Longtime Forger Using Third Party Authenticators To Flood Market With Fake Autographs

Well a longtime forger from Missouri who was once well known for passing many forgeries of John Wayne Gacy on unsuspecting collectors and dealers is back and working under three aliases.

His expertise with the pen is signing autographs of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson.

The forger has recently been scared of being exposed and refunded a dealer on 500 signed photographs of Muhammad Ali. The forger well aware of and taking advantage of the incompetence of the high profile third party authenticators sent in 10 photos with forged signatures of Ali. The forger gets them COA’d and shows the photographs to a dealer along with the COA’s. The forger wants $50 a piece for the forged signed photo.s However, and here’s the game, if you take others with the same style signature without the COA’s you can have them for only $30. Therefore the dealer only has to pay $15,000 for the 500 signed photographs.

The dealer felt $20 per photo was a huge savings. He also knew that with a volume of 500 photos he can get the authenticating company to authenticate them for a fraction of the $20. However, the incompetent authenticating company got the 500 photos and turned them all down. The dealer who now owns the photos screams bloody murder telling the authenticating company that they OK’d 10 from the same batch just weeks before.

The well known high profile authenticating company states they get nervous when they see so many of the same item.

What ever happened to being able to authenticate a signature whether it’s on one item or 500?

This is not an isolated incident. Problem is if the submitter is a forger of signed pieces and is someone known or a good customer to the authenticating company, the items get passed. Thus the forgers have an ally in the authenticating companies. The high profile authenticating companies are flooding the market with forged autographs.

Beware!!!! More Fake Williams and Mantles Hit the Internet!

I am seeing waves of bogus Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle autographs on pictures and baseballs. On August 2 I saw a "signed" photo of Mays, Mantle, Dimaggio and Snider (with a COA) sell for $97 on ebay!! If it was legit it would sell for $700 or more. Don't buy those horrible items, you cannot get bargains in autographs. You can only buy good items at realistic prices or junk items at ridiculously low prices but then again, if all it costs a crook is $2 for a photo or $6 for a ball and $1 for his own sharpie, then he can sell Mantle and Williams for less than $50 and still make a huge profit. Lots of guys are getting rich off the unknowing buyer. Don't let them get rich off you! These items come with COA's also. Be careful out there!
ps. There is an e mail in circulation on the internet which actually names the man who is distributing many (or maybe even all) of these forgeries. Perhaps it is time for a new Operation Bullpen!!

RR Auction Doesn’t Do The Right Thing!

Neil Armstrong's Customs Declaration Form,
Allegedly Stolen, Seized From Auction House

What’s wrong with Bob Eaton of RR Auction? Does he not have common sense?

When someone comes to any legitimate autograph dealer or auction house and they offer for sale an “Official” legal document belonging to the United States of America, what is the first thing you would think of? You are absolutely right, no question, it’s stolen!

That light bulb doesn’t go off inside Bob Eaton’s head. Someone offered Eaton a United States Customs Declaration filled out and signed by Neil A. Armstrong and Eaton went for it.

When was the last time anyone saw an original United States Customs Declaration for sale, anywhere?

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong’s Stolen Custom Declaration Form Offered by RR Auctions

It is said this form was allegedly stolen by a U.S. Customs worker who along with a cohort tried to pass it off through RR Auction based in New Hampshire.

The two men will face a federal grand jury and if found guilty of stealing an official government record they could face 10 years in prison and a very hefty fine of a quarter million dollars. What about the dimwit who tried to sell it at auction?????? Isn’t the seller part of this fiasco? It is our opinion, proper procedure would have been to get as must information as possible from the consignor, take possession of the item and immediately call the authorities. That is the right thing to do, not participate in the sale of an obvious stolen document that should be in the files of the United States Government.

Armstrong was returning from his well publicized trip overseas visiting U.S. troops as part of the “Legends of Aerospace Tour.” His March 13th American Airlines flight 105 from London to New York was diverted to Boston, Massachusetts due to inclement weather.

One of the customs inspectors at Boston was Thomas Chapman and he received the Customs Declaration from Neil Armstrong. Instead of filing the form as required with Homeland Security officials, it is said Chapman kept the document.

Chapman showed the form to his friend Paul Brickman and the two located an unidentified individual who had experience dealing in autographs. The item was consigned to RR Auction and with a ridiculous opening bid of only $200 in their May 22, 2010 auction. Bids exceeded $1,000 before the item was seized by Homeland Security.

One dealer commented “it was refreshing to see a genuine item being pulled from an RR Auction instead of the usual mis-authenticated items.”

Sgt. Pepper Lennon Lyrics -- The Real Deal -- $1 Million

The last song on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band record was A Day in the Life, written by John Lennon. It's considered by many the best song on the album.

In Rolling Stone Magazines list of 500 Great Songs of All Time, it was #26. And, in terms of handwritten lyrics, it's probably #1.

An American collecto paid $1.2 million for it at the Sotheby's auction. They had estimated it would get between 500,000 and $800,000.

It's on a double-sided piece of paper, with Lennon's edits and corrections in black marker and blue ball point pen. There were a few corrections in red ink.

This piece is cool for so many reasons. Aside from handwritten lyrics by the Beatles being huge to begin with, get this. One side of the sheet is written in Lennons cursive script. The other side is written in all capital letters and has all the corrections. I think this is so much cooler than the "All You Need is Love" lyrics which sold for $1.25 million in 2005.

Time for a Lawsuit? It could be coming soon!

