MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?

[aeneas01]

some members may already know that mears recently got their hands on an odd "maravich warm up jacket" that sold on ebay for $199 - apparently mears made the seller an after-auction offer she couldn't refuse much to the dismay of the actual auction winner (who promptly lodged a complaint).

anyway, once mears took ownership of the jacket they wasted no time listing it in their current auction as a "1974 Pete Maravich Inaugural Season New Orleans Jazz Game Worn Warm Up Jacket". further, while mears was at it, they went ahead and wrote a letter on the thing giving it a "final grade" of "mears authentic" despite the fact that they admitted to not being able to find any evidence whatsoever that marivich (or any other new orleans jazz player for that matter) ever wore such a warm up jacket.

as to the mumbo-jumbo, here is what mears has included in their item description:

"At this time, MEARS was not able to find a photo of Maravich wearing this exact jacket. Additionally, we could find NO image of an early 1974 Jazz jacket worn by ANY player... Although unsuccessful in our attempts to find an exact photo match, what the above (research) did provide us was style matches of Jackets worn by the Jazz from 1975-78. This did not match any of those styles. So with the Sand Knit tag dating ending in 1974 and no early 1974 images found of any Jazz player wearing a warm-up jacket, we are confident in our 1974 dating."

can any forum member tell me what on earth this means? further, does any forum member believe that this mumbo-jumbo supports mears' claim that this "maravich" jacket is "game worn" or "authentic"?

mears goes onto to say that, for purposes of comparison and authentication, they have also examined the following "sand Knit products worn during the mid 1970s": 1975 bulls sloan, 1975 bulls pondexter, 1970s celtics havlicek and 1975 jazz maravich. but what mears suspiciously fails to mention is that all of these items have something in common that the maravich doesn't: team exclusivity tags. i mean are you kidding me? good grief.

heck, this is so reminiscent of the jim brown "gamer" which mears owned, which they awarded an a10, even though it was never fitted with the all-important blepp-coombs tag - something which mears failed to mention at that time as well. correct me if i'm wrong, but shouldn't one of the most important jobs mears performs during their authentication process be to ensure that, at the very least, tagging is correct and consistent with other known exemplars from the era in question?

here's a look at some other warm up jackets from the same era as the "maravich" jacket - they all have the same sand-knit style tagging as the "maravich" but they also all have team exclusivity tags as well (interestingly, bushing was involved in the evaluation of several of the following items):














here's a maravich new orleans jazz game worn jersey that sold at auction which is from the same period as the "maravich" jacket - yet unlike the "maravich" jacket, the jersey has a team exclusivity tag (from the lot description: Both a "Sand-Knit 44" label and Sand-Knit exclusivity label are located on the left front tail.):





and here are some other game worn items from the same era, all with team exclusivity tags (note: a few of the following items have what may be transitional sand-knit tagging from the era in question):




















so what does mears have on their hands? mears has admitted they can find no evidence whatsoever that any jazz player ever wore such a jacket. further, the lack of a team exclusivity tagging casts extreme doubt on its authenticity. yet mears has given it a thumbs up, has written an loa for it, and claims that it's an authentic gamer. could the sky-high prices maravich items have fetched recently have anything to do with this?

sand-knit obviously manufactured authentic garments for retail sale (the recent jack lambert jersey is a good example). sand-knit obviously also made salesman samples. this "maravich" jacket could easily be such an item, even probable, given the lack of team exclusivity tagging that was prevalent during that era.

whatever the case, the fact that mears clearly made no mention of the lack of team exclusivity tagging, especially considering this tagging was present on all of the exemplars they claimed to have referenced in their lot description, makes this whole thing smack of something far from above board. mears is supposed to be the good guys, the guys that are transparent, the guys that help collectors, not the guys that take collectors for a ride.

[otismalibu]

Robert,

You clearly have an axe to grind with MEARS

A picture is worth a thousand words. Obviously, no picture. Maybe more than a thousand words.

The next auction house to cut & paste Wiki for their item description should be publicly caned.

This is my favorite part.

Although unsuccessful in our attempts to find an exact photo match, what the above (research) did provide us was style matches of Jackets worn by the Jazz from 1975-78.

Read that 3 times and you'll suffer a Percy Harvin. So they style matched it to something that doesn't match. Brilliant!

Somewhere, Lou Lampson is laughing so hard, he just blew a seam out of his plaid shirt. A shirt, I might ad, that I've style matched to one that Sean Connery wore during an ET interview in 1986. Thus making Lou Lampson, everyone's favorite James Bond.

[aeneas01]

Robert, You clearly have an axe to grind with MEARS

actually, i really don't have a beef with the guys at mears - in fact i like dave grob quite a bit (even tho i'm sure i make it pretty tough for him to feel the same about me!), the work, effort and info he puts into his articles is just first-rate. but when i come across something like this, it's just too hard to ignore!

as far as their style-match claims are concerned, it would be interesting to see what they came up with given some of their other style-match work (the portland beavers shirt comes to mind (the collar wasn't even close), some of their barry bonds style-matches also come to mind (claimed that a butterfly cut was a match even tho barry sported set-in sleeves), etc.). can't begin to imagine what their idea of a style-match to this jacket might be....

fwiw, here's their maravich jacket sans a team exclusivity tag:



...

