Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
You make a lot of negative statements, bringing up 2-3 items from the past that you don't like the work MEARS did but you fail to mention the thousands of items MEARS did a find job writing up over the years.
The handling of the Maravich jacket has raised many questions. It appears that Dave Grob is stepping down as policy director over this item, at least that is how I read his post on the MEARS forum. I just don't understand how you can go from raising questions to making assumptions about this situation without having solid proof.
MEARS should be ashamed of their interference with an eBay sale, if this is true, and the handling of this item in general. Making assumptions of the daily history is not how to go about making your point.
Does the consensus feel this jacket should have been labeled as either prototype or single game used jacket with no photographic evidence to back up use at this time? At least they would have covered both extremes if they went this direction.
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
Since MEARS owned the jacket, I wonder if the winning bidder was still charged a "Buyer's Premium"?
Imagine selling an item on eBay and then telling the winning bidder they had to add another 20% to their final price.
Just an opinion
JimLeave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
a few thoughts:
i believe this sitch is especially reprehensible given that it appears mears knew full well that the jacket they were purchasing was highly questionable to start with, yet they purchased it nonetheless confident in the knowledge that they could make it sellable, at an enormous profit, simply by deeming it "mears authenticate". mears has done this before (bart starr jersey for example) and they obviously did it again. and of course the way mears obtained the item, and what they paid for it, is equally reprehensible given that they tried to position it as a $20k+ item.
let's be clear here - mears is an outfit that has painted itself as a pillar of honestly, integrity, trust and fair deals. an outfit that claims no conflicts of interest exist in what they do because they adhere to a strict code of ethics. yet we see the same shenanigans from mears again and again.
the last time mears was caught with their hand in the cookie jar, dave bushing indignantly said that he would no longer authenticate and blamed collectors for publicly calling mears out:
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"...if you make a single error, regardles of how trivial... no matter what it is, it never seems to be enough for the self proclaimed so called authorities who wait at the computer for an auction catalog to come out merely for the purpose to rip it to shreads to show the world how much they know and how little others do. This behavior is no longer tolerable to me... I will concentrate soley on the for sale sight and will not grade nor authenticate my purchases and will leave that to the staff."
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for the record, Mears has also lectured collectors about the unethical habit of unscrupulous dealers who approach ebay sellers privately with low-ball offers:
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"Is it ethical to offer an unsuspecting ebay seller $400 for a game bat that should sell for ten times that? I understand that people see a great item... but a legitimate offer should be at least 50% of retail. Anything less is nothing less than fraudulent as you know the value but you choose to cheat the seller out of their just rewards... if you offer an unsuspecting ebay seller ten cents on the dollar, you are a cheat, plain and simple... it should be criminal to offer the unsuspecting seller a mere pitance of the true value (per the Roadshow Civil War Sword lawsuit, it is auctually criminal if the buyer is knowledgable and does not offer a fair price). Ebay sellers, get wise to these guys..."
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beautiful. anyway, Mears clearly didn't offer the ebay seller $4k out of the blue for the jacket (which btw equates to less than 1/5 of the $20k+ mears' estimated its value to be - so much for the 50% mumbo jumbo). after all, the ebay jacket ended with a winning ebay bid of $200. no, the seller had other offers on the thing and mears had to cough up $4k to get it. one can only imagine how much mears would have picked it up for had the seller not received other offers which drove mears price up to $4k. $300? $500?
game used maravich items fetch solid prices, in fact a quick search comes up with the following prices for maravich items sold at auction: $108,000, $98,400, $50,788, $48,884, $44,200, $36,716, $33,000, $23,500, $21,600, $19,200, $18,000, $15,600, $14,340, $13,200, $10,800, $10,755.
given this, it's not too hard to understand why mears was so eager to try and float the jacket as a maravich gamer - they clearly stood to gain handsomely. which brings to something else: this isn't simply a case of an authenticator doing a shoddy/rushed job in order to collect his fees. nor is it a case of an auction house overstating the merits of a consignor's item in order to collect on buyer/seller fees. nope, these issues pale in comparison to what mears did with this jacket.
