Say It Ain't So Eli

I read a story today that has me a bit surprised in regard to a racketeering suit filed last week against Eli Manning, the NY Giants, Steiner Sports and others connected to a sale of memorabilia to three collectors.

Eli Manning had a contract to supply his game-used equipment to Steiner Sports in 2010 and apparently knowingly Manning and the Giants supplied equipment that had not been used. Initially the Giants were trying to play innocent but Manning turned over emails supporting the claims.

In April 2010 the Giants marketing manager Alan Zucker asked Manning to supply 2 game-used helmets and 2 game-used jerseys. There was a communication between Manning and the Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba where Manning asked Skiba to supply him with 2 helmets that can pass as game-used, which Skiba in turn supplied.

Prior to the lawsuit being filed last week one of the plaintiffs had an email exchange with Skiba where Skiba admits that he created “BS” versions for the game-used equipment because Manning didn’t want to give him the real items.

The Giants official response to the lawsuit is “Eli Manning is well known for his integrity and this is just the latest misguided attempt to defame his character.”

So even though both Eli Manning and the team’s equipment manager Joe Skiba have turned over emails and have admitted to submitting fake items the Giants are standing their ground that this is all a smear job.

This isn’t the first time that the team has been accused of selling fake memorabilia either. Barry Barone, who was one of the Giants team dry cleaners, has said that in 2001 he was asked to “beat up” unused uniforms from the 2000 season to make them appear as game used. In 2008 Skiba was ordered by a team VP to doctor up a helmet to appear as Manning’s Super Bowl helmet so they could send it to the Hall of Fame. It has come to light that included in this lawsuit is a claim that in March 2016 Michael Strahan requested his Super Bowl XLII jersey from the team and they sent him a fake altered jersey.

This is a travesty and I will go out on a limb and say that the Giants are NOT THE ONLY TEAM doing this, I am sure this is a common occurrence in all sports. I don’t believe this is always the case, I am sure many teams sell plenty of game used jerseys but it is no wonder collectors are left wondering if the dime-sized white jersey relic in their card is real. The generic “Not any specific game or season” guarantees do not help alleviate any of the collector’s fears.

Just Because It Glitters Does Not Mean It Is Gold

A bit of a back story on today’s post.

After I began to collect again in the early 90s I came back full force and by mid-decade I was collecting all sports. Around 2000 Pacific began including hits in every pack of some of their hockey products like Titanium and Vanguard and I was digging it, I still look back at these products fondly.

I once pulled one of the double jersey cards which had one swatch on each side of the card. It was a double Red Wings card with Yzerman on one side and I believe the other side was Lidstrom and they were both basic white swatches but what made the card awesome was that the Yzerman swatch was covered in blood. How freaking cool is a card with blood on it? Very cool, not as unique as the Manny Ramierez corked bat relic card that Pacific packed out but still unique

But about 6 years ago I went through a purge because I felt my collection was getting out of hand and I pulled aside a couple of hundred autographs, relics, patches and limited # cards and tossed them in to two different lots and sold them each for around $200 on eBay. I included some cards I now wish I had not, including that specific Yzerman/Lidstrom card, but hindsight is 20/20 and I am out of luck.

 

Now, last week I was scrolling through some Gary Payton cards and I came across a listing for a 2000-01 Fleer Game Time Uniformity Payton jersey relic with what appeared to be a splotch of red across the white fabric. Could I have found a Gary Payton jersey with blood?

 

 

I didn’t stop to second guess it and just purchased it for the $5.99 BIN. The card comes in, I am happy but once I have the screwdown in my hand I notice that something is not as I thought it was. I remove the card from the screwdown and slide my finger over the red and no big surprise here but it was a piece of fuzzy red fabric.

 

This one is totally on me, the image is a bit blurry and I could have sent the seller a question but I went total Great White shark and once I saw blood I was in a frenzy. On a slight positive side there is a dark red thread running under the white swatch that comes from the brick red piping near the jersey edge so it is sort of a two-colored swatch… ok that is a stretch.

Things That Make Me Sad

 

In the 2015 Topps Museum Collection release there is a cool insert, the 50-card Canvas Collection Reprints set. The set contains modern and retired players recreated from previous Topps cards by some of the top artists. There is also a #1/1 Originals parallel which are sketch cards by various artists based on the Reprints set.

Ken Griffey Jr. has two cards included on the Canvas Collection Reprints (posted above), both illustrated by the amazing Brad Utterstrom, also known as Bradu. Brad did sketch versions too with the Reds version showing up the other day for a $1299 BIN price. Here is Brad's sketch card that is currently for auction.

Another one showed up last week, the artist name is difficult to read it kind of looks like Elmo Perez but I have not been able to find an artist list for the set so I am not certain. The card initially was set with a $175 BIN, when it ended the seller dropped it to a $75 BIN and yesterday the seller removed the card from auction.

 I call it "Derp Griffey", just let the card sink in…

I am a sketch artist and this makes me sad. I have been drawing since I was a kid, I spent 4 years at the Art Institute drawing and I have been doing sketch cards for the past 5-6 years and I personally don’t feel my work is worthy of appearing in a Topps set and then I see cards like this and wonder what the Topps rep thought when they got the cards back from the artist.

So far I have found three other cards from this artist and they are all disappointing. I am really surprised Topps greenlighted these cards they really are not the quality you would expect from a Topps commissioned artist.

Ferguson Jenkins

Clayton Kershaw

Mike Trout

I have done sketch cards on commission, I have included cards in outgoing trade packages and I am working on pieces to submit to Island Dreams and I am very critical of my own work so I try not to rip another artist’s work but I know that even my 9-year old nephew could do better work in his 3^rd Grade art class.

