America's popular pastime the love of
baseball and like most sports baseball
has generated a memorabilia business
worth billions I think I consider myself
a very knowledgeable about what a real
one and in fake one is Mark mitch has
been an autograph collector for 30 years
and is very confident he can spot a fake
but let's say his batting average took a
hit recently a Steve Prefontaine Agra if
you almost never see so he advertised
for things that almost everyone would be
interested in who collects what I
collect the he markers referring to is
Carl Meyer the way he fooled me is
because of how he spoke he knew dealers
he knew the business he knew basically
everything that I knew about autographs
and I've collected 30 years based on
these conversations Mensch bought
several items cards for Roberto Clemente
Steve Prefontaine and Mel OTT when the
autographs came I did recognize them as
fake immediately and I tried to return
them I attempted to contact him he
actually threatened my life if I came
near him and basically I was left
holding the bag several Sports
collectors filed mal fraud complaints
with the Postal Inspection Service
claiming that they purchased forged
sports autographs Mitch was one of 56
victims who paid Meyer more than 74,000
dollars for items a lot of the victims
submitted those autographs to
professional sports authenticators who
confirmed that they were in fact
forgeries postal inspectors say when
mensch filed a complaint they already
had a file started on Carl Meyer
everything was done by mail that was his
undoing Meyer was prosecuted in federal
court on mail fraud charges and is now
serving a two-year prison sentence I'm
glad that he paid a price because I'm
sure he fooled many people besides me
because I feel like I'm a person it
would be hard to fool it's the first
time in 30 years I think I've ever
really been fooled