People ask me all the time how I can work in the sports collectibles industry and not be an avid collector. While there are several reasons, including many of the items I would want are typically out of my price range, the main reason is because it's just too hard to put much faith into the legitimacy of the items themselves.

Just finished reading a story about an East Coast dealer who was being charged with memorabilia fraud. Apparently the dealer was opening vintage wax packs, scooping out the cards that had any value and then using a machine found in his warehouse to reseal the packs. He'd then present the packs as unopened and resell them along with other items featuring fake autographs. Apparently he'd been selling collectibles for more than 30 years and there's no real way of knowing exactly how much scamming he's been doing in that time but it's a safe bet he had a nice little operation going for quite some time before people caught on.

While fraudulent dealer activity in the sports collectibles hobby is about as common as the Yankees overspending on free agent signings, neither is good for those around them and both only serve as a reminder to what's wrong with their respective industries.

Sure, not every dealer is crooked and not all memorabilia has been doctored or is straight up fake, but the more and more this type of story surfaces, it just adds to the ever-growing black eye the hobby has been featuring for years.

I get it, dealers are going through some hard times like everybody else so they look to make some "shortcuts" in order to keep their bottom line in order. But c'mon guys, with every "shortcut" comes a dramatic rise in the number of people being turned off about the hobby so much so that they abandon it altogether. Times are tough all over fellas, just stick with the old fashioned 250% markup rates like the good ole days and you'll still make your money and you'll get more customers in the long run because they'll trust that the items you're peddling are legitimate.