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History of Major OA Frauds?

Started by ShaneTurgeon,

32 posts in this topic

ShaneTurgeon

ShaneTurgeon

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As the hobby i participate in primarily, vintage Star Wars, is being rocked by a fairly significant fraud scandal and the poster community having recently endured the same, i'm just curious what, if any, major fraud scandals have rocked to OA community over the years? Did they make an overall impact to the market or buyer confidence in the short or long run? Was legal action ever taken?

 

If anyone is curious to read about the fake prototype scandal in the vintage Star Wars world, you can check out discussion on the topic here:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=4343930

 

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Bronty

Bronty

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others will know details but there was a guy selling fake GA fox covers some time ago........ but nothing on a massive scale really. I don't even count the various fake wattersons and whatnot on ebay. Most of the fakes I've seen haven't really been good enough to worry about... and usually somebody out there knows the provenance and/or the current owner. You can't really do up a fake marvel spotlight 5 cover because everybody knows eric roberts owns it... ie on published pieces it would be pretty easy to get caught after a while because someone else would be there to dispute authenticity. On unpublished stuff I guess its the wild west but those are rarely worth enough to fake, and besides there are experts on most every major artist that can be consulted before making a purchase.

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ShaneTurgeon

ShaneTurgeon

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He rubbed me the wrong way the first time i ever encountered him so i never dealt with him at all and thankfully nothing i own traces back to him. A lot of good friends are out a lot of money over this, however, which is pretty awful to see.

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comicartcom

comicartcom

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Roger Hill detailed an incredible story of fake golden age covers including a Planet Comic and Frazetta Ghost Rider covers in an old APA issue.

 

that's the deal where the guy traded about 50 GA covers and they were all phonies. He was caught because he did more than one copy of some covers like Science #1 and Planet #15. The guy's name escapes me. Mark something. it was about 1988/89 or so. He traded to comic book dealers who traded him comic books. I don't recall if he ever traded for any art. The first time I saw one of them, I knew something wasn't right - but they were good. Good enough to fool a number of people. Ron Pussell helped to retrieve all the "booty" they guy made and cash too and helped to get it back to the rightful owners (yes.. Ron had traded for some of the phony art and was a victim also)

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comicartcom

comicartcom

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Steve

 

they were pretty good forgeries, although the first one I saw I said "are you sure? It doesn't look right. Did you match it against the comic book?" and later that year at ChicagoCon the fraud was exposed. I think the forgeries were destroyed.

 

So they were good enough to fool, for a period of time. But they never fooled me

 

the forger even placed them on top of radiators to age them, used Whatman board, forged stamped information on back, used blue pencil to make border notes. I mean, he really went the distance.

 

However, nothing I know of can beat the Universal Horror Poster Fraud uncovered last year where a hi level collector with the assistance of a linenbacker/restorer forged over $2,000,000 worth of posters and lobby cards. He is still waiting trial in Federal Court in NYC.

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Bronty

Bronty

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He rubbed me the wrong way the first time i ever encountered him so i never dealt with him at all and thankfully nothing i own traces back to him. A lot of good friends are out a lot of money over this, however, which is pretty awful to see.

 

I can imagine :( Sad to say it must be taking a lot of steam out of that market?

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Bronty

Bronty

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Steve

 

 

 

However, nothing I know of can beat the Universal Horror Poster Fraud uncovered last year where a hi level collector with the assistance of a linenbacker/restorer forged over $2,000,000 worth of posters and lobby cards. He is still waiting trial in Federal Court in NYC.

 

what can you tell us about it?

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ShaneTurgeon

ShaneTurgeon

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The poster fraud i alluded to in my first post is the one Rich has posted about. Pretty gnarly. Huge sums of money and a lot of experienced collectors defrauded. Hopefully the perpetrator goes away for a long time.

 

He rubbed me the wrong way the first time i ever encountered him so i never dealt with him at all and thankfully nothing i own traces back to him. A lot of good friends are out a lot of money over this, however, which is pretty awful to see.

 

I can imagine :( Sad to say it must be taking a lot of steam out of that market?

 

I think it's too soon to say. All of the discussion seems to have actually piqued interest in them from newer collectors but whether they want to stick around and actually dip their toes in the market remains to be seen. It's not as highly priced as comic art, but it's a pretty expensive niche in our hobby.

 

We have a "limelighting" section on our boards where people share their collection photos and some people started posting some legit prototype limelights to share the positives of this end of the hobby too so hopefully that helps.

 

That Golden Age fraud sounds pretty crazy. If anyone can scan the article for us newbies to read, that would be awesome.

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comicartcom

comicartcom

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I think it's too soon to say. All of the discussion seems to have actually piqued interest in them from newer collectors but whether they want to stick around and actually dip their toes in the market remains to be seen. It's not as highly priced as comic art, but it's a pretty expensive niche in our hobby.

 

Shane.. you are wrong on this point. The posters in this fraud range from maybe $1000 to as much as $350,000 and it has definitely affected the market. A number of posters at Heritage this year did not achieve the same price levels as previous sales and incredibly - a number went unsold. We attribute this directly to the exposure of the fraud.

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