2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

[mr.miracle]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?
Dave - Don't seem to have problems???? Just because 5-10 are being scrutinized doesn't mean the other 300 are "assumed" good. Sure, there are some nice items as every auction house needs to highlight their auctions with "nice items" or else we wouldn't open the auction catalog.

After college, I became a licensed CPA. When doing audits, you learn statistical sampling because you have to manage time and can't thouroughly go through every piece of inventory. For example, if 300 was the size of the inventory, you may randomly choose "say" 20% or 60 pieces to audit. Then you would tear through those 60 and figure out how many of those were good or bad. If 10 of the 60 were bad, then you would assume 50 of the entire 300 would be bad.

If we went through the other 300 in a one by one fashion, how many perfectly tagged light use would we find? The light use is sometimes a flip of the coin as the consignor is generally the one who knows if it was really game used or a game-issued that was rolled around in the back yard and washed. They are harder to scrutinize when they are MLB or NBA jerseys. Easier to scrutinize when they are NFL jerseys.

If we went through the other 300 and the auction houses disclosed who the seller was, how many problems would we then find? Many eBay sellers have left to the anonymous cyberspace of the auction houses you speak of. Now they can hide behind their anonymity and feed the auction houses with their junk and hope and pray they receive a LOA and big bids.

We often times also mistake heavy bidding and big prices for credibility too. How many of these auction houses are allowing fake bids and shills that often give an illusion of safety and hence attract legitimate bids.

Note to Chris ---Hope you are feeling better!

Andrew

Andrew:

You are right on with your assessment. Because there is nobody that is truly policing this industry besides this forum and perhaps several others, that take an interest in the items being sold through the auction houses, there is a very real possibility that many, many additional items never get pulled that are questionable at best.

Lets be honest, even with all the members of this forum that collect many different items, not even a fraction of the many many items in the various auctions throughout the year get overly scrutinized and are left to the word of the authenticator. Andrew is correct, if just a small sample is found to have inherent flaws, then if we looked at these auctions as a whole and critiqued each item in them, how many more would we honestly find that were very questionable to outright fraudulent???

I think it is safe to say that almost every member of this forum would not touch something authenticated by Lampson with a ten foot pole. It is almost to the point where you would rather not have any type of authentication on the item and do your own due diligence than trust or purchase anything that Lou has authenticated.

[EndzoneSports]

I think it is safe to say that almost every member of this forum would not touch something authenticated by Lampson with a ten foot pole. It is almost to the point where you would rather not have any type of authentication on the item and do your own due diligence than trust or purchase anything that Lou has authenticated.

Brett:

There are indeed flaws in the authentication process, one of the most obvious being that it is not an exact science, but rather one of educated opinions. With this, errors will no doubt be made. We can debate until the fat lady sings about who makes more errors and/or whose mistakes are the most egregious, but the fact that they have made (and will continue to make) mistakes is a given.

Being part of an entity whose mission centers on research, education and historical preservation, I am a staunch advocate of collectors doing their own homework and coming to an educated guess on their own. However, having both utilized and provided authentication services, I am fully aware of the pros and cons on both sides of this issue. I also realize that there is a significant part of our collecting community that is reliant upon, and thus creates a demand for the 3rd party authentication services. This includes those in the business of selling (directly and via consignment), who want to at least give the appearance of staying at arm's length re: claims of authenticity as well as those purchasers, who, either through inexperience or lack of available resources, are reliant upon the opinions of those in the business of 3rd-party authentication.

As long as the demand for these services continues, those brave enough to offer these services will continue to thrive... And due to the nature of the process, mistakes will continue to be made. Comprised of both niche experts and passionate hobbyists, this forum provides an exceptional quality check for the authentication process. When errors occur, I believe that as a responsible community we have an obligation to bring this information to the attention of both the community at large as well as to the sellers; hopefully this will always be done in a professional and courteous manner. In kind, it is hoped that this information will be assessed and an appropriate response (via words or actions) given. In a great number of instances, feedback from this forum as resulted in items being pulled from auctions/sales, thus benefiting the hobby as a whole.

Regards,

[allstarsplus]

Brett:

There are indeed flaws in the authentication process, one of the most obvious being that it is not an exact science, but rather one of educated opinions. With this, errors will no doubt be made. We can debate until the fat lady sings about who makes more errors and/or whose mistakes are the most egregious, but the fact that they have made (and will continue to make) mistakes is a given.

Errors will occur and we have all made them, but when there is a pattern of these errors---is it really an error or perhaps something worse? That is certainly debatable. When there is easily obtainable photos or stats that would contradict a finding, is it an error made when the conclusion just isn't possible or plausible?

Here is Merriam Webster Dictionary definition of an error:

Main Entry: er·ror
Pronunciation: 'er-&r, 'e-r&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English errour, from Anglo-French, from Latin error, from errare
An act that through ignorance, deficiency, or accident departs from or fails to achieve what should be done

Originally Posted by Mr. Miracle
I think it is safe to say that almost every member of this forum would not touch something authenticated by Lampson with a ten foot pole. It is almost to the point where you would rather not have any type of authentication on the item and do your own due diligence than trust or purchase anything that Lou has authenticated.

