More than 20 years ago, the Operation Bullpen and Foul Ball forgery scandals rocked the sports memorabilia industry. As far back as 2012 I wrote a blog post about the continuing problems with fake autographs. Now we have Mister Mancave, an apparently massive forgery operation run by Brett Lemieux of Westfield, Indiana.

As the walls were closing in on Lemieux, he shot himself dead, but not before posting an admission of guilt that will shake the confidence of sports autograph collectors. He claims to have faked millions of autographs, stickers and certificates of authenticity. He listed most of the major players in the industry, from third party authentication companies to companies that conducted paid signings. Most of his forgeries apparently were sold on his eBay account mancaveframing (now deleted) and his website (still up as of now).

Because Lemieux cowardly took the easy way out -- after screwing over who knows how many people -- it may be impossible to know exactly how accurate his claims were, or to track down more than a minority of his forgeries. If most of Lemieux's forgeries were made with an autopen machine, as has been reported, those could be definitively identified, even with fake stickers and COAs, as there has to be one or more exact matches in existence. It's also very possible he exaggerated his claims as a final stab in the back to the industry he exploited.

As this scandal unfolