Movie Prop Collecting with Jason DeBord's Original Prop Blog Film & TV Prop, Costume, Hollywood Memorablia Pop Culture Resource

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New York Daily News Update on Mastro Auctions Scandal: Bill Mastro To Plead Guilty To Fraud, Altering Memorabilia

As the latest significant update to this ongoing high profile memorabilia auction house fraud scandal, the lead journalists covering the story for the New York Daily News today reports that William Mastro of Mastro Auctions will be changing his plea to guilty on one fraud count, and will admit that he “altered the world’s most valuable trading card, a Honus Wagner T206 that has fetched millions of dollars in a series of high-profile transactions”.  It’s last sale was to Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who paid $2.8 million for the baseball card.  Mastro originally purchased the card for $25,000. [Read more…]

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FBI: “William Mastro and Two Other Executives of Former Mastro Auctions Indicted for Allegedly Defrauding Bidders in Online and Live Auctions of Sports Memorabilia and Other Collectibles”

The Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have published a press release update regarding the ongoing investigation of alleged sports memorabilia fraud involving former Mastro Auction executives.  Prosecutors claim that William Boehn, the Information Technology Director, made false statements to FBI agents.  According to the FBI press release,  the memorabilia auction house executives “were indicted on fraud charges for allegedly rigging auctions through a series of deceptive practices, including so-called “shill-bidding,” designed to inflate prices paid by bidders and to protect the interests of consignors and sellers at the expense of unwitting bidders.” [Read more…]

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The Original Prop Blog Celebrates Its Five Year Anniversary

Today – April 5th, 2012 – marks the five year anniversary of launching this website, the Original Prop Blog.  In Spring 2007, I published the first article, “The Hobby Without A Name…”, though I didn’t have any idea I would still be writing articles five years later, and I wouldn’t have imagined writing approximately 1,559 of them (currently a 5 year average of 0.87 articles per day since launch, which is quite a lot considering I am the sole contributor). [Read more…]