Do auctions like this worry you?

[Vintagedeputy]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ALFONSO-SORIANO-...QQcmdZViewItem

[aeneas01]

not as much as a conversation i once had with a salesman...

among other things, i own and operate a restaurant and coffee roastery in a beautiful part of the country, in an area that is visited by over 3 million tourists per year - as such, a few years ago i decided to add garments that included my restaurant's name, logo and location to the items i already sold but wanted something other than your standard t-shirt and typical cap.

after a few phone calls a business friend put me in touch with a guy that could make any type of garment i wanted - he had a huge product line but said that the factories he did business with in south america, mainly chile, could also reproduce anything i wanted - even if it were a copy of an existing garment. he went on to say that the final product would be indistinguishable from the original and that after 25 years in the business he could locate all of the required material down to the stitching. further, his pricing structure was unbelievably low - so low, that it was something that john q public could get going without a large capital investment.

after this conversation i decided to make a few more calls and do a little internet research to see what else was out there - what i quickly found was that i could pretty much get anything i wanted manufactured to my exact specifications without the middle-man. in most cases not knowing the language of the country doing the manufacturing can be an obstacle because when you call you often get someone on the production floor. but given i'm fluent in spanish i found that doing business with mexico, central and south america would be an absolute snap.

anyway, i never did get around to getting my garments made, too much going on, but whenever i see fake jerseys for sale i can't help but immediately think of my experience and just how easy it would be to accomplish for anyone with slightest bit of determination.

heck, joe blow could easily get batting helmets and football helmets easily manufactured abroad - but this is a considerably more expensive proposition given the tooling and injection molding setup costs. but garments... a piece of cake.

[lund6771]

when i first started collecting game used jerseys in 1990, a card collecting friend tried talking me out of it...he stated that "a little old lady in China could duplicate any jersey out there if she had the original"....