2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

[EndzoneSports]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

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,

[mr.miracle]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

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.

[mr.miracle]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

"Steve J @ VA was also contacted via e-mail and he responded that he was "going to see Lou later today and will be discussing this with him."

actually, i'd like to see how that conversation went.

steve - "lou, there's a bit of a problem with this elway. it was only worn for 1 game and yet you've authenticated four of these. in fact, you authenticated one for AMI and then turned around and authenticated one for us in the same month!"

lou - "trust me victor, you've got THE ONE"

steve - "it's not victor. it's steve. from vintage authentics?"

lou - "vintage what? oh yeah, what's what i meant. steve. you've got it buddy"

steve - "well ok. but lou, the football hall of fame says they have the one"

lou - "football hall of fame?! what the hell do they know? do they have 8000 photos?"

steve - "well....probably. they.."

lou - "have they authenticated for the smithsonian? i'm LOU LAMPSON! do you hear me jensen? LAMPSON!!! the football hall of fame has nothing on me! say it with me steve, LAMPSON!!"

steve - "LAMPSON!!"

lou - "ok good. now don't bother me with these elways any more. pass me some of those 1989 bo jackson home jerseys. geezus i've done so many of these. who's this for again? vintage flannel?".

rudy.

Rudy:

You are hilarious, I cannot stop laughing.

[allstarsplus]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Originally Posted by CollectGU
To be fair to the auction houses, we are looking at and complaining about 5- 10 jerseys, often the other 300 don't seem to have problems, and in fact there are some really nice items often offered. No excuse for the 5 -10 wrong, but if auction houses like AMI at least pull them when notified with a problem it means that things are changing for the better in the hobby.

Regards,
Dave

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

[ChrisCavalier]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

the elway is still up on VA. bidding is up to $1104. so i guess that's their answer?

both auction houses have lampson authenticate the same jersey and yet one decides to pull it and the other doesn't. it's a little confusing.

rudy.

Hello Everyone,

I'm trying to get caught up on things after having minor surgery last week and I have to say I find this thread fascinating. First of all, to Patrick and everyone who participated on this thread, I really have to say I think you guys have done a tremendous job explaining this situation.

I also have one question. Is it possible that Elway wore more than one jersey in the September 1994 game? Absent that possibility, I'm really trying to figure out how in the world this jersey is still being auctioned after a review of the information that has been presented here. If Elway did wear only one jersey in that game, why has this jersey not been pulled?

Has there not been enough evidence presented here to show a mistake was likely made when authenticating the jersey? Or, is there not at least enough information to show there are significant questions that need to be answered before a collector spends thousands of dollars on this jersey (the bidding is currently at about $1,700 with the premium with about a week left in the auction)?

Thanks in advance for any additional information that I might be missing.

Sincerely,
Chris

[CollectGU]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

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...unfortunately, even though I hate to admit it, if something really sweet came along I'd probably go after it

everyone makes mistakes once in a while but this is a joke...the auction houses know exactly what's going on...they must have some great connections because 95% of their auctions contain the same garbage as the last one...and their next auction will continue the trend and so on...

by running an honest & ethical business is what will keep you around...I've seen MANY dealers come and go...at first, a lot of them ran a great gig, but unfortunately greed took over...I think that's the problem with today's auctions...GREED!!!!!...I believe that Meigray, without any comparison, runs the best customer-oriented business that I have seen in my 19 years of experience...100% guarentees, they take the time to fully inspect a product, and genuinly strive to make absolute, 100% sure, that they are selling an authentic product...

I believe that this site will be around for a long time, and we'll still be dealing with Meigray....but through historical trends, my money says that most of these auction houses, along with Lampson, won't be around in 5 years

To be fair to the auction houses, we are looking at and complaining about 5- 10 jerseys, often the other 300 don't seem to have problems, and in fact there are some really nice items often offered. No excuse for the 5 -10 wrong, but if auction houses like AMI at least pull them when notified with a problem it means that things are changing for the better in the hobby.

Regards,
Dave

[kingjammy24]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

"Steve J @ VA was also contacted via e-mail and he responded that he was "going to see Lou later today and will be discussing this with him."

actually, i'd like to see how that conversation went.

steve - "lou, there's a bit of a problem with this elway. it was only worn for 1 game and yet you've authenticated four of these. in fact, you authenticated one for AMI and then turned around and authenticated one for us in the same month!"

lou - "trust me victor, you've got THE ONE"

steve - "it's not victor. it's steve. from vintage authentics?"

lou - "vintage what? oh yeah, what's what i meant. steve. you've got it buddy"

steve - "well ok. but lou, the football hall of fame says they have the one"

lou - "football hall of fame?! what the hell do they know? do they have 8000 photos?"

steve - "well....probably. they.."

lou - "have they authenticated for the smithsonian? i'm LOU LAMPSON! do you hear me jensen? LAMPSON!!! the football hall of fame has nothing on me! say it with me steve, LAMPSON!!"

steve - "LAMPSON!!"

lou - "ok good. now don't bother me with these elways any more. pass me some of those 1989 bo jackson home jerseys. geezus i've done so many of these. who's this for again? vintage flannel?".

rudy.

[kingjammy24]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

"Steve J @ VA was also contacted via e-mail and he responded that he was "going to see Lou later today and will be discussing this with him." We'll see what transpires."

the elway is still up on VA. bidding is up to $1104. so i guess that's their answer?

both auction houses have lampson authenticate the same jersey and yet one decides to pull it and the other doesn't. it's a little confusing.

rudy.

