paintings thinking that they were going to pull one over on this hapless seller. To show how greed blinded these predatory buyers, several painting sold for exorbitantly high prices and out of fear of being discovered at some point in time by art authenticators, Walton and Fetterman panicked and told the buyers that they were now concerned that the paintings were fakes and would advise them to cancel the sale. But to their amazement, the buyers would insist on completing the sale in spite of these dire warnings and insisted they would be willing to take all the risk, even if the paintings turned out to be fakes. Once trick they used to make a phony, high-priced sale seem credible was to use a bogus identity claiming to be an art expert and then e-mail the winning bidder shortly after he won the painting and congratulate him for getting such a great deal on a highly sought-after work of art and ask if he'd allow them to use that painting for a cover story for an art magazine.

This type of buying insanity finally came to a head in May 2000 when Walton listed a painting with a forged signature that made it appear to be signed by a popular artist Richard Diebenkorn. With Fetterman's help of shill bidding, this painting ended up selling for an astonishing $135,858 and was won by a Dutch millionaire. Some major media outlets picked on the sale including the New York Times and the local newspaper and started doing some inquiries about the auction. One thing that was discovered rather quickly by the press by contacting neighbors and friends was that the auction description contained some big whopping lies such as Walton being married with children. Once that was discovered it didn't take reporters too long to figure out the shill bidding scheme and then the authenticity of the painting itself became very doubtful as some local art dealers requested to see the painting before the auction closed but Walton found excuses to keep them away.

But in spite of all of this bad press, the Dutch millionaire still wanted the painting and when Walton suggested he not complete the sale for $135,858, the buyer threatened to sue him. Walton then suggested that he would like to have some art experts look at the painting first before finalizing the sale and the art collector agreed. To Walton's utter amazement, the signature passed the experts' black light test but there were other issues that put some doubt in the expert's minds yet some things seemed to give the painting some credibility in the experts' eyes as well.

With all of this bad media attention, it didn't take long for the FBI to get involved. Initially, it was just agents showing up at Walton's house or office leaving their business cards with neighbors and business associates requesting that Walton call them. That didn't seem very ominous, so Walton contacted them hoping to get just a warning or answer some routine questions. It didn't take long to realize that he was in serious trouble since they had a comprehensive pile of evidence regarding all of the shill bidding accounts. It went downhill from there and Walton had to retain a criminal attorney and finally cut a deal over a lengthy process: probation with full restitution. Perhaps the most devastating blow was that Walton had to resign from the bar as an attorney. Amazingly enough, when all of his eBay victims were contacted that they'd been defrauded, only a small portion responded to the restitution agreement.

Meanwhile, Ken Walton's partner in crime, Ken Fetterman, avoided arrest and was on the lamb for over a year until finally getting caught on a routine traffic stop for a cracked windshield in Kansas and ended being sentenced to over 4 years of imprisonment.

Although this book deals with art, I found it a very worthwhile read for someone with an interest in sports collectibles and uses eBay frequently since many lessons can be gleaned from this highly publicized true crime story.
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  #10  
Old 04-21-2010, 09:13 PM
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I have long believed that absent ironclad provenance, buying autographs or memorabilia was essentially an act of faith.
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My avatar is a sketch by my son who is an art school graduate. Some of his sketches and paintings are at
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  #11  
Old 04-22-2010, 07:39 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby View Post

It went downhill from there and Walton had to retain a criminal attorney and finally cut a deal over a lengthy process: probation with full restitution. Perhaps the most devastating blow was that Walton had to resign from the bar as an attorney. Amazingly enough, when all of his eBay victims were contacted that they'd been defrauded, only a small portion responded to the restitution agreement.
I can certainly understand why the victims did not want restitution. After all, the fraudsters were screwing everyone not targeting certain individuals. I'm sure the victims felt that it was just the cost of doing business in their hobby that they loved so much.

By the way, at least in the legal profession we kick out the people who get convicted of serious crimes. Such a practice certainly doesn't keep our ranks entirely clean but it does make a difference.
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  #12  
Old 03-20-2010, 03:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kawika View Post
Do you know if they had any good vintage baseball card shops back in 1910?
I think the friendly corner tobacconist a century ago would fit this bill nicely.
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  #13  
Old 03-20-2010, 03:19 PM
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The other week I was over in Victoria, British Columbia and dropped into one of my favorite shops, Old Morris Tobacconist, in continuous business in the same location downtown for 116 years. Betcha they moved a lot of Obak product in 1911.





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  #14  
Old 03-22-2010, 11:52 AM
barrysloate barrysloate is offline
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Just finished the book and I will say it's an excellent read. For those who felt O'Keeffe's book was too negative, the Jamieson book is well balanced with the good, the bad, and the in-between parceled out in equal portions. It's very well documented and it was hard for me to find any errors at all.

I do have to tell you there is a chapter near the end about our own Kevin Saucier that will give anyone who collects high grade slabbed cards a good case of the heebie jeebies. It's pretty scary stuff. But I don't want to spoil the plot, so I'll wait for others to read the book and hopefully post their thoughts on this thread.

Last edited by barrysloate; 03-22-2010 at 03:35 PM. Reason: Edited as I was wrong about the Brotherhood. It was founded in 1885.
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  #15  
Old 03-22-2010, 03:15 PM
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Quote:
do have to tell you there is a chapter near the end about our own Kevin Saucier that will give anyone who collects high grade slabbed cards a good case of the heebie jeebies.
Had to be the unflattering picture made while recovering from surgery #1 and two days before surgery #2. Was fubar during our time together.

To top it off, Dave Jamieson is just an all around nice guy and a terrific human being...smart, humble, inquisitive with strong writing ethics. Every collector will learn something from it. After reading my copy, I realized my true hobby ignorance. Even a better reason to buy the book.

Kevin
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  #16  
Old 03-22-2010, 03:34 PM
barrysloate barrysloate is offline
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Kevin- I enjoyed the chapter about you a lot. There's even a color picture of you in the book. Dave interviewed me over the phone and he was a gentleman. And he writes really well. This book isn't a hack job but a very careful and well written look at our hobby. Possibly it's the best book of its kind.

Kevin- does "fubar" mean something? One of our members has that as his username, and I have no idea what it means.

Last edited by barrysloate; 03-22-2010 at 06:32 PM.
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  #17  
Old 03-22-2010, 03:57 PM
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Barry,

Many thanks Barry, tried my best to make it an accurate and informative interview without it being a tell-all. As I've always said, tough to do with that subject. Dave must of had a hard time writing that chapter, deciding what to print and what to hold back. When I saw the rough copy...he nailed it the first time!

I'm reading it for the third time. Seems I always catch something new or missed.

Yeah I saw the pic..not the best by far. FUBAR = F'ed up Beyond All Recognition. We used it in the military, plus it was made popular in Saving Private Ryan as well.


Kevin
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