I agree with Brett, if it has a Lou Lampson LOA/COA, I'm not buying and agree I would rather have no cert with the item.

Originally Posted by Lund6771
VA, AMI and others that use Lampson must be in this business for the short term...any business that has a good plan would cut off ties with a supplier/vendor immediately if they consistantly screwed up...they must have many upset customers and upset customers are not repeat customers...I know that I'm not and I'm sure there is many more of you out there that feel the same...

Agreed, and reps from those Auction Houses certainly read the Forum. I don't get it.

Andrew

[hiramman]

I for one will not buy or bid on an item if it is backed up with a Lou Lampson authentication letter. If he has authenticated it, then I just ignore the auction. If enough people do that, the auction houses will have to respond.

[lund6771]

anyone have any explanation as to why this thing is not pulled yet?????....is Lampson's opinion worth more than a guy who works at the HOF?????...come on!!!!

[EndzoneSports]

anyone have any explanation as to why this thing is not pulled yet?????....is Lampson's opinion worth more than a guy who works at the HOF?????...come on!!!!

I sent an email to Steve Jensen of Vinatge Auctions and he responded on 4/2 that he was "going to see Lou later today and will be discussing this with him." Having heard nothing further in a week, I sent a follow-up e-mail to Steve early on the morning of the 9th inquiring as to what came of the conversation; as of this time, I've not yet received a response.

Regards,

[lund6771]

Patrick...any word from VA on this shirt yet?

[mr.miracle]

Brett:

There are indeed flaws in the authentication process, one of the most obvious being that it is not an exact science, but rather one of educated opinions. With this, errors will no doubt be made. We can debate until the fat lady sings about who makes more errors and/or whose mistakes are the most egregious, but the fact that they have made (and will continue to make) mistakes is a given.

Being part of an entity whose mission centers on research, education and historical preservation, I am a staunch advocate of collectors doing their own homework and coming to an educated guess on their own. However, having both utilized and provided authentication services, I am fully aware of the pros and cons on both sides of this issue. I also realize that there is a significant part of our collecting community that is reliant upon, and thus creates a demand for the 3rd party authentication services. This includes those in the business of selling (directly and via consignment), who want to at least give the appearance of staying at arm's length re: claims of authenticity as well as those purchasers, who, either through inexperience or lack of available resources, are reliant upon the opinions of those in the business of 3rd-party authentication.

As long as the demand for these services continues, those brave enough to offer these services will continue to thrive... And due to the nature of the process, mistakes will continue to be made. Comprised of both niche experts and passionate hobbyists, this forum provides an exceptional quality check for the authentication process. When errors occur, I believe that as a responsible community we have an obligation to bring this information to the attention of both the community at large as well as to the sellers; hopefully this will always be done in a professional and courteous manner. In kind, it is hoped that this information will be assessed and an appropriate response (via words or actions) given. In a great number of instances, feedback from this forum as resulted in items being pulled from auctions/sales, thus benefiting the hobby as a whole.

Regards,

Patrick:

There is little doubt that as long as there are professional authenticators mistakes will be made by all. We can all reference discussed on this very forum from every authenticator out there that has been questionable at best over the years. However, that being said, the fact that time after time, over and over, item after item after item that is authenticated by Lou Lampson has been proven to be not only questionable but downright erroneous in every sense of the word.

If Lampson has over 8000 photos in his personal collection, perhaps he should add a few more by photographing items he has authenticated. That way when he references them against new items he could at least prevent the current situation with the Elway jersey from happening so that he would not look like a complete buffoon on a repeated basis.

At some point, the reputation of these auction houses that continue to use Lou Lampson's services is going to suffer and perhaps in some cases they already have. As the reputation of this very forum continues to grow and its membership ranks swell, the continuous flow of worthless LOA's that Lampson writes will continue to come up in debate on this forum for all to see. Real or not, authentic or not, as this continues nobody will purchase anything authenticated by Lampson at least if they spend any time reading the weekly comedy routine on this forum that is the Lou Lampson authentication process. Actually, it is more like a greek tragedy as hard working individuals are trusting that this man has done his utmost to ensure that the items he is authenticating are what they are portrayed to be. People are dumping tens of thousands of dollars per item in some cases into items that are complete garbage and as it has been pointed out on this forum before, Lampson is laughing all the way to the bank.

It was pointed out on this forum before that even when AMI or Vintage has contacted Lampson about very, very questionable items and presented to him the issues raised, he has more or less said trust me, it is real. That is some level of reassurance and certainly goes a long way toward clarifying issues surrounding the items.

Nobody is perfect and nobody expects anybody to be perfect however we do expect Mr. Lampson to do his job and do it right. As it stands now, it looks like he is more concerned with quantity over quality and rubber stamping as many items with his seal of approval as he can.

Does anybody know how I can go into the memorabilia authentication industry??? Outside of weathermen I am not sure what other career allows one to make so many mistakes and still retain a job.