Esiason jersey on Grey Flannel

[solarlottry]

I have been in the exact same position as "boomstick" with regards to multiple 49er shirts over the years. Without doing exhaustive research there is the distinct possibility that a collector can pass up a perfectly good, and in some cases rare, jersey because it is different than what was worn previously.

My worst case of passing and eventually losing out on a gamer, was a beautiful 1994 Steve Young preseason gamer with legit team letter that I bought and returned due to the lack of a Wilson W on the sleeve. I checked Getty, AP images etc and just could not find a match so I sent it back for a refund. About a week later I find a perfect match on Getty, except the image is misdated by a year or so. The shirt had already been resold and eventually ended up on the Panini cutting block. A friend who has access to Panini mentioned that he saw the exact shirt at their HQ being cut up. Needless to say I am still ticked off at the entire situation even though it occurred over 2 years ago.

Since the loss of the Steve Young gamer I try to do as much research as possible prior to buying and/or sending items back.

Recently I purchased a Ricky Watters rookie gamer with a strange story behind it. Once I received and examined the jersey the nameplate jumped out at me. It was made out of an entirely different material than the jersey and without a good reference library of jerseys and images, I may have called it un- authentic. I was able to match the nameplate material to similar material on both my 1991 John Taylor and my 1993 Romo gamer. Thus a great shirt that I may have rejected is now part of my collection.

I think we all have to be quite careful when we label or accuse someone of selling or possessing a fake or un-authentic jersey. From my two examples as well as the Boomer shirt talked about above, it is clear that there can be multiple gamers of a player that do not conform to the usual characteristics.

Solid research is critical when buying, selling, returning or posting one's opinion about what is real and what is not. I, for one, do not want to make the same mistake I made regarding the 94 Steve Young, and lose a irreplaceable gamer!

Always buying 49ers gamers and ALL/ANY 1994 49ers GU items!
Paul
garciajones@yahoo.com