Celebrity Autographs And Celebrity Addresses

It's getting more difficult for the crooks and the creeps who operate in the dark corners of the sports memorabilia industry to cheat people.

Since it began in early 1997, the FBI investigation called Operation Bullpen has resulted in 62 convictions of people selling forged autographs and other bogus collectibles.

In 2001, Major League Baseball became the first sport in the country to take significant steps toward ensuring the authenticity of its memorabilia, through a program that has since paid notable dividends.

More than 650,000 autographed and game-used items have been authenticated, through independent, third-party authenticators at big-league ballparks throughout the nation, and at other signings and selected events such as charity auctions, where scams frequently have occurred.

"It really evolved from need more than from something we thought would be nice to have," said Howard Smith, senior vice president of licensing for Major League Baseball Properties. "We had a couple of situations in which, through the FBI and other investigations, we found out that in the ballpark stores of some of our clubs we had counterfeit material, and we realized we had to take drastic action."

In addition to certification by an official third party -- which was Arthur Andersen at the start of the program and now is Deloitte and Touche -- the authenticated items are marked with a state-of-the-art hologram and a serial number, and they become part of an online verification process.

"Some people thought what we were doing was overkill," Smith said, "but we felt we had to make significant changes, and the proof is in the pudding. You go to (hobby) publications like Beckett and Tuff Stuff, and you see they have separate price guides now just for our authenticated products."

Smith said that Major League Baseball "has tried to get other sports to jump on board, and the National Football League is thinking about it. The fact of the matter is, we treat this like we do the rest of our licensing business. We want the other leagues to be successful because we're all in this together."

Smith believes the biggest benefactors in the cleanup, other than fans, are the big-league players.

"It was beginning to be a pain in the butt for them," he said. "They realized their names were out there being counterfeited, and it was hurting them, in the pocketbook and in the court of public opinion."

The superstars have been the most frequent targets, because their memorabilia is both the most sought-after and the priciest.

"You can't look at the whole hobby as far as what percentage of the material is good versus bad," said FBI special agent Tim Fitzsimmons of San Diego, who started Operation Bullpen. "You have to look at it on an athlete-by- athlete basis.

"Look at somebody like Mark McGwire, who signs very little. During the summer of 1998 (when he was chasing the home run record), the percentage of his forgeries was immense. Then you take someone like Tony Gwynn. We did uncover some forgeries of him in the marketplace, but it was very small because he's very accessible. He's out there working on TV and coaching college baseball and he signs a lot, so his autograph doesn't sell for as much. "

Fitzsimmons believes that things in general are significantly improved.

"It's getting better from an investigative perspective and within the sports memorabilia world," he said. "There has been a decline in the number of forgeries I see. But we have not seen the same improvement in the non-sports world, the celebrity market."

Fitzsimmons offers several tips to autograph collectors.

"Get the item in person if you can," he said, "but if you can't, look to Major League Baseball and similar programs that witness the signings and offer holograms.

"If you can't obtain the signature by one of those methods, search out a seller than you essentially can investigate to a certain degree.

"Ask questions about the provenance of an item. Don't buy something based solely on third-party authentication. I'm a little uneasy about the selling of items where the whole sales pitch is authentication without regard to provenance. A lot of people we convicted used fake third-party authentication. This is not an exact science; it's an opinion."

Unless, of course, it carries the sort of safeguards Major League Baseball now offers.