[lund6771]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

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...unfortunately, even though I hate to admit it, if something really sweet came along I'd probably go after it

everyone makes mistakes once in a while but this is a joke...the auction houses know exactly what's going on...they must have some great connections because 95% of their auctions contain the same garbage as the last one...and their next auction will continue the trend and so on...

by running an honest & ethical business is what will keep you around...I've seen MANY dealers come and go...at first, a lot of them ran a great gig, but unfortunately greed took over...I think that's the problem with today's auctions...GREED!!!!!...I believe that Meigray, without any comparison, runs the best customer-oriented business that I have seen in my 19 years of experience...100% guarentees, they take the time to fully inspect a product, and genuinly strive to make absolute, 100% sure, that they are selling an authentic product...

I believe that this site will be around for a long time, and we'll still be dealing with Meigray....but through historical trends, my money says that most of these auction houses, along with Lampson, won't be around in 5 years

[EndzoneSports]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Steve J @ VA was also contacted via e-mail and he responded that he was "going to see Lou later today and will be discussing this with him." We'll see what transpires.

Regards,

[Eric]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Dave

Thanks for following up on this and for giving us the info. What is more baffling is how mr lampson can keep writing letters on these jerseys if they were only used in 1 game.

I wonder what will happen to the one in vintage authentics...

[CollectGU]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

FYI, I contacted AMI and offered them all the information posted, and theyhave agreed to pull this item from the current auction.

Regards,
Dave

[EndzoneSports]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

As we have recently received a number of contacts regarding the 1994 Elway “Thowback” jerseys, I thought it would be best to recap the entire history here.

• In Nov 1998, Endzone Sports Charities (ESC) procures a size 48 white, road 1994 “Thowback” jersey authenticated by Grey Flannel (LOA # R.V. 324E, 2/9/1998), presumed to be the authentic jersey worn by QB John Elway on Sep 26. ‘94 at Buffalo—the only game where this style of jersey was worn by the Broncos. ESC jersey subsequently sold in good faith, as we had since procured another sample for our collection.
• An October 2000 article in the Denver Rocky Mountain News highlighted several pieces of Broncos memorabilia that were a part of the HOF's collection. One of the items noted was, "John Elway's complete Throwback uniform from the 1994 season." On Aug 27, 2001 Jason Aikens of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, confirmed via e-mail that, “Our Elway throwbacks jersey is white and size 44”, thus initially raising speculation.
• ESC contacted Grey Flannel (GF) on 4/28/01 when they offered a 2nd jersey of the same style (in size 44) as Lot #1130 in their 2001 Spring Training auction. The auction closed at $9,300 (including 15% buy. prem.).
• Subsequently, in June ’01, we were contacted by another collector who had yet a 3rd Grey Flannel jersey, this one a size 46 (LOA # M.N. 949B, 7/10/1995). On 9/3/01, Andy Imperato of GF was advised of the apparent existence of 4 jerseys—three authenticated/sold by GF, and one at the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• In Aug 2002, American Memorabilia (AMI) offers one of this style jersey (size 48, unautographed, described as showing, “light QB wear” by authenticator Lou Lampson). The auction closes on 9/2/02, selling at $4,637, including 15% buy. prem.
• In Oct 2004, AMI offers the 2nd Elway jersey of this style (size 48, autographed/pers (To Tom) in black, described as showing, “Awesome quarterback wear--check out the armpits in particular. There's heavy pilling…” by authenticator Lou Lampson dba 100% Authentic). The auction closed on 4/7/05, selling at $6,335, including 15% buy. prem. (See http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=10169). Contacting after the appearance of their 2nd jersey of this style was offered, AMI rep stated that, “we have to go by our authenticator’s opinion”.
• In May 2005, ESC posts an article at its web site entitled, “Unique” Elway Jerseys Abound (see http://endzone.pscoggin.com/newsarch.htm) speculating that “…at least some of these jerseys may have originated from a lot that was created though a business partnership. In 1995 a Denver-area memorabilia dealer was contacted about purchasing the remaining stock of unused Wilson Throwback jersey blanks. The dealer acquired these jersey blanks—the same exact blanks as those provided to the team—and had the entire lot made up as Elway jerseys with appropriate numbers and nameplates. The dealer entered into an agreement with John Elway whereas, in exchange for his autograph on a number of the jerseys, which the dealer would retain for sale, John would be given a quantity in payment for his services, to do with as he wished. It is suspected that these likely were given away as gifts, donated for charitable functions and the like, with no way of telling exactly how many of these may now be circulating accompanied by "game worn" credentials.”
• In Sep 2005, offers the 3rd Elway jersey of this style (size 48, autographed in silver, described as a, “lightly-used garment” by authenticator Lou Lampson dba 100% Authentic). The auction closed on 10/21/04, selling at $2,221, including 15% buy. Prem. (See http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=13525).
• It would appear that this same jersey was consigned for AMI’s auction ending 4/26/07 (see lot # 30 at http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=35956) and is described by authenticator Lou Lampson dba 100% Authentic, as exhibiting “Light quarterback wear, as would be expected from a style used for only a few games” (sic)
• Also, in March 2007, Vintage Authentics offered a similarly styled jersey, this time in a size 46 and also authenticated by Lampson (see http://pics1.edeal.com/images/p2/wl/vintageauth/docs/elway94gujerslou6-50001.jpg) who described the evidence of use for this jersey as “light apropos single game” (See http://vintageauthentics.at.truition... unbr=81766075)

Regards,

[lund6771]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

this eally shows how stupid Lampson is...he also authenticated a bunch of Brett Favre throwbacks as well that was worn on Halloween night against the Bears...Lampson would probably say that it's very common for a star player to change jerseys after every play...I can't wait to walk into the post office someday and see a wanted poster of this idiot

[Eric]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Patrick provided additional valuable info on the old forum on this very topic.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/379976/thread/1111851849/last-1111949488/94+Throwback+Elway+Jerseys+LOA'd+by+Lampson