mears came across an item that they clearly knew had serious issues - but because it was maravich related, mears thought that they could gain handsomely by picking it up on the cheap and then validating it with a mears grade. unethically, mears contacted the ebay seller privately to arrange the deal even though that meant that ebay's fees would be circumvented and that the rightful ebay winner would be robbed of his item. additionally, mears low-balled the ebay seller given mears' clear knowledge of what authenticated maravich items fetch at sports memorabilia auctions. just shameful.
the only bright spot in this whole mess is that it's clear dave grob had nothing to do with it. in fact, given dave's recent post to the the mears board, he finds mears' hand in this as indefensible as everyone here.
btw here's another chuckle: in order to maximize the value of the "maravich jacket", mears had to attribute it to the jazz's inaugural season. given that they knew photos existed of jazz players wearing jackets during the second half of the 1974/75 season, they claimed that the this jacket was from the first half of the 1974/75 season and that the tagging confirmed it, that the tagging was unique to 1974.
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"Per the MEARS tagging database, this style of tag, with the medalist gold medal to the right of the Sand Knit wording, was most consistently last used during the 1974 season. Starting in 1975, examples are found with the gold medal at the bottom of the tag. Thus, the design is most consistent with 1974."
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what utter bs. tag "a" below is what's on the "maravich" jacket, which mears claims is a 1974 tag. tag "b" is what mears claims to be a 1975 tag. however tag "c" is from a 1975/76 game used maravich jersey (from the jazz's second year), and it matches tag "a", with the medal logo to the right of sand-knit. this jersey is in the mears database. whatever it takes to make a buck i guess.....
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
aeneas01
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jags Fan Dan
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 he has reviewed and approved their content.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 33bird"
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.............
I guess it was $4000, according to this post. WOWLeave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
Once again, I find Dave Grob a person I'd feel completely comfortable doing business with.
Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.comLeave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
If anyone has a way to contact the REAL eBay winner - who got screwed in their purchase - I would contact them and point them to Dave Grob's note that flatout says that YES, MEARS did in fact obtain the jacket AFTER the FACT of the eBay Auction closing and have that eBay seller banned.
But that's just me.
It would be nice to know if MEARS is in fact going to do any 'investigating' into how the jacket was obtained and if they will actually take any disciplinary action against whatever employee set up the deal and made the purchase thereby dragging MEARS name through the mud.
Just a thought....
- SmittyLeave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
Why would Mears offer the Ebay seller $2000? Why not offer maybe double what it sold for? The seller probably would have still sold it to them. Doesn't $2000 seem like overkill?Leave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
A bit more mumbo jumbo with the hand in the cookie jar, but it's nice to see Mears take some responsibility for the jacket. That post doesn't address what happened in the Mears auction, however, notably whether an unaffiliated party purchased it (and presumably had the sale canceled) or Mears threw in the high bid.Leave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
commando,
Understood and thanks.
I am so interested in this item now that I can't wait to see what it really is.
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
No offense taken, my friend. I wasn't really considering the cost, to be honest with you. I guess I was concentrating solely on the likelihood of what this item might be. My feeling is that it is an early Jazz prototype. If it was described as a prototype in an auction, I'm not sure if ANYONE would plunk down thousands of dollars for it!
Hopefully more research and evidence will present itself in the future...Leave a comment:
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
A prototype would be fine, IF there was any PROOF of it.
I don't think I would plunk down thousands of dollars based on your hunch. No offense.
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Re: MEARS Mumbo-Jumbo?
Sounds like we're on the same page here (and I'm glad, because when it comes to Sand Knit, "you da man.")
The game-used hobby seems to put its highest value on rare items that were actually worn in a game (from what I have seen). I am personally a huge fan of prototypes, and I know there are other serious, advanced collectors who also like that kind of thing, but I think the real bidding war would occur if the shooting-shirt in question was worn by Maravich. His wearing of this top would change this from a "niche" item to a much more widely-collected arena, probably with much more bidding interest.Leave a comment:
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