LEAF REALLY SCREWED-UP 2012 LEAF ORIGINALS WRESTLING!
When I saw the first Leaf Wrestling Autograph ever, I was in shock! All these autographed cards are missing the Autograph Authenticity Statement that ALL Autographed Card Company cards have had since 2000! That's correct, NOT ONE BIG CARD COMPANY IS MISSING AN AUTO AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT OR STAMP (in some earlier cases) EXCEPT FOR 2012 LEAF WRESTLING!
Plus ALL the printing plates are missing the Autograph Statement, 1/1 statement, AND what color the plate is!!!
I first noticed this on November 9th and immediately began e-mailing every hobby contact I had about this, especially the OWNER OF LEAF: Brian Gray. I of course blasted him a new asshole because I knew he did this so he didn't have to pay ANYONE for any licensing and thought if he condoned the authenticity of the autograph, then he'd be libel automatically for licensing rights! HE DID THIS BECAUSE HE'S CHEAP! Because of this, these autographs are practically worthless to those who collect ONLY Certified Autograph Card Company cards like myself. The reason being that ALL CARD COMPANY AUTOGRAPHS HAVE AN AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT! These cards don't even have the word AUTOGRAPH or SIGNATURE printed anywhere on ANY of these cards!!! Most didn't care, no price guide even responded and all sellers said they don't see what the issue is.
Am I the only person in this hobby that complains TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE when a major issue pops up? Because now ALL OF A SUDDEN everyone seems to be complaining about the very same things I've been complaining about for almost TWO MONTHS & NON-STOP!
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I finally got an answer as to why message board/bloggers bash me with all lies on a regular basis. Instead of them using the information I provided from my past investigations (especially when I wasn't sick) and start investigations of their own, they expected me to continue fighting for them (for free as always) at the same level as when I wasn't sick??? THIS IS THE ONLY REASON THEY ARE BASHING ME!
I wan't you to see the exact response from a big MESSAGE BOARD ADMINISTRATOR who was bashing me all over the Internet. I asked him this: "WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?" & this was his EXACT response:
"You and I had it out on the BMB (Beckett Message Boards) in 2004. You keep on rambling about all this crap, and how big a difference you (alone) made. You've made not one. Single bit of difference. The companies still do everything you stopped them from doing. It just gets old seeing these ramblings of yours everywhere. Especially when no one cares and people still buy the crap that Topps, UD, Panini still put out."
Besides his poor grammar, he makes no sense at all. He posted that I'm an eBay scammer, I never did anything to help the hobby and I'm basically a liar about everything. So why didn't he say any of that in his response??? Because he's useless scum, and I hate to say this but I think most who post on these boards/blogs are useless scum. You can blame catdaddyscards@gmail.com .
Many think I never did any fraud fighting until I got online in 1997. I started collecting in 1987 and felt sick every time I heard rumors from reliable sources about certain big dealers getting all kinds of stuff dirt cheap from several different illegal sources. But there was and NEVER HAS BEEN a governing agency in this hobby watching for fraud and then fighting it. This is why I started doing what I could locally when I gained enough hobby knowledge by 1992. I was born & raised in NYC, but lived in FL which I loved as often as I could (9-years of my 45-years of life). I've been stuck living in AWFUL living conditions since 2003 when I had to move back to NYC to get medical benefits & SSD.
So I guess I have to list some major that I accomplished starting in 1992:
1992: I fought sellers of many complete sets of 1992 Topps Real Gold cards (not Winners) from being sold BEFORE 1992 Topps was even released. A Florida dealer got most of these from his friend who worked at the printing company in NJ that put the gold foil & gloss on Topp's cards. Topps busted a ring that was selling large quantities of Topps cards illegally nationwide because of my tipping them off to this dealer who gave up everyone to get off easy himself.
