I found this thread on another forum and thought it was interesting (regardless of what sport you collect).
It was posted in December 2001.
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"Memo from Brad Foote, Vice President, Lelands.com Canada
Lot #1683 the Wayne Gretzky Edmonton Oilers Game Worn Jersey, has been withdrawn from our December 6-7th auction as I do not believe it is authentic.
Over the last few months, Lelands.com purchased a total of six Wayne Gretzky Edmonton Oilers game worn jerseys (the “Big Six”) from a highly respected sports uniform collector/dealer. The shirts included the blue Nike that is being pulled from this auction. The shirts were represented as coming from a family member of Wayne Gretzky’s. When I got to New York several weeks later I was able to examine the shirts along with the other Lelands.com principals Josh Evans, Michael Heffner and Keith Vari. The jerseys appeared to be perfect specimens. We later showed a couple of the shirts to Barry Meisel who apart from a concern over the coloring of the front crest on the one white Nike, concurred that the shirts were authentic. He added that the blue Nike was one of the nicest Gretzky gamers he had ever seen. We then sent a white Nike shirt to Milt Byron who examined the shirt and also gave it his approval. Before all of this, I was aware of a an eBay seller (“eBay Man”) who was offering high quality Wayne Gretzky “replica” game worn jerseys, which were mostly Los Angeles Kings and All Star shirts. A link to his website displayed images of a number of jerseys including three Wayne Gretzky Edmonton Nike’s and one Sandow. I contacted him and inquired into their authenticity and availability. He told me the shirts were in fact for sale at $2,500 for the Nike’s and $12,000 (?) for the Sandow and that they were in fact REAL game worn Wayne Gretzky shirts. I expressed interest in purchasing them. He did not get back to me for about a month and when he eventually did he said the shirts were all sold. This was all before we had even purchased any of the “Big Six.”
Although I still believed the “Big Six” were in fact real I had nagging suspicions. I continued to correspond with “eBay Man.” After a few emails he confided to me that he was in fact manufacturing Gretzky “conversions.” He went into great detail about how he was purchasing “common” Edmonton Oilers game worn jerseys from Barry Meisel (who confirmed this and was undoubtedly unaware of their eventual use) and converting them into replica Gretzky gamers. He had a special interest in shirts showing good wear and displaying the numbers “nine” and “six.” He claimed to have removed the numbers and mixed and matched them to make Gretzky “99” jerseys. He removed letters from the original nameplates, replacing them with newly manufactured lettering. A process he called “triple washing” was then used to perfectly match the overall coloring and puckering. He claimed that to have produced between 15 and 20 of these Gretzky conversions.
This week when I arrived in New York for the auction, I met with the other guys at Lelands to voice my concerns. Late last night (12-5-01) we exhaustingly compared the jerseys we had in our possession to photos on “eBay Man’s” website (who had just posted additional Gretzky gamers). We were able to photo match two of the jerseys on the site to two of the jerseys we had in our possession including a first year white Nike and the blue Nike in our auction.
Today we pulled the shirt from the auction and are making this information available to you. This guy does amazing work so be careful.
If you have any further questions please contact me at 516 409 9700 or at bradfoote@lelands.com. Brad Foote
VP, Lelands.com Canada"
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Barry Meisel's response:
"Hello everybody:
When problems like these arise, it is important ---VERY IMPORTANT--- that people stick to the facts, recite the facts correctly, and work only with the facts.
First, and most importantly, I pledge today that MeiGray will work with Lelands and any other dealer in the hobby willing to work together to get to the bottom of this problem. I support Brad Foote's attempts to get to the bottom of this.
Secondly, my examination of the two Gretzky jerseys I examined at Leland's was inaccurately reported by Brad. I just told Brad this on the telephone a few minutes ago, and I feel it's important to state to the Forum what I determined when I examined two of the jerseys. (I did not see the other four).
The blue Nike jersey pulled from the auction was the one I thought was 100% authentic. The repairs, customizations, tagging, sizing, nameplate, crest and game use seemed fine, and consistent with the nine authentic game-used Gretzkys we have registered into The MeiGrade System since 1998.
If (and I say if because this entire investigation is ongoing) the blue jersey in question had a number and/or nameplate change, then the person or persons restoring these jerseys is doing an alarmingly good job and something needs to be done to stop these jerseys from being offered as Gretzky gamers.
The one white Nike jersey I was asked to examine (and given the opportunity to purchase privately by Leland's) was one I had problems with. I told this to Mike Heffner and Brad Foote after spending an afternoon researching these two jerseys.
I told Brad and Mike that although I could not conclusively say the white jersey was bad since there were aspects of the jersey that were correct, I had questions about the jersey. I TOLD THEM I WASN NOT COMFORTABLE WITH IT, WOULD NOT BUY IT, AND WOULD NOT REGISTER IT INTO THE MEIGRADE SYSTEM IF SOMEBODY ELSE BOUGHT IT.
I unequivocally stated that the blue one, the one in auction, I would have. And so I will now take my share of the responsibility for researching exactly what this shirt is, so a mistake like this won't happen again.
As Brad stated, we have sold a number of jerseys to a person that Brad has said is converting them into Gretzky jerseys. We have the records of the jerseys, and will work with Brad to see if this person was doing them in good faith as replications, or was trying to deceive.
