Now I know where Coach's Corners crap goes

[David Atkatz]

I have seen the original note this PC was copied from. Other than the salutation, it's a word-for-word copy.

[RichardSimon]

The postcard sold for $475. If legit it certainly would bring a nice four figure sum.
My question is,,, who bought it and where will he try to sell it next?
It is like musical chairs with these items now, the last one left holding the item will be the loser.
I know that other hobbies have their horror stories too, but it seems to me that the sports memorabilia hobby is the worst of them all.
Why is that?

[David Atkatz]

Sports is hardly the worst.
Museums and collectors have purchased art forgeries for millions of dollars.

[ctownboy]

A Babe Ruth autographed baseball, "authenticated" by the same company sold in this auction (Kraft Auction) for $4,200 dollars.

David

[steve B]

My theory -And I know I'll probably take some heat for it- Is that the traditions and culture of sports memorabilia collecting make the faking much easier.

In stamps there has been a lot of record keeping regarding the tiniest detail since sometime in the 1840's (1840 was the "first" postage stamp) Fakes made to fool collectors began to appear probably around the 1850's And there have been detailed descriptions of the assorted fakes and info about who made them for nearly as long.
And the fakers have often been bought out with their stock and equipment being retained by a national stamp collectors organization.

Coins have been faked for a very long time, but the enforcement has often come from governments.

In both hobbies the national collectors organizations have been pretty strong, and being kicked out for faking or shady dealings was usually a career ender for a dealer. Doing what's considered "right" was business as usual. (Very victorian era attitude, those outed as frauds were priahs and ruined men in the eyes of those in the hobby) The guy I hung out at took a return on a coin he'd sold something like 10 years before that turned out to be altered. The only question asked when the coin was shown to him was howmuch it had been bought for as he didn't recall. - NO certificate, no reciept, just a memory of having owned that coing and having sold it.

Not that there haven't been bad apples, ther have of course been plenty of them.

With Sports memorabilia there hasn't been the constant build up of detailed knowledge. In stamps I can look up if a stamp was typographed engraved or lithographed. I can't do that with most sports collectibles. Many collectors have an attitude of open rebellion against the very concept. Granted the people doing grading /authenticating are often just as blind as the collectors, but that's what most collectors want, someone else to have knowledge and make a clear determination of wether something is real.

Yes, there's a concern that the fakers will learn enough to make it hard to determine if something is fake, but the technical skills have literally been out there since the 1800's. Knowing what may have been done to something lets you know what to look for to be sure it hasn't been done.

In stamps, the certs will tell you what it IS if one is issued. If I send a stamp in as a US #500 and it's not they'll issue a cert stating that it's actually a different one. The ones where they declare "we decline to render an opinion" are the fun ones. That means the people who should be experts have looked at it and can't figure it out with confidence. That's either REALLY good or very bad. And it may take years of research to figure out which.

I can't think of many sports collectors who would accept that.
Amd maybe rightly so, so much of this stuff is really a gray area. The technical knowledge either isn't there or is too closely held.

Until things change so that a faker is essentially out of the business when found out and the average hobbyist wants knowledge instead of a "bargain" the fakers and frauds will have an easy time of it.

Steve B

[steve B]

The cancel was made with a machine similar to this one.http://catalogue.postalheritage.org....0machine%27%29

The one shown is a Krag, while the one on the GPC is probably an international. The operation is essentially the same. There's a spining ink pad, that inks a spinning steel die. The wheels at the right push the cards or leters into the space between the spinning die and a rubber roller. The die grabs it and prints the cancel as the mail is pushed through to the other side.

The tips of the wavy lines hit first, the circular part with the town last. A nice solid cancel will indent the paper a bit. The mail often slips slightly, and the die is very well inked. The sloppy bit at the right side of the circular part is a bit slip a bit sloppy ink, and darn hard to fake unless you make a machine.
The number to the left of the circle is the machine number. A small town might have one machine, Chicago had a whole roomfull. If I was going to the trouble of faking a cancel it would NOT be a Chicago machine cancel......Not when a card like this can often be had for pennies with a perectly good cancel already on it. (Plus the postal inspectors dislike cancel faking nearly as much as stamp faking, and there's no statute of limitations)

Steve B

[mabjae]

never mind

[travrosty]

many of these most popular companies authenticate using the super burger fast food concept of authenticating. you bring in your item to a show, someone wholly unqualified to look at it looks at it, issues a cert for a bogus item, spelling the name of the athlete wrong in the process, and it is all suppose to be good?

they adopted the certification system that fit their pocketbooks the best, not the one that serves the customer the best. art authenticators dont set up at an art show and promise a two hour turnaround on your salvador dali or picasso. If they did and called a Picasso a Picolo or a Dali a Danby, all hell would break loose, but authenticators can call a james jefferies a james Jeffers, or the can say that a bat was used by thurman munson, and his teammate sandy alomar jr. (should have been sr. obviously), and no one seems to care and they just go on to the next authentication.

some customers aren't interested in finding out if their piece is real, they just want the cert. to them the cert means its real. but of course a cert cant make a bad piece real, it just lets you sell it to the next guy under those auspices.

It has been 'deemed authentic'. (phrase that should be banned from our lexicon).

[mighty bombjack]

Check out this Anson. I doubt it will be up long,as it has the same AMA COA as those in the OP's links.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...E:B:SS:US:1123

[FUBAR]

anyone notice the "t" 's in the fake letter look a lot like Babe Ruth "t"s...

Makes you wonder if this person has signed so many fake ruths that he signs all the t's that way now.