MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?

[platinum1]

I'm curious how it was listed wrong or the item wasn't "as it seemed."

If I was the original person that bought this jersey on eBay, I would wait for the final price on the auction and unleash my lawyers on them and see if it's true that the jersey was purchased outside of eBay. Because then both the seller and Mears should be banned from eBay.

[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.

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[LWMM]

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_f...ad.php?t=10241


Is this MEARS post still around? I remember reading it at the time, and I'm sure that it would be interesting to look over again, all things considered.

[aeneas01]

Is this MEARS post still around? I remember reading it at the time, and I'm sure that it would be interesting to look over again, all things considered.

as mears' policy guy, dave grob has lobbied for a lot of good things that would make sports memorabilia collecting a much safer, enjoyable experience. but unfortunately his efforts have often gone ignored, even by mears. for example, dave has publicly voiced his dissatisfaction with mears' continuing (and deceptive) practice of referring to their a5 graded items as "game used". in fact dave posted an article on mears' site some time back about this very topic which in part read:

"If an (A5) jersey could in fact be one such offering as an extra or one manufactured for promotional sale or distribution and the use and wear only noted and not attributed, then describing it in a generic title listing as “game used” is not consistent with the language or logic of the A5 grade. I have made my feelings known to Troy in this matter and have suggested that these items be listed without this language in the title."

yet despite dave's rational and responsible recommendation, mears continues to describe a5 items as "game used" and has ignored dave completely in this matter.

as such one has to wonder what else mears has chosen to ignore. for example, are any mears' employees or friends of employees engaged in bidding up items listed in mears' auctions? did any of the bids currently showing for the "maravich" jacket come from anyone associated with mears? are mears employees actively purchasing items, even suspect items, and then writing their own lot descriptions for these items while also awarding them grades? if so, not a very comforting prospect.

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[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.

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[sox83cubs84]

aeneas:

There were items authenticated and graded without style/photo matches, but this normally was limited to low-end items...I don't recall anything the magnitude of the Maravich ever receiving such treatment.

Dave Miedema

[aeneas01]

aeneas: There were items authenticated and graded without style/photo matches, but this normally was limited to low-end items...I don't recall anything the magnitude of the Maravich ever receiving such treatment.

low-end items were authenticated without the benefit of style/photo matches? that's comforting. but i guess it's one way to boost the value of low-end items....

fwiw, mears has obviously become aware of this thread given that at the end of the "maravich" lot description the following has been added:

"For a matter of record, NBA items were often found with an "Exclusively Tailored For Tag." We have examined similar period NBA jersey from the same team that was found both with and without this tagging. We have one late 1970s example of an actual Jazz jersey found without the Exclusive tag."

unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this addendum is more mears double-talk and ultimately dishonest. mears states that they know of a LATE 70s example without an exclusivity tag. so what, i know of many LATE 70s examples without exclusivity tagging. but we're not talking about LATE 70s garments are we? we're talking about a garment mears claims is from the 1974/75 season. as such, what in the heck do LATE 70s exemplars have to do with the discussion?

fwiw, it's not uncommon to find LATE 70s sand-knit garments without exclusivity tagging nor is it uncommon to find LATE 70s garments without sporting goods tagging. but again, we're talking about a sand-knit garment that's supposed to from the mid 70s (not the LATE 70s) which, as was then the norm, included team exclusivity tagging. in fact every period-relevant exemplar mears said they used as a reference is fitted with team exclusivity tagging. so what's with this "LATE 70s" nonsense? how about this: let's see how many sand-knit gamers from the period in question, not the LATE 70s, mears can scare up without team exclusivity tagging.

btw, if mears honestly believes that this jacket is authentic then what does that say about mears' values and ethics as a company? and how does mears square this with their claim that they are in business to empower and educate collectors? i mean offering someone $4k for an item and then turning around and listing it as something worth "an estimated value of $20k+" doesn't exactly strike me as much of an education - perhaps it's a tough love type of thing?

anyway, as i mentioned before, it's just shameful that mears would grade this thing as "authentic" and then claim it's value is in excess of $20k given that mears clearly knows that garments from this era were fitted with team exclusivity tagging. it's even more shameful when one considers that mears has also admitted that they can find absolutely no proof whatsoever that any jazz player, let alone maravich, ever wore such a jacket.





btw mears said that they style-matched the maravich jacket back lettering to a pondexter exemplar (of course the pondexter jacket has a team exclusivity tag, go figure). anyway, here they are side by side - does this strike anyone as a style-match?



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[Sonny25]

I'm at a loss for words.

[both-teams-played-hard]

Some sort of style-match of any Jazz player wearing this style would be nice. MEARS hurried this warm-up to auction in about a week (an important piece like this needs more research and evaluation).
Sniping this jersey AFTER the auction ended is troubling, but has nothing to do with authenticity(doesn't speak well to "helping the hobby").
I have seen Sand-Knit jerseys from the late 60s to the late 80s without the exclusive tag:


By no means does this Kareem/Lew photo have anything to do with the legitimacy of the Maravich. This Milwaukee jersey may very well be a salesman sample/proto-type (the background is unknown). It is without the exclusive tag.