$350 MILLION Selling FAKE Sports Memorabilia
all over the news, Sold counterfeit signed authenticated Sports Memorabilia for many years over 4 million items on ebay, Amazon FB and other places.
I would think that the market for these items is destroyed because it is now basically impossible to tell a real signature from a fake. Much of it done with a auto-pen on a massive scale
14 comments
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago"It's the lure of easy money, it's got a very strong appeal."
----Glenn Frey
untod
·1 year agoAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwww... Items with NO intrinsic value now have no MARKET value? Let me see if I can find that microscopic violin I had authenticated...
I have no more pity for this than I did for the NFT collapse. A bunch of greedy boneheads trying to buy "memorabilia" of things they DON'T REMEMBER because they didn't experience whatever the memorabilia is supposed to evoke memories of. It's the height of POSEURISM with the height of irony when they also lose that POSE because they're now posing with counterfeit garbage that was POSING as genuine. So a bunch of posers lost a bunch of money (that they clearly didn't need since this crap would be useless even if it were real) because they bought posing merchandise from a poser who got caught posing.
Color me laughing.
itsjustasprain
·1 year agoI have always thought those NFT images (or cards or whatever they were supposed to be called) were especially stupid. You were supposed to pay a ton of money in order to - what? - supposedly own the image? The same image posted in news stories written about... the image? With a picture of the image right there on the screen? What exactly were you getting for your money? Talk about the emperor's new clothes... or a fool and his money are soon parted... 🙄
farmalljr
·1 year agoWhat's also funny...... They knew the guy was counterfeiting the stuff, said they never bought from "him", but what about from other people? One way or another, I'm sure the fakes got into their inventory and resold. And if they knew for YEARS this guy was counterfeiting, why didn't they notify law enforcement before now?
This is why "collectables" are only as valuable as the sucker that want's to buy it. Remember the ball cards from the 80's? Over produced and valueless. Yet they all told kids just how valuable these would be someday. Millions and millions of the same cards, mass produced garbage, and it was going to be "valuable". LOL This is why I gave up on cards/collectable stuff a long time ago. Think of all the suckers who bought into NASCAR "collectable" garbage that ranks in value of beanie babies.
This guy was "so good" you couldn't tell the difference. Then that tells me the originals are not all that good.
All this should tell you is that nothing is able to be "authenticated" with any knowledge and authority.
dnasilver
·1 year agoWhere in the article does it say the items were "authenticated"? Copying holograms does not mean they were "authenticated" by known grading companies. Did I miss something?
bettimoor-0
·1 year agoDoes authenticated and certified have the same meaning?
He quoted in his own FB admission that many items were certified.
short_circuit.lineman61
OP1 year agohe counterfeited the authentication hologram stickers. Due to the fact that he did this for 20 years and still had a active ebay and other accounts until the raid it appears that it was not possible to tell the difference.
itsjustasprain
·1 year agoIs it too much to ask for anyone in these kinds of discussions to POST A LINK to whatever it is that they read or are commenting on? There are billions of articles with millions of viewpoints on all kinds of topics. Show us what you saw.
If you (the collective you - not you personally) read something interesting or saw something you did or did not like then for pity's sake POST A LINK so that we can see what it is you are commenting on.
short_circuit.lineman61
OP1 year agoI can, post a link.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2025/07/18/man-under-investigation-for-counterfeit-sports-memorabilia-found-dead/85275534007/
inhawaii
·1 year agoI read somewhere on the interweb that cauliflower causes cancer.
ryry-jj
·1 year agoI'm so skeptical of the sports memorabilia market, I'm not even too sure I believe all this guy Lemieux's quotes...he sounds more angry and vindictive than balanced enough to pull it off, but we will see....
pidgeun1
·1 year agoeBay doesn't care. Site is infested with fake coins, trading cards and collectibles. eBay only cares about their fees. Be careful!
ryry-jj
·1 year agoReading up on it...the person who did all this forgery was found dead from a self inflicted gun shot wound
ryry-jj
·1 year agoNot surprise at all. I have never trusted anything memorabilia related that I didn't get signed or pick up personally from the person or at the event...anything else is just an item with a scribble. If an historical document, might have a bit of a different view...but sports and entertainment wise its all "fake"