the jordan shirt closed at $11k. i wonder if the winning bidder was made aware by mastro that mears was unable to authenticate the shirt.

- "For the year 2007, MEARS was only contracted with Mastro Auctions and REA. The contract called for us to look at all game worn/used items submitted to those houses. With our long-standing policy, a grade is assigned to each and every bat and jersey we offer opinions on. This included both favorable opinions and items deemed unable to authenticate. We have mandated for our auction house contracts that all our grades, which sometimes are low and not favorable, are printed in the lot description of their catalogs." - Troy Kinunen

so does that mean that mastro violated the contract?

while doug allen calls mears "the esteemed authentication service", it's not hard to see why dave grob fails to return the love and has publically stated that as long as allen is in charge, not only will he not do any work for them but he won't even bid on an item.

- some of the network54 folks have mentioned that it may be a JV shirt.
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re: the ted williams shirt

"In lieu of this, Mastro Auctions confidently stands by the jersey's authenticity on the basis of our analysis and our extensive experience and expertise handling the hobby's most elite and expensive game-worn uniforms."

if mastro apparently has their own in-house team of aces whose opinions override mears, then why did mastro bother hiring mears in the first place? from what it sounds like, mastro has all the expertise and experience needed so i fail to see why they shelled out the money to hire mears. or does their expertise only come in to play when mears rejects a $29k jersey?

anyway, the williams jersey closed at $29k.

rudy.