1993: I reported a frequent card show seller (a real jerk too) who had two complete sets of UNSIGNED 1992 Pro Line Autograph cards at one show & was selling them as singles for up to $30.00 for the top stars like Emmitt Smith, Dan Marino, John Elway, etc. and was charging $3.00 each for commons. When I started asking him about these cards he offered me a complete set for $350.00! I spoke directly to my friend Bill Barron who made these cards as Director of the NFLPA at the time. These cards were confiscated from this dealer along with other illegal cards he had and he was fined a nice hefty amount.
I started fighting Shop At Home for lying constantly on air about the cards they were selling. I taped especially bad shows and started sending copies to the NFLPA & MLBPA. I fought them until they finally stopped selling cards by 2002 or so.
As soon as my very first website went up in 1997 I immediately started fighting the Score Board bankruptcy knowing that collectors would get screwed just like they did with Signature Rookies Redemptions. I wrote several letters directly to Judge Gloria Burns who of course didn't know the first thing about our hobby. So I explained it to her. All my letters are on file in this case in Cherry Hill, NJ to this day & forever so anyone can check to see when I started fighting hobby fraud. I didn't win over the judge, but I did win over Fleer who gave away 5,000 autographs to anyone who could prove that they were owed a redemption prior to the bankruptcy being filed. Everyone got a letter in the mail from the court so this was easy. Fleer didn't even run out of autographs! So I accomplished that.
Then I interned for over 200-hours to become a Forensic Document Examiner. Then I busted the largest sports autograph forgery ring EVER on eBay. The main ID was AL SALES, and the seller was Scott Davis. I even have his SS#. He was using MANY different ID's & I found and bust3ed each one. They were all permanently banned from eBay. BUT ACCORDING TO MOST ON MESSAGE BOARDS/BLOGS- I NEVER DID ANYTHING???
But with then NEW eBay, it doesn't matter because anyone banned can sign right back up. Even if you were banned YESTERDAY, you can sign back up today with the same name, address, phone and Paypal Account!!! The only thing you have to change is your user ID. HOW INSANE IS THAT???
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Fraud means PURPOSELY doing something morally wrong or illegal according to their licensing from each sport league that licenses them. You'd think that the leagues would monitor card company activity, BUT THEY DON'T! In fact the NFL goes out of it's way to HIDE fraud committed in our hobby! I saw that first hand while fighting all the fraud Playoff committed in 2001 that I had UNQUESTIONABLE proof of: back door selling, printing an illegal Ichiro Retro RC for early 2001 release, withholding up to 25% of expensive inserts from boxes, plus other stuff. The NFLPA, specifically Dawn Ridley-Nash helped Playoff bury the evidence I had against them!!! But thank goodness the MLBPA intervened and finally brought Playoff down years later. At least I stopped Playoff from back dooring cards from 2002-2008 for sure. If there was any back dooring, it was an employee stealing and not corporate back dooring. I'm sure all kinds of things went out the back door once they realized they were losing their baseball license. All those tons of close-out boxes of 2008-2009 Donruss/Playoff stuff on Dave & Adam's Card World came from somewhere & not legally either. You need to understand that I not only was a main reason that they lost their baseball license. This caused a domino effect that bankrupted Ann Blake-Powell too and made her fear being in our hobby! That was nothing but good news for ALL collectors that she will NEVER be in this hobby again. She did WHATEVER IT TOOK to make money. She tried to bribe me a few times with 5-figures!!! Plus she bribed anyone who ever stood in her way including the NFLPA. In 2001 when they requested to view all the autographed helmets for 2001 Absolute Football boxes she came to me in a panic saying "we need to get those in boxes this week to ship next week, but the NFLPA won' let me because they want to see them first". What most people don't know is that in 2001 (and most likely after) & all years before that I know of, the licensing agencies wanted to see all on item autographs BEFORE they went into products. THIS IS WHY THEY PUT AUTOGRAPH STICKERS ON CARDS- TO BYPASS THE LEAGUE VIEWING THE AUTOGRAPHS BEFORE THEY SHIP! I don't know why Ann was ignorant to think these helmets would be an exception! Then suddenly 2001 Absolute Football shipped on time??? Ann wouldn't tell me why either. She must have bribed the NFLPA (Dawn Ridley-Nash) to allow them to go out without the NFLPA's approval. How do I feel so strongly about this to put it in writing knowing full well that I could be libel to the NFLPA if I'm lying? Because of all the bribing I witnessed in-person by Ann Blake-Powell, and the fact that I told Dawn Ridley-Nash all the facts about the fraud playoff was committing & the NFLPA could have viewed all the evidence I had against Playoff at any time but never did, plus Playoff kept my entire personal collection of autographed inserts worth over $50,000 and the NFLPA did NOTHING! Luckily, I sent some Playoff evidence to a friend (with evidence against others as well) which is & always has been in a very safe place. This is why no one ever came after me and no one ever will!
