Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

[kingjammy24]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

stupid me, i just realized the lambert jersey is the one that just sold in the mastro auction for $3500:

http://live.mastroauctions.com/index.cfm?action=DisplayContent&ContentName=Lot%20Information&LotIndex=88717&LastLotListing=Lot%20Search%20List&CurrentRow=1

so lambert contacted them, told them the jersey wasn't good and they refused to pull it. nice. to mastro's credit they did include a stylematch (as per their announcement that all jerseys in their auction have been "painstakingly photomatched") and here's their photo/stylematch:



for those who think i'm kidding, that's really it. painstaking indeed.
not sure if that million dollar advance that they paid on the football collection influenced things. anyway, i know their authenticators are a big secret and don't want to be associated with their work and mastro apparently doesn't want to be associated with them, but one look at that LOA they posted and the unique prose screams sweet lou lampson. in the very first paragraph lou launches one into the grandstands and clears the bases:

"Lambert was a "long sleeve" guy for the majority of his career, save for perhaps the final year ('84) or two ('83). Colleagues have suggested that pictures exist from very late career of Lambert with short sleeves, and, but the point here is that the sleeves were cut and hemmed, probably after game use for potential use in off season mini camps, informal workouts, and even training camp"

wow. did those suggestive colleagues manage to produce even a single pic or did they just keep it all to suggestions? i can't do even do lou's letters justice. reading them brings me almost as much joy as watching tina fey do sarah palin. anyway, the LOA is posted. lou, in typical lampson fashion, states it's not an ideal lambert, but "acceptable nonetheless". (isn't everything?). anyway, there's no way that LOA is anyone but lampson so i guess now we know who mastro uses and it's not surprising they refuse to put his name on the items. i imagine lou doesn't even want to be associated with his work anymore.

rudy.

[mfsquirrelmaster]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I'm sure there is a reason why Lambert always wore sleeves and he would remember that. Maybe he didn't like the way they fit. Who knows. Gretzky may believe he has all of his gamers, but who knows what happened when they were in the possession of the equipment manager or other team employees.

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

No problem mvandor, I am just a really funny guy and I can't handle someone not laughing(more humor). I just thought with all the hatin' going on in other threads, I would take a stab at humor. Anyways, back to the original topic of this thread, I would have to agree with ol' Jack on this one. It appears he NEVER wore short sleeves!

Todd Ricks

[mvandor]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

For the third time, I realize the pics of him off Getty are while he was at Kent. That was part of the humor, that I had to go back that far to find a photo of him wearing short sleeves. Please, no one pic it apart anymore. Please read all previous posts before posting comments.

Todd

Chill, my post crossed with the other one, when it posted I saw someone else had already said it and you'd responded.

Dry wit, I get it.

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

For the third time, I realize the pics of him off Getty are while he was at Kent. That was part of the humor, that I had to go back that far to find a photo of him wearing short sleeves. Please, no one pic it apart anymore. Please read all previous posts before posting comments.

Todd

[mvandor]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I found two different photos of Lambert wearing jerseys without sleeves. Evidently he can't remember back to 1971. They are under getty images 81248287 & 81248287

You all should get a laugh out of this, but my wasn't he a handsome young man! LOL!

Don't know if your humor went over my head or not but that's him at Kent State, not Pittsburgh....

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

Yeah, I realize that. I was trying to throw some humor in there. The other photo was 81248286. Evidently you didn't sense my sarcasm in my last post. I did see a couple of photos with Jack wearing his Game Warden uniform. I did not know he was ever a game warden. But, if you look at the uniform he is wearing, you guessed it, LONG sleeve. LOL Anyways, I did notice the pics were from his college days, I was just trying to be a wise guy. From what I have seen, I would have to agree ith Jack. I have never seen a photo of him wearing short sleeve. There is even one photo on getty's showing Jack at a camp in the heat of summer wearing his long sleeve jersey.

Thanks, Todd Ricks

[kingjammy24]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I found two different photos of Lambert wearing jerseys without sleeves. Evidently he can't remember back to 1971. They are under getty images 81248287 & 81248287

You all should get a laugh out of this, but my wasn't he a handsome young man! LOL!

from lambert's website, they said "we informed the auction house that Jack never, EVER wore short sleeves during any NFL game". the photo above (it's only one as both of the image numbers are the same) is from lambert during his college tenure. lambert entered the NFL in 1974.

had the NFL not come calling, jack could've been a leading man in hollywood. the other actors probably would've called him a prettyboy though.



rudy.

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I found two different photos of Lambert wearing jerseys without sleeves. Evidently he can't remember back to 1971. They are under getty images 81248287 & 81248287

You all should get a laugh out of this, but my wasn't he a handsome young man! LOL!

[BarryMeisel]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

Hi everybody,

This is a good topic, and I think it is important to remember that context is important here.

Nathan is correct, Wayne Gretzky in a newspaper story years ago was quoted as casting doubt on all his game-worn jerseys in the hobby. Now we have photo-matched six of his game-worn Oilers jerseys, including one from the 1988 Stanley Cup Finals, so we know he was not correct.

