New York Daily News sports writer Michael O’Keefe has been publishing an ongoing series of articles about an FBI investigation into the sports memorabilia industry (see Mastro Auctions Closes In Midst Of FBI Investigation Into Shill Bidding & Fraud Allegations). Two updates have been published this week by the Daily News.
Sunday, Mr. O’Keefe published an article talking about Dave Grob, the policy director of Memorabilia Evaluation and Research Services and his warnings to the hobby about the consequences for the sports memorabilia field if they did not collectively work together to police the marketplace via a trade association. Per the report, only one company joined the group since 2007.
The full article, “Mastro Auctions appears to be target of federal investigation into sports memorabilia industry“, can be read in it’s entirety at www.nydailynews.com:
The current FBI investigation is the third one in the past 15 years focusing on the sports memorabilia field. Some in that hobby speculate that the probe is investigating shill bidding, counterfeit material, and card doctoring. Also reportedly under scrutiny is the “Holy Grail” T206 Honus Wagner card which last sold for $2.8 million dollars, which “is widely believed to have been cut from a sheet decades after it left the printing press and trimmed after that, a cardinal sin in the card hobby“.
Also under question is how far-reaching the investigation will go:
Executives at other companies could also be dragged into the investigation – and that could have a devastating impact on the hobby, collectors and dealers say.
“Everybody knows Mastro Auctions is a target, but they’ve already gone out of business,” says one dealer. “But if somebody from a card-grading service or an authentication service is charged with fraud, that could impact thousands of collectors and raise questions about millions of dollars worth of memorabilia and cards.”
Mr. Gibson published an update today with details about FBI investigators crashing the National Sports Collectors Convention for the third consecutive year today to interview principals in attendance at the event.
Today’s article, “National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore crashed by FBI investigating memorabilia fraud“, can also be viewed in full at www.nydailynews.com:
An excerpt from the article:
Sports memorabilia dealers, authenticators and collectors interviewed by the Daily News at the show, held this year at the Baltimore Convention Center, said they believe the Chicago grand jury investigating the hobby will hand down indictments by the end of the summer, if not sooner – another black eye for an industry that has long been rocked by scandal and allegations of illegal and unethical activity.
“The perception of our industry is not good, and this won’t help,” said Bill Huggins of Huggins and Scott Auctions, a Silver Spring, Md., auction house.
According to the report, an attorney with a collection valued in the millions of dollars held a meeting last night to pitch the idea of creating a national trade association that would “police the industry“.
Per the story, the FBI investigation “appears to focus on some of the hobby’s most prestigious firms“, noting that executives from “Grey Flannel, Heritage Auction, Professional Sports Authenticators, Hunt Auctions and Lelands have all been questioned by investigators“.
Though sports memorabilia is a much larger and more mainstream hobby when compared with original TV and movie prop and costume collecting, it is of interest to follow these developments as the same kinds of issues affect both industries.
Jason DeBord