So what does "fighting them, or fighting fraud" mean? Doing countless hours of research to get BOTH sides of the story to make sure I have as much truth about the issue as possible. Getting as many people's contact information (e-mails, phone extensions, names & exact positions). Then I would ask all these people the exact same questions that were carefully thought out so they were not "leading' questions. I tried to be as impartial as possible for two reasons. I didn't want to scare off the supposed crooks and I didn't want to accuse in case the rumors were wrong.
Most card companies asked me to call them, especially once I got to management. They all wanted to speak on the phone at one point or another because they had no idea that I was taping EVERY CONVERSATION, but I was. They wrongly assumed that it was not legal to tape conversations. In both states I lived in while fighting hobby fraud, it was legal to tape record phone conversations as long as one of the party's knew they were being taped (I knew so it was legal). By early 1999, I had set up a nice system which recorded crystal clearly using a headset & microphone hooked directly into my dual tape deck.
How can change be stable unless someone is making sure the same issues don't start up again? If they do- someone MUST stop the card companies from doing it! The changes I made from 1999-2001 lasted until about 2010. That's not too bad being that the card companies were so afraid to: do things that were illegal according to their Player Association licensing, sell cards out the back door, or purposely do anything wrong that I knew of. I made it clear in 2004 when I ended my website that I wanted all the hobby facts on my site to stay online to help people in the future. I got thousands of hits a month - not bad for a privately run site which ONLY fought sports card fraud. I had few links, no ads and no funding (other than my pocket), plus I rarely put my site in search engines. So most of my hits were collectors telling other collectors. I wish I could have afforded to keep that site up. I explained this 6-months before I had to shut it down. Then a Beckett Message Board asshole bought my site to "make a better hobby website" as he stated & it's been EXACTLY the same nothing since 2004. Look for yourself: www.cardcop.org Don't bother sending him an e-mail, he never checks it!!!
I'M TRYING TO MOTIVATE ALL OF YOU TO FIGHT FOR YOURSELVES BECAUSE I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO AT ALL SINCE 2009!!! All I've been able to do is fight some things that were very obvious & easy for me like NSA fake GU cards and now the Leaf Wrestling Autograph cards that are missing any autograph authenticity statement. But now I cannot even do that, so it's YOUR TURN! I've posted enough information to make it easy for you, but according to almost everyone who posts/blogs: the hobby is worse than ever as far as fraud goes.
If you don't fight for yourself, of course things will continue to get worse! IS EVERYONE THAT IGNORANT THAT I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS!
There is a ten year old on You Tube who goes to retail stores & busts pack searchers in the act with his cell phone to record. THAT WAS A FANTASTIC IDEA & A TEN YEAR OLD CAME UP WITH THE IDEA HIMSELF! So don't say you can't make a difference! If you still do after reading this LONG post, then you are just lazy and need to keep YOUR MOUTH SHUT!
Some bloggers are stupid enough to ask me why I keep telling them I'm so sick- NOW YOU KNOW: TO EXPLAIN WHY I CANNOT FIGHT FRAUD ANYMORE & TO INSPIRE YOU TO FIGHT FRAUD YOURSELVES, OK? Then there's the complete idiots who say I'm not sick at all until I send them medical documentation, then the don't respond to me ever again or blog about me ever again either??? If anyone wants to see medical documentation OR have ANY questions e-mail me: cardcop04@gmail.com . Medical information is PRIVATE & cannot be sent to anyone else but to whom I send it to directly.
