Sports Collectibles

We reported earlier on the Mastro Auctions at the House of Blues in Cleveland, back on August 4, 2007, where the 1912 Pirates Cigarette set sold for close to a million dollars. Apparently there is some controversy over a warm-up shirt from North Carolina at the same auction, that was billed as belonging to Michael Jordan, and was sold for $11,000.

As Michael O’Keefe of the NY Daily News reports:

Auction jersey revealed as fraud

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, August 19th 2007

“The hangover from the event, however, just won’t go away. One item, advertised as a Michael Jordan North Carolina warm-up shirt, sold for $11,000 even though questions had been raised about its authenticity well before the auction took place. Collectors cried foul on Game-Used Forum.com, a memorabilia Web site, and began investigating the shirt. Mastro Auctions voided the sale and sent the jersey back to the authentication service that raised the initial doubts for further review.

But the controversy over the “Jordan” shirt appears far from over: It has added new pressure to calls for greater regulation and standards for the dog-eat-dog world of sports memorabilia. The shirt has also attracted the interest of the FBI, which as the Daily News reported last month, has already begun an investigation into business practices at Mastro Auctions, sports memorabilia’s largest auction house.”

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