But we believe we understood the context of what Gretzky was saying. (Since we were not speaking to him directly, we can't say for certain). We believe he was trying to warn collectors away from the flood of fakes. And while we applaud that, we believe Gretzky should have not made such a blanket statement.

Regards, Barry

[kingjammy24]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

Well said Rudy. I agree with you on it being a case to case basis. The fact is, to most of the athletes, it is just a job they do and they are not worried about what the strip tag says or what patch is applied to the sleeve. Then again, there are probably some athletes that do know about that stuff.

Todd Ricks

frankly, i think if you managed to get an honest player with a good memory, they'd be able to tell you some incredible pieces of insight about some of their items. sure canseco didn't know the difference between a pair of expos pants and jays pants but i'm guessing he didn't much care about his pants. he'd probably be able to give some good insight into how he specifically scored his bat handles though. i think it depends on how personal the item was to the athlete. i think ripken could probably talk for hours about his gloves or ted williams could discuss his bats for days on end. if you look at jerseys, some athletes take a laundry list of customizations indicating they're very particular about their shirts while others wear completely stock shirts indicating that they're likely not as particular. i've seen some athlete interviews where the players discussed certain items and some of the insight was incredible.

plus it seems like in this day and age items are more disposable than they were in the past. many more items are being collected and sold than in the past so the players aren't with their items for as long as they used to be.

i guess what i'm saying in all of this is that there are many variables in the whole "athlete provenance" equation and depending on those variables, athlete provenance can either be an incredible goldmine or a big letdown.

rudy.

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

Well said Rudy. I agree with you on it being a case to case basis. The fact is, to most of the athletes, it is just a job they do and they are not worried about what the strip tag says or what patch is applied to the sleeve. Then again, there are probably some athletes that do know about that stuff.

Todd Ricks

[kingjammy24]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

i think the issue of athlete provenance entirely depends on the particular athlete. they're no different than the rest of the populace in that some of them have great memories and some not so great. some of them are as honest as the day is long and some are downright dishonest. i don't think blanket logic ought to be applied here to say that that all athletes are unreliable or that all athlete provenance is a guarantee. i think it's subjective. unfortunately, in this hobby, that's pretty much what happens. athlete provenance is all treated the same, as if all athletes are the same type of person. it's assumed that if an athlete says it's game worn then it is. there's no distinction of who actually made the comment and whether that specific athlete is reliable or not.

i think the other part that needs to be individually evaluated is the specific claim being made. i think some claims would be realistic for an athlete to be able to make, such as lambert simply knowing whether he wore short sleeves or not, and others, such as hank aaron positively identifying a specific bat used to hit a specific home run in one specific game 34 years after an equipment manager gave it away, would be highly unrealistic. lambert's claim is pretty broad and simple. aaron's claim, on the other hand, is so specific as to be completely absurd.

i think the interesting part in the lambert article is the absolute refusal of the auction house to err on the side of caution and listen to lambert and remove the jersey until more research could be done. anyone know what house it was? looks like an old GFC background to me.

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?p=40892

https://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_...ead.php?t=8656

rudy.

[Canseco44]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I have thought about this exact topic alot. I know this is not comparing apples to apples, but I tried to think back to my High School football days(just 11 years ago) and I am not sure if I had the jersey I wore right in front of me, that I could tell you it was for sure the one I wore. That even goes for my basketball jerseys. Now can you imagine 30 years ago! I am not saying he wouldn't remember the sleeve length, I could probably do that, but could an athlete tell, for sure, it was there game jersey from 30 years ago. I would be surprised if any athlete was into their game jersey that much. I am not doubting Jack Lambert, but just athletes overall on this subject. I have a pair of Canseco pants that I got from him that he signed Expo Gamers. They are a pair of Blue Jay gamers that are even labeled 1998 in the waistline. He just signed them that way because of the blue and red colors on the stripes. He didn't even know how to read the waist band coding. I would personally not put a lot of faith into what a pro athlete remembers about there equipment.

Todd Ricks

[mvandor]

Re: Jack Lambert game worn jersey....

I believe the Lambert jersey was no good from the research and reasons given here. The fact that Jack Lambert says it's no good doesn't really enter into the equation.

The reason I say this is because it's not uncommon for a player to flat-out lie about his old gear. Although Barry Meisel can tell the story better than I can, Wayne Gretzky came out a few years back and made the statement that he owned everything he ever wore and therefore anything on the market was a fake. Obviously that's a mile from the truth. Bobby Orr came out publicly (on a national broadcast, I believe) and said that a jersey of his that was at Classic Auctions was no good because "there's no way we would have worn those in the Cup Finals". Never mind that it was photomatched a bunch of different ways....there are a lot of people that put more stock into what a player says and not enough into what someone who actually is an expert in the field says.

This seems pretty incontovertible to me. Lambert himself would certainly know something as basic as did he EVER wear short sleeves.

I certainly would take his word over Lou Lampson's absent photo proof to the contrary.

And I wish all major athletes took more of an interest in the hobby and keeping it clean.