American Greed : Scams On Film - Memorabilia's largest fraud

Tomi

One of the most interesting videos on memorabilia fraud I have ever seen. The story of John Rogers. Doug Allen of Mastro Auctions is in this episode also where the two rat on each other and both go to prison. From the show American Green episode Scams On Film. Worth watching especially if you are a autograph collector.
https://cloudvideo.tv/9bo1blctnry0

stevek

When I was in 5th grade at FitzPatrick Elementary School in Philadelphia, there was a classmate, his first name was Mike, who was extraordinary at replicating things with his drawings. For example he could look at something on a desk, and then draw it on a piece of paper to astonishing similarity. He could look at a picture in a book of a WW2 airplane, and then do the same thing, draw it to amazing similarity, about as good as you could draw something.

I know you see it coming...Mike could look at any autograph, and then with no practice at all, write it with striking resemblance. With some practice who knows how close to original he could make it look?

Knowing that there must be others such as Mike out there who can do something similar, it comes as no surprise to me when fraud involving autographs takes place.

My opinion is if you're willing to pay good money for say an autographed Mantle baseball off Ebay that isn't certified by a reputable company, you're only fooling yourself...the chances are extremely high that it's a fake.