Interesting thread from another forum

[hblakewolf]

Re: Interesting thread from another forum

Wow this is a popular topic on two game worn sites right now. Just to clarify, Custom Crafted had no involvement in the Gretzky jersey scandal. There criminal activity was relegated to putting out Bruins, Devils, Blues, and Whalers jerseys with fake wear. I posted the following on another site this morning so hopefully it will shed some light for those of you who have no idea what transpired.

Custom Crafted is a lettering company located in No. Attleboro, Ma. They did the lettering for the Bruins, Devils, and I think the Whalers and Blues. I can speak mostly for Bruins jerseys involved in this scandal since that is what I'm most familiar with. They used a game issued jersey since there is no difference at all between a legit jersey and a CC Special as far as the actual jersey itself. A lot were set stamped just like a legit gamer. They would apply manufactured wear to these jerseys in the form of fake stick marks, abrasions to the jersey which looked like they were done with a sharp implement, red lipstick type marks to try to resemble dasher marks (but it was the wrong color), fake interior wear located in the wrong places (for example you would find pilling directly on the elbow reinforcement not where it is supposed to be as well as pilling on the collar occasionally), wrinkling of the crest, no corrosion in the fight strap snaps, etc. The jersey would look hardly washed but have all this bogus wear on it. I never saw many fake repairs on Bruins CC Specials but I think Devils jerseys had them fairly often. So basically you would have a game issued jerseys with fake wear being passed off as a legit gamers by the company who lettered them. Most were relegated to star players (Bourque, Neely, Oates) but there are plenty of others that were introduced into the hobby as well. With Bruins there is everything from bogus regular home and roads, Last Hurrahs, TBC's, and All Star patched jerseys floating around out there. I would say that unless you have seen some CC Specials in the past or are very knowledgable about the hobby you could easily be fooled by them. Fortunately Milt Byron uncovered this unscrupulous activity many years ago and since he is a close friend of mine I was able to see a lot of it first hand so was educated about it directly.

Neely8-

Great information!

Can you or another Forum reader identify who was behind the bogus Gretzky jerseys?

Hard to believe this has gone unanswered, with Barry Meisel and other well-educated hockey experts on this site.

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@comcast.net