The following is an email from a reader named Jeff. It says what other emails state, just clearer.

“I enjoy your site. I wanted to point out yet another reason some sellers use PSA and JSA. PSA has the ability to email eBay with their “Quick Opinion” findings, and eBay will then immediately hit a button and close the item down and remove it from the system. All based upon an email from PSA, without any info being given to the seller. If you have 5 Sophia Loren’s listed, and PSA decides in their infinite wisdom they don’t like them, eBay then (because of multiple closures) sends you an email that REQUIRES you as the seller to get every item you list in the autograph category pre-authenticated by one of their approved companies. And even worse, I’ve also heard from sellers who have been completely suspended due to these emails from PSA. Only PSA has this system set up with eBay….PSA charges $7.50 a pop, then “shares” the info a potential buyer paid with eBay. This really does give PSA sole authority over what is, and isn’t listed on eBay. There are tons of cases where PSA closes an item that’s 100% authentic. The seller is left holding the bag. eBay won’t share the email they got from PSA, and won’t give more than a canned response to any requests for info.

The only way to stop PSA from doing this is for sellers who have items closed down, and have been financially damaged, to file suit against PSA. A seller basically can’t sue eBay, as they have a ton of rules set up to protect them as part of the user agreement. IF enough people go after PSA, maybe the $7.50 an item won’t feel like enough to go through all the trouble.”

Signature Arts response is that many, for years, have been calling for a law suit to be filed against PSA. Some attorney needs to come forth and take on these incompetent authenticators who are scamming collectors. Collectors and dealers who have been harmed will come forward! For the record, eBay largest seller of autographs (over 100,000 feedbacks) got caught up in this authenticating scam. 100% authentic autographs were removed on eBay from the sellers site and they closed him down. He could not get back on unless he paid one of eBay’s incompetent autograph authenticators to go to his office and authentic the autographs he would put back on eBay. Could this be collusion between eBay and their so-called authenticators? Could the authenticating company have shared the money with eBay, sort of like a finders fee? It cost the dealer $5,000 to have an autograph authenticating imposter, approved by eBay to come over and attach stickers to every item the seller showed him. The seller told us that the authenticating imposter was not aware of many of the names he was placing the silly stickers on. After the scam was said and done the seller got a lousy tea shirt. You may find this hard to believe, but the same authenticating company asked this seller of autographs to be one of their authenticators. This seller is willing to tell his story to a judge in court.

For the record, this seller opened his own website, is holding weekly auctions, and after a year, sales are much better than they ever were on eBay. Not to mention no longer paying the buying and selling fees and being held hostage to Payal (owned by eBay).

A fabulous and we mean fabulous, alternative to eBay is coming. Scheduled for October 2010, in our opinion, sellers of autographs will be ecstatic when they hear the news.

Pablo Picasso Fakes Sold on E-Bay!

CHICAGO – A suburban Chicago man pleaded guilty Tuesday to swindling at least 250 people out of more than $1 million through the sale of counterfeit prints advertised as the work of Pablo Picasso and other major contemporary artists.

Michael Zabrin of Northbrook admitted sometimes paying between $1,000 and $1,500 for counterfeit limited edition fine art prints produced in Spain and Italy and reselling them on eBay for many times that amount.

In his signed plea agreement with prosecutors, 57-year-old Zabrin said he would send away to his Italian source for fake Picassos, saying: "I need some P's." When he needed bogus works by Roy Lichtenstein, he would say: "I need some L's."

In the summer of 2004, Zabrin purchased eight counterfeit works purportedly by Marc Chagall for $20,000 "which he resold at no less than three times his cost," according to the plea agreement which was presented to Judge Robert M. Dow Jr.

Zabrin agreed in the document that he caused foreseeable losses of more than $1 million but less than $2.5 million with works turned out by "the Spanish guy" and another supplier in Italy. He also admitted trading fake art works with other dealers.

Zabrin was among seven people charged in March 2008 on charges of trading in fake works by Picasso, Lichtenstein, Chagall, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. He was the first to be convicted. Charges against the six others are pending.

Zabrin pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. But prosecutors calculated that under federal sentencing guidelines Zabrin could be facing a prison term in the 10- to 13-year range.

Dow set March 23 for sentencing.

According to the plea agreement, Zabrin had been previously convicted of telephone harassment, mail fraud and retail theft.

Zabrin admitted conducting 280 sales of fraudulent art on eBay through his companies, Fineartmasters and ZFineartmasters. When some customers realized they had bought fakes, they returned them. Zabrin acknowledged that he then waited a few months and resold them to someone else.

Eisenhower Autopen Signature Discovered

A new Dwight D. Eisenhower Autopen (machine) signed signature has been discovered by the noted expert of U.S. Presidential autographs, Andreas Wiemer who is based in Germany.

The signature has some similarities to other identified Eisenhower Autopen examples however this is not a variant. This new discovery matches other signed items by Eisenhower exactly. Up to this time, they were thought to be genuine.


Newly identified Eisenhower signature from a letter dated February 14, 1949


Same Eisenhower Autopen signature on a letter dated September 27, 1949

The above signed document is considered one of the most 100 important historical documents in U.S. History. Note : "Eisenhower Library" stamp. This document is also illustrated in "Our Documents-100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives" page 181.



Andreas Wiemer is a co-author with Stephen Koschal. Their popular book "Presidents of the United States, Autopen Guide" first, signed limited edition sold out quickly however some unsigned copies are available through the authors.