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 Monday, August 04, 2008
FBI's latest fraud investigation 'Much bigger than Operation Bullpen'
Posted by Chris

I guess this FBI investigation might be a little more involved than I first thought. Here's the story SCD just posted on our home page:

Just a couple days after the New York Daily News broke the story about FBI investigators issuing multiple subpoenas to appear before a grand jury investigating fraud in the memorabilia business, a source close to the topic shed a little more light on the significance of this fast-moving industry story.

"It will be much bigger than Operation Bullpen," said an anonymous source. "This one's going to affect established hobby leaders and organizations. I think good always comes out of shake ups. I think it's going to put the hobby on a good long-term course and I think it will probably start creating the need for some true regulation.

"I think the hobby's been in need to look at the way they do business for a long time, especially when the numbers got bigger. With the increased success of our industry comes increased responsibility. We've (the hobby) reaped the rewards of increased success but we haven't become more responsible for how we've conducted ourselves as an industry."

According to the New York Daily News, agents spent several hours Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the National, sports memorabilia's largest annual convention.



8/4/2008 4:18:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [5]
8/4/2008 9:26:28 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I heard today from a buddy who went that they raided quite a few dealers at the National. It was pretty big according to him. If you want legitimate autographs, the safest way is to get them yourself. Otherwise, you're taking on a lot of risk in the autograph and a lot of trust in the seller and COA.
8/4/2008 10:13:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
James,
I'm not sure this investigation would be classified as a "raid" and I am not sure it has anything to do with autos.
chris
Chris Nerat
8/6/2008 5:27:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Hopefully a certain Souderton, PA auction house is on their agenda this time. Watching this story with great interest.
CS
8/6/2008 6:56:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
My bad... I assumed it was autos. Thanks for the clarification.
8/7/2008 8:56:39 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I'm not surprised. Bigger then Operation Bullpen... I recently was at a local mall and a show was taking place. One dealer had nothing but autographs. As an avid, high end autograph collector, I can tell you 100% of the autographs at his tables were bad. Every football, baseball, basketball and picture. Furthermore, I was more angry by the fact that novice customers were drawn to the big names he most likely scribed on the balls.

Okay, I'm not ready to put cuffs on this guy because I'm not a cop, but I have to say, with authentication companies fighting with one another, who is to say whether an autograph is good or bad, unless you get it from the athlete.

I don't have examples stored in books to determine what is good or bad, but I can spot a bad Joe D. scribe from a mile away.

Hopefully, this new investigation will shake the industry to its knees and get them to collaborate when practicing the art of selling autographs.

A national registry needs to be developed... Hey, maybe I'm the guy to get it started! Looking forward to hearing more about this investigation and who is involved. If Coach's Corner isn't involved, I will be shocked!
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