[otismalibu]

actually, i really don't have a beef with the guys at mears

I was quoting another board member, from another thread.

[Jags Fan Dan]

I won a 1994 Packers jersey from Mears and the "style matches" they sent to me with the jersey were all from 1993 when the Packers wore their own franchise 75th anniversary patches, versus the NFL 75th patch on the 1994 jersey.

[33bird]

I could be wrong, but I highly doubt Dave Grob had anything to do with this Maravich jacket. I think he sticks to baseball. My guess is this is their other guys.

[aeneas01]

I won a 1994 Packers jersey from Mears and the "style matches" they sent to me with the jersey were all from 1993 when the Packers wore their own franchise 75th anniversary patches, versus the NFL 75th patch on the 1994 jersey.

mears' has a history of claiming "stlye-matches" on their worksheets which are nothing of the sort - and they've blamed interns, new employees, and a lack of of proper training for these issues. nonetheless the problems continue and, unfortunately, it appears that Mears continues to sign these worksheets which presumably means that they have reviewed and approved their content.

I could be wrong, but I highly doubt Dave Grob had anything to do with this Maravich jacket. I think he sticks to baseball. My guess is this is their other guys.

from what i understand, mears ended up purchasing the jacket for $4k. as to the mears lot writeup on the thing, it doesn't appear to be grob's work. here's the thing - mears has such a bad history of purchasing "fringe" items and turning them into "valuable, authentic gamers" by virtue of writing a letter and slapping a grade on them. the jim brown jersey comes immediately to mind, so does the bart starr jersey, and this "maravich" mess is just the latest example.

mears rejects items submitted to them for authentication all of the time, mears stamps and records them as unable to authenticate. yet when these items are owned by mears, they somehow seem to get the benefiit of the doubt plus a mears letter and a grade - even when style-match proof can't be found, even when photo proof can't be found and even when tagging is not at all consistent with known exemplars. mears has developed a history of rejecting submitted items based on criteria which apparently does not apply to their own items - the inherent problems with this practice are quite obvious.

here's mears' mission statement:

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Our mission at MEARS is simple…to provide the hobby with unparalleled evaluation and research services resulting in both informed and empowered collectors. How do we measure success? It won't be measured on the accounts we have, but rather if what we're doing counts when it comes to collector confidence in making informed purchase decisions.

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mears' doesn't once mention in their "maravich" lot description that the jacket is missing team exclusivity tagging which not only was the norm during the era in question but also something that all of the exemplars they referenced included. nor did mears once mention in their jim brown loa that the jersey was missing the very important blepp-coombs tagging common to cleveland browns jerseys of that era. so how do these omissions aide the collector "... in making informed decisions" per their mission statement? they don't - in fact these omissions come across as a con job.

...

[sox83cubs84]

I'm not speaking about this item, per se, but when I was employed there, it was fairly normal to grade a warmup top or jacket as "authentic" rather than provide it a numeric grade.

Dave Miedema

[aeneas01]

I'm not speaking about this item, per se, but when I was employed there, it was fairly normal to grade a warmup top or jacket as "authentic" rather than provide it a numeric grade.

when you worked for mears was it also normal to grade an item as "authentic" even though no supporting evidence could be provided? even though no photos or exemplars matching the tagging could be provided?

this isn't a flip question - i'm wondering if perhaps mears reserves "authentic" grades for sketchy items while awarding numerical grades to items that can be conclusively matched, which seems to be the case with the following warm-up from the exact same period which mears graded an a-9.5:





whatever the case, mears claiming that the "maravich" jacket is an authentic gamer is just plain wrong and downright embarrassing. it smacks of "we've gotten away with it before so why not continue to do it." heck it could even be legitimately argued that the tagging style isn't conclusively from new orleans' inaugural season despite mears' claim to the contrary.

perhaps an "authentic" grade equates to the same nonsense as an a-5? if not, then why didn't mears give the "maravich" jacket a numerical grade as they did the sloan? just a ridiculous mess with one aim in mind - to imply authenticity in the item when so such authenticity exists. shame.

...

[PAC]

The next auction house to cut & paste Wiki for their item description should be publicly caned.

This is my favorite part.

Although unsuccessful in our attempts to find an exact photo match, what the above (research) did provide us was style matches of Jackets worn by the Jazz from 1975-78.

Read that 3 times and you'll suffer a Percy Harvin. So they style matched it to something that doesn't match. Brilliant!

Somewhere, Lou Lampson is laughing so hard, he just blew a seam out of his plaid shirt. A shirt, I might ad, that I've style matched to one that Sean Connery wore during an ET interview in 1986. Thus making Lou Lampson, everyone's favorite James Bond.

LOL