 

If I pulled this crayon sketch card, it does appear at least to be crayon, out of a box of Museum Collection after spending $175-200 I would be livid.

 

Annnd We're done...

A quick follow up to yesterday’s post. After I posted on the blog I sent him one last message letting him know that I had left negative feedback and why I left it. Surprisingly he responded rather quickly with his explanation

“Every single one looked the same. I have been out of town a lot and have a ton of emails coming in. I was under the impression you were returning the card as you said you were and once it was received back you would get a refund.”

 

I had to respond to him regarding this. I pointed out that he had multiple Suzy Hotrod autographs for sale with each auction having a different autograph and the crappy autograph was cheaper. And asked how the picture was posted to his auction if he didn’t have that specific card. I also pointed out that I had cancelled the return on Saturday and had even emailed him after I cancelled the return explaining why I decided to keep the card (It would be stupid to pay to return the card to get my money back and just go and buy another card that looked exactly the same) and that I only wanted the card he posted.

 

I don’t expect him to respond, I caught him in a lit about them all looking the same, plus he obviously did read through his emails if he knew that I had requested a return/refund. I am done with this seller, nothing he can say will change the way that this unfolded and I definitely will not be purchasing anything from him in the future. Though I wouldn’t be surprised to see him posting the Suzy Hotrod autograph for sale at a higher price before to long.

A Bad eBay Experience

On September 26th I came across one of those opportunity purchases, this was actually my first opportunity purchase this year, and even though I set a goal of cutting these types of purchase out completely I didn’t listen to my inner voice.

 

While searching through some Allen & Ginter’s autographs a recommendation for various Goodwin Champions autographs appeared so I decided to take a look. One of the suggestions was a 2013 Suzy Hotrod autograph and for some unknown reason I found myself interested. I used to watch roller derby all the time but it just doesn’t show up on television anymore but to be honest if it was on T.V. I would watch every chance I could. It is just the ultimate sport; roller skates, physical assaults and a scoring system that nobody seems to understand.

 

So I got caught up in finding out about Suzy Hotrod and once I was that deep I just had to buy an autograph and of course once you buy an autograph you have to add a relic too. I looked through the autographs and Suzy Hotrod has a rather messy autograph so when I came across this solid signature I hit the BIN for $4.99 plus $2.95 shipping. The price was about a dollar more than what most of her autographs were selling for at the time, the same seller had one of her regular signatures for $3.49 BIN but I wanted the better looking autograph.

 

Next up was the relic. There are base relics and multi-colored relic cards so I decided to go with a dual-colored piece from one of her red Gotham Girls traveling team jerseys. This one was $2.99 plus $2.95 shipping. At the time this was about average for her relic cards so I felt I got a good price.

 

After I purchased the cards I realized they were from the same seller so I emailed him to ask if he would be willing to combine shipping for both cards. His response to me was essentially “Tough” and that once items are paid for he cannot combine shipping, which is B.S. because I did it just a couple of weeks ago and it was a situation where he didn’t want to take the extra 30 seconds and it meant an additional $2.45 in his pocket. But, none-the-less I can accept this because I did pay for them separately and life goes on.

 

Days go by and the tracking number is not showing that it was even shipped and I was a bit concerned. It finally shipped on October 3^rd, seven days after I paid. OK, I am now wondering if the seller was just being a jerk and making me wait because I asked for combined shipping.

 

I get the cards on October 6^th and I open the relic card first and it looked good, I opened the autograph card envelope and notice the autograph is Hotrod’s regular crappy autograph and not the beautiful autograph that I purchased. I double checked the auction to make sure that the description didn’t say something like “You will not receive the card pictured” but nothing like that so I emailed the seller explaining the mistake. When you email a seller regarding an issue a case is automatically opened through eBay so I figured it would get the seller’s attention. I sent a follow up email with a picture of the card I received to show the difference between autographs. I waited and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond so three days later I expanded the claim to get eBay involved. They attempted to contact him and they didn’t get a response so they offered me the option to return the card and get a refund using the aBay Buyer Protection or keep the card. I emailed the seller one last time hoping it was just a mistake that he seriously missed, and waited until Sunday before cancelling the refund option and just leave negative feedback.

 

The card on the left is the card that was pictured in the auction and the card on the right is the card I actually received. What led me to purchase this card was because the signature lines were separated and she actually wrote "#55" where she normally signs "Hotrod#55" all together and the "55" usually looks like anything but "55"

 

 

In the end I decided to keep the card instead of accepting a refund and buying a new one because for some reason Suzy Hotrod’s autographs have doubled in price in just two weeks, even her relics have jumped 50% too.

 

I am really disappointed, the autograph on the card I purchased is very unique compared to her standard autograph. It got me thinking about what happened and I figured it was one of four reasons from the seller. When considering the options I am betting on is either #2 or #4.

 

 

1. He used an image he found on the internet for the auction not realizing there was a difference. But this one seems less likely because he was selling another Hotrod autograph with the crappy signature for less money so he obviously knew there was a difference.

2. He accidently switched the packaging and sent the nice autograph to the other buyer. This seems like a possibility and he wasn’t responding out of embarrassment knowing he couldn’t get the other card back from the other buyer to correct the mistake.

 

3. He didn’t send me the card to be a jerk because I asked for combined shipping. This is a possibility but most people are not this vindictive, especially when you consider this guy has over 17,000 feedback with 99.9% positive. If he got upset and jerked over everyone who had any sort of after sale request I am sure his feedback would be much lower.

 

4. He saw the rapid price increase in the week before he sent out the card and decided to hold the better looking autograph figuring he could get a significant premium over what I paid so he sent out the crappy autograph and is ignoring my/eBay’s messages expecting negative feedback anyway.