Sports memorabilia tied to modern players is far more likely to be legitimate, experts say, because a plethora of companies now perform witnessed signings and uniquely identify the items with holograms to deter fraud.īut forgers are still churning out the more lucrative signed balls and bats and photographs from sports greats of yore. But the barrier for entry was low, Fitzsimmons said, and some authenticators were later ostracized for making dubious determinations. The authenticators - a mix of court-certified handwriting analysts and longtime collectors - offered the promise of cleaning up the industry. Soon phony memorabilia was flooding the marketplace, complete with fabricated letters of authenticity that mirrored those produced by Scoreboard.Ī cottage industry of third-party authenticators sprung up in response, offering to assess the validity of signatures for a price. The value of the items skyrocketed, and fraudsters pounced. Other experts put the figure closer to 80 percent. Today, the retired FBI agent estimates that roughly 50 percent of vintage sports memorabilia on the market is fraudulent. In 2000, Fitzsimmons helped take down a nationwide counterfeiting ring that made millions largely off the pen of a master forger who needed only blank balls, bats and aged pieces of paper. "And there are a lot of naive people out there. "Unfortunately, it's too easy a crime to commit," Tim Fitzsimmons, a retired FBI agent, said. And a Mickey Mantle-signed bat from his magical 1956 season went for $430,000 in 2014.īut for every authentic Mickey Mantle-signed bat or ball, there are many more for sale on eBay and other sites that are counterfeit, experts say. The bat that Babe Ruth used to knock the first home run out of Yankee Stadium was sold for $1.2 million in 2000. Mark McGwire's 70th-home run ball was snapped up for $3 million in 1999. The rarest of pieces sell for jaw-dropping prices.
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