Ornstein Sold Fake Jerseys to Auction House

[dcgreg25]

I thought this article was an interesting read. I have not seen many articles that have nailed down the orginal source of bad jerseys.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-card-company/

A portion of the article:

Ornstein was accused of pocketing over $100,000 as part of the “game worn” trading card scheme which included jerseys Ornstein claimed had been used by members of the Cleveland Browns and other NFL players.
Between December of 2002 and February of 2003, Ornstein also sold or consigned 45 jerseys represented as having been worn in the 2002 season to an unnamed sports memorabilia auction company. Again, Ornstein and his associates provided false COAs. The government’s case indicates 20 of the jerseys sold for a price of over $30,000. The fate of those jerseys isn’t revealed in the court documents.
The federal judge ordered Ornstein to pay the government $350,000 in restitution for the ticket and memorabilia scheme. He’s paid over $100,000 thus far.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in January. The case remains under investigation.

[murfsteve25]

i saw this too. I think its pretty bad that all these card companies are willing to buy random jerseys at various auctions, guessing that their legit, and then place them on their cards with a COA stating their authenticity. Theres no way they can authenticate items like that because theres no way in knowing.

And i agree, why is it so easy to forge game worn jerseys?

[gwh11]

For anyone who may have missed this, check out this piece from Sports Collectors Daily:
http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-card-company/

This is a very important story about some bogus "game used" NFL jerseys. One paragraph reads:

"Between December of 2002 and February of 2003, Ornstein also sold or consigned 45 jerseys represented as having been worn in the 2002 season to an unnamed sports memorabilia auction company. Again, Ornstein and his associates provided false COAs. The government’s case indicates 20 of the jerseys sold for a price of over $30,000. The fate of those jerseys isn’t revealed in the court documents."

Well, I was able to figure out how those 20 jerseys were sold. I've posted the catalog images with a blog post here:
http://packersgameusedgear.blogspot....much-more.html

Lots of unanswered questions about this case. I'm sure we'll hear more details in the future, though.

-Guy

[ChrisCavalier]

For anyone who may have missed this, check out this piece from Sports Collectors Daily:
http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-card-company/

This is a very important story about some bogus "game used" NFL jerseys. One paragraph reads:

"Between December of 2002 and February of 2003, Ornstein also sold or consigned 45 jerseys represented as having been worn in the 2002 season to an unnamed sports memorabilia auction company. Again, Ornstein and his associates provided false COAs. The government’s case indicates 20 of the jerseys sold for a price of over $30,000. The fate of those jerseys isn’t revealed in the court documents."

Well, I was able to figure out how those 20 jerseys were sold. I've posted the catalog images with a blog post here:
http://packersgameusedgear.blogspot....much-more.html

Lots of unanswered questions about this case. I'm sure we'll hear more details in the future, though.

-Guy

Very interesting Guy. Thanks for the update.

-Chris

[Number9]

Jerome Bettis and Ricky Williams jerseys with 'minimal wear' should be a red flag. Anyone that bought these has more money than sense.

[cohibasmoker]

For anyone who may have missed this, check out this piece from Sports Collectors Daily:
http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-card-company/

This is a very important story about some bogus "game used" NFL jerseys. One paragraph reads:

"Between December of 2002 and February of 2003, Ornstein also sold or consigned 45 jerseys represented as having been worn in the 2002 season to an unnamed sports memorabilia auction company. Again, Ornstein and his associates provided false COAs. The government’s case indicates 20 of the jerseys sold for a price of over $30,000. The fate of those jerseys isn’t revealed in the court documents."

Well, I was able to figure out how those 20 jerseys were sold. I've posted the catalog images with a blog post here:
http://packersgameusedgear.blogspot....much-more.html

Lots of unanswered questions about this case. I'm sure we'll hear more details in the future, though.

-Guy

OOOps

[Fnazxc0114]

Id be interested to know how many of the jerseys were used in baseball cards.

[allstarsplus]

I thought this article was an interesting read. I have not seen many articles that have nailed down the orginal source of bad jerseys.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-card-company/

A portion of the article:

Ornstein was accused of pocketing over $100,000 as part of the “game worn” trading card scheme which included jerseys Ornstein claimed had been used by members of the Cleveland Browns and other NFL players.
Between December of 2002 and February of 2003, Ornstein also sold or consigned 45 jerseys represented as having been worn in the 2002 season to an unnamed sports memorabilia auction company. Again, Ornstein and his associates provided false COAs. The government’s case indicates 20 of the jerseys sold for a price of over $30,000. The fate of those jerseys isn’t revealed in the court documents.
The federal judge ordered Ornstein to pay the government $350,000 in restitution for the ticket and memorabilia scheme. He’s paid over $100,000 thus far.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in January. The case remains under investigation.

Along the same lines, has there ever been any resolution to the fake Favre Packers jerseys?

[allstarsplus]

And i agree, why is it so easy to forge game worn jerseys?

If you are getting them direct from the manufacturer and they are perfectly tagged then it really comes down to legit use.

This is a huge problem especially when you consider teams that will sell tagged jersey blanks and game issued. Hows about all the Yankees game issued out there that Steiner sold and in the past year I have also seen now dozens of Rawlings fielding gloves of star players that are showing up as game issued that I doubt has ever been ordered by the player so the problems grow when any item is ordered outside of the clubhouse.

I bought a bunch of game issued jerseys and the clubhouse clipped the laundry tag so they could NOT be confused with the game used jerseys. Not a bad idea to protect the integrity of the jerseys.

[LizMullen]

This is Liz Mullen and I am a reporter with SportsBusiness Journal. I broke a story a couple of weeks ago about marketing agent Mike Ornstein pleading guilty to federal charges regarding selling Super Bowl tickets and NFL jerseys that were falsely advertised as game worn.

This is the story:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/i...ticleID=142639

I am trying to get more information about what happened to these jerseys. If you know anything can you contact me here or on Twitter @SBJLizMullen or at my email lmullensportsbusinessjournal.com

Thanks, Liz.

P.S. Is the memorabilia community aware of this? What is the reaction?