Hi there!!!...I am a newbie to this site but definitely not a newbie to collecting...I had been collecting since 1987 when uniforms started getting hot...it was fun collecting back then!!!...it seemed like almost 1/2 of the equipment out there at the time was actually the real deal!!!...and if it wasn't it was very easy to distinguish that

just like everything else in this world, once value started dramatically increasing for all game used equipment, it attracted lots of crooks!!!...in 1992 Champion started issuing basketball jerseys in collectable frames that were tagged correctly and that threw a lot of things out of wack...they were quickly sold as game used jerseys..remember when Karl Malone wore "K. Malone" on his jersey but there were lots of "malone" jersey's out there?...Jordans and Pippens with the name to high?...Shaq's eveywhere?...boy did a lot of people get burned on these....I remember going to the National in the summer of 93 and seeing this stuff everywhere!!!...in a differenent thread GREED was the word mentioned, and that hits it right on the head!!!...not only were there "new" dealers/crooks that started selling garbage out there but I believe that 1/2 of the known dealers were selling this stuff with full knowledge of what was going on..."but it was tagged correctly" was the common quote out there and I think that was used as a safety net...

I got out of collecting in 1998 because it was soooo sickening to see what was happening to a HOBBY that was suppossed to be fun...many dealers hit hard times and values plummetted...a lot of people were saying that the market was soft...I don't believe that at all...The true collectors, that dealers needed, left the industry because they were tired of getting screwed over and it just wasn't fun anymore...dealers were selling stuff sooo cheap and most of the time it was to other dealers instead of the collectors

In the mid 90's there were Lakers jerseys everywhere (Tiernan)...you could have boughten a Magic or Kareem for less than $1,000.00 and could have picked up a lot of them...It was amazing to me that the Tiernan tag was absolutely trashed and washed out to where you could barely read the label but the numbers & letters were crisp!!!...very slowly these dried up and they still pop up and go for big money now!!!...Jerry West was another example...West wore the "pinnaple" mesh only 1 year and yet there were tons of them out there..how can that be when players in this era probably only had a few homes and roads each year...Pat Riley..the list goes on

I started collecting again 3 years ago because I still had a desire to put some really cool stuff on the wall...it was a shame to see that not much has changed...Lebron James and Carmelo's everywhere..Roethlesberger, Tom Brady...blah blah blah...The excitement of a new auction approaching has qiuckly faded with seeing the same garbage over and over again...One that always makes me cringe is seeing a Bret Favre throwback jersey every 6 months...Payton everywhere...at least if you do want the real thing out there that possibility does exist, but at a premium...i've wanted a Montana back for a long time but am I really going to buy a Wilson with sewn on letters/numbers?...most definitely NOT!!!!..(I'm holding out for one with a letter from the team like the one in Lelands a few years back)

After the decline in the 90's I feel that a new generation of collectors have come to the hobby that have unfortunately purchased a lot of this garbage out there...Imagine the feeling that your a novice collector and really want a Lebron James jersey...You go and buy one at an auction and think that you have something special only to come to see 500 more sold in the same calender year...suspicions arise, you do some reaserch, and your good feeling goes down the tank because of want you have come to find...another guy out of the hobby who beleives that he got screwed...

when is this going to end?...people NEED to be held accountable for their actions and PUNISHED by the law...if not then this will continue!!!...both dealers and these so called authentiactors...If not by law then at the minimum in a public forum so that people have some opportunity to start collecting on the right foot...I feel bad for the novice that buys this junk and I don't blame them for not doing 100% research...they believe that they are buying from reputable dealers, that have had the items inspected by a professional...if you went to a dealership to buy a vehicle I'm sure that you would believe that you are buying the real thing...what's the difference?!!!!

why keep tip-toeing around this subject...get it in the open and hopefully start to slowly clean this hubby up..this is a fantastic site and I wish that every collector knew about this site before making their first purchase...if that was the case I'm willing to bet that most of junk wouldn't even get one bid...

Thanks and keep up the great work!!!!!