Everyone of you has an ability or many abilities. Use your abilities that you have to fight fraud with any time you have & fight the wrongs in this hobby! I'm not asking anyone to change the world, just do what you can! Some of you are Private Investigators, so teach other collectors how to get information out of people when they don't want to talk. It's EASY when you know how. I had to teach myself which took a LONG time, but once I got it, it was truly easy.
I got Fleer (Lloyd Pawlak) to admit to me (on tape) by phone that Fleer purposely withheld all serial numbered RC's & autographs from 2001 RETAIL boxes because the distributor (the middle-man between the card company & the retail stores) told Fleer that they wanted them to do something to stop so much theft. So Fleer solution was not not put any expensive inserts in these boxes. YET THE PRICE STAYED THE SAME!!! Fleer literally STOLE FROM EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT these $19.99-$34.99 boxes and I'm the only one who caught it! Six different products were involved including Fleer Greats Of The Game which stated on the boxes that autographs were 1:40 packs & there were NONE! I had to buy ten boxes of each product to prove this to Fleer & get them to admit the truth to me. I reported everything to Beckett and the other guides, but as always they never said a word!
The Price Guides would have to change if all of you went after them too! But instead most of you say nothing publicly & the ones that do only complain to other collectors on message boards & blogs that no price guides or card companies read!!! THAT DOES NO GOOD AT ALL!
YOU ALL HAVE YOURSELVES TO BLAME FOR THE STATE THAT THIS HOBBY IS IN! IF YOU'VE DONE NOTHING TO FIX THE PROBLEMS DIRECTLY, THEN YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS!
Here's info most people will say you can't get anywhere.
Who prints card company cards???
Upper Deck is the only card company to print their own cards that I'm aware of. All these companies: Press Pass, Topps, Fleer, Donruss/Playoff, Pinnacle, and others had cards printed by: Great Western Inc. 13465 Jupiter Rd. Dallas, TX 75238. Website: www.gwiinc.com since 2000 or earlier. Personally I think that is a conflict of interest having the same private company print cards for all the same card companies especially since I know Ann Blake was part owner of this company!
How do you get a card company executive to talk to you on the phone?
YOU HAVE TO LIE! Call their Customer Service phone number. Whoever picks up say "you are the second wrong person I've been transferred to, I'm the owner of Great Western in Texas and need to speak directly to" and pick a name from below.
Want card company executive e-mails? Here they are:
Topps:
ashorin@topps.com (Arthur Shorin -CEO), mappel@topps.com (Marty Appel - Senior Executive), wfriss@topps.com (Warren Friss -Vice-President), aweinstock@topps.com, (Ari Weinstock -Manager), jhaza@topps.com (Jeff Haza -Manager), jsechrist@topps.com (John Sechrist -Manager).
Panini-
thackler@paniniamerica.net (Tracy Hackler - Senior Manger. Switches from Playoff/Panini to Beckett once a year on average since 2000).
Leaf:
brian@leaftradingcards.com (Brian Gray -Owner), adam@leaftradingcards.com (Adam Berk -Hobby Sales), cassandra@leaftradingcards.com (Customer Service)
Beckett:
colds@beckett.com (Chris Olds - Senior Managing Editor), bfleischer@beckett.com (Brian Fleischer -long time writer & book writer for Beckett).
NFLPA:
demaurice.smith@nflplayers.com (President of NFLPA), carl.francis
These are just a few to get you started, call any company when you are POSITIVE that they are closed and go through their voice mail system entering a random three letters to see if you get a name which also usually gives you their position. Then follow the same e-mail examples as above- like if they use the full name: THEN ALL EMPLOYEES LOOK THE SAME WAY! This is true for almost any company in any field!
Good luck & FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!
James McCay aka Cardcop
