Lou Lampson, 100% Authentic, and American Memorabilia

[Nathan]

I agree with B-T-P-H. Lou Lampson, whose actual whereabouts remain unknown (no collector has seen him within the last 5 years or so), is at best a menace to collectors. The original gameusedforum.com is littered with threads about American Memorabilia and the absolute junk that this Lampson character "authenticates".

The standard defense is usually something like "Lampson authenticates up to 1500 items a day, and some are bound to slip through the cracks". Boy, that's great comfort to any collector who may be putting an enormous amount of cash into something that's "slipped through the cracks". There are plenty of individual collectors who possess much more knowledge about a particular team, league, or manufacturer than Lampson does, and I'd put more stock in what they say than someone whose defenders flippantly blow off outright boneheaded inaccuracy by saying that some will slip through the cracks.

[ahuff]

Personally, I am not a huge fan of Authenticators, and only like the COA's if I'm going to sell. It seems to affect the sales prices you can get. As far as Lou, I've only purchased one item that was authenticated by him. It was:

http://www.100percentauthentic.com/C...hStr=greenwell

I no longer have it in my collection, but could not prove or disprove its authenticity. To me, the t-shirt looked to be store bought and able to fit about a 14 year old.

The only other experience I've had with Lou's work was a tennis racket I was trying to sell at auction. It came with a letter from Vera Zvonerava's manager (on company letterhead) stating whose racket it was and when it was used (and broken). There were tons of photos in Getty, due to the fact it was used in the 2003 French Open. He declined to authenticate the racket, because he could not prove it's authenticity. I was confused, I figured if you could authenticate a Greenwell t-shirt than a photo matched, document supported item would be a slam dunk. Oh well.

[gamehawk]

Hoopstripes,

Lou Lampson has caught alot of heat, not just for a "few errors" but many errors. It is thought by some that he does not even exist, and he is someone made up by AMI. If you can, go back to a post from a few months ago about Lampson/AMI and an Iverson Game Worn Jersey. Long story short, it was a fake they tried to pass through the AMI auctions. Until it was caught, and they pulled it from the auction, never to be seen or heard from again. AMI can say that "Mr. Lampson simply made a mistake." How can you have a company named 100% authentic, and be right only about 40% of the time. He is bad news hoopstripes, and those opinion letters are very shady. Someone like Lampson is the problem with the authenticating hobby today. He puts his name on thousands of items, and MANY not few, turn out to be bogus. Well, ol' Lampson just falls back on his opinion letter. Just like Grey Flannel did when they were taken to court and found guilty with the Cal Ripken jersey....These guys will never learn, and American Memorabilia and Lou Lampson continue there "Authentications." Only opinion, but Lou Lampson belongs in Jail and American Memorabilia should be shut down.....