At this point, we don't know exactly how the customer did what he did. He purchased very few jerseys with 9s in them, so we believe (but we don't know for certain yet) that he could not have created a number of Gretzkys out of other shirts, without creating numbers himself.
We also want to wait until Leland's confirms the provenance of the jerseys in question, because that might shed light on the jerseys.
Again, we intend to work together with any and all dealers who have been affected by this. That, we believe, is the most responsible way to eliminate bad jerseys and bad people from our hobby.
Please feel free to post any information that you believe will be helpful, but please remember that until we get to the bottom of this problem, it would be unfair to come to any conclusions and unfair to make any premature accusations. Barry Meisel, MeiGray"
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Some guy named Milt responds:
I think first and foremost this thread needs to be deleted.
We are obviously dealing with some type of crime here and we do not need all the evidence, background work and what should be done next broadcasted all over the this website.
This is a perfect example of why I have said many, many times over the years, do your homework. Get the facts.
I would like to have the chance to see the jersey again, and actually now knowing there was six, I would like to see them all. I am will to work closely with Lelands on this. Having knowledge that six came from the same location would have certainly made my pinion different. When authenticating all I can do is tell you to the best of my knowledge the jersey is this or is that. With a key part of a Gretzky authentication being missing we can see how it can hurt the ability of an authenticator. I had no clue and should have been told that this was the case. Barry should have been told also. If I had been told there were six, ALRAM bells would have went off and I would have suggested a deeper background into the history of the item. A longer more extensive research project would have been suggested. Because 1 or 2 can happen, but six, no way.
Gretzky jersey are one of the toughest to authenticate.
We take lots of time and care in doing one. I have had some for 6 to 8 months at times, before saying ok or not ok. Normally the problem ones are the ones that take longer. Trying to figure out what was done, why this is that way or that is this way. One without problems obviously takes less time.
When I do a Gretzky jersey I like to know the complete background and not just where it came from. Sometime this is not always available as in this case. So you have to rely on what is told to you.
The reason for this is this case exactly. Someone has committed a detailedcrime here to pull a fast one on the hobby.
I knew this and that's why I do things the way I do them.
So you need to get all the information. Just as in any authentication, you need to know where the jersey came from.
We are dealing with a professional here obviously, a professional forger. I have tried to prepare myself and the hobby for this for years. We have been able to stop many forgers over the years and maybe even into the thousands of bad jerseys in 20yrs. Using a catch phrase from the 70's about what they said about Bernie Parent " Only the lord saves more than Bernie " Well, only the lord authenticates more correctly than I have. I have said I can't be right all the time. Like someone says, that's why I say, let me see it again, I know more today than yesterday, and I will know more tomorrow than today.
Authentication is a learning experience, we take this and learn from it. We have to study the evidence that's present to us in this. We have to map out a plan so this does not happen again. We as the leaders have this obligation to the hobby. No different than when something happens in other areas of life.When a crime is committed we as a public take certain steps to prevent it again and the law enforcement community takes steps to educate the public.Same thing here.
Another thing about authenticating is that when new information is brought to the table it can change an authenticators mind. If the evidence is great enough, I have been know to change my thoughts on jerseys. Most times this is from the jersey being bad to it being good. I like to error on the side of caution, if I choose to error. I don' think that a mistake was made by Barry in what he felt the jersey in the auction was. He did it to the best of his ability, based on all the information that was given to him. He is allowed to change his mind. So am I, where in the rule book does it say that once I put my blessings or unapproval on something that it's always that way. Right, its not written anywhere. New information, new evidence can always shed new light on an investigation. I see nothing wrong with this. I am only as good as my information at the time that my opinion is rendered. Barry gave his opinion on the Blue one. I gave one on the white one. based on new evidence turned up, certainly this could make the outcome different. But a out and out
mistake, nope.
I did not know I was looking at a custom crafted special the first time I saw one. It took a while for me to figure out what was going on, but I did. Same thing here, Brad has uncovered a crime and now we all band together to prevent this from happening again. Was this a mistake, no, I did not know a custom crafted existed till I figured it out. I bet lots of people out there are glad I did. I did not say, opps I made a mistake and chalk it up as a loss. No, I made it a public fake that I have passed on for years. Its not the end of the earth, Rome is not falling and your closet full of jerseys did not just loose all its value. A criminal was uncovered, so now we take care of it and move forward.
Education is the key to preventing this from happening again. That's what I have been doing for years and that's what I plan on continuing to do.
As for the back stabbers in this hobby, you'll never learn, you can't be
me,ya can't beat me, might as well give it up.
Nick, what are you smoking today? After I read your post, I thought my yulageeeeee was next. I thought the hobby was going to stop as we know it.Come on man get a grip. Everything's ok, the President is in the
Whitehouse.For a moment I thought that you was going to suggest that Barry and I never been in the same building at the same time for fear we might get blown up together. Come on man.
All that needs to be done is, like I said, the evidence that is uncovered, be evaluated by the top people in the hobby. A plan be put in place to preventit from happening again. Not a real hard thing to accomplish. Barry, Brad and I all have a great working relationship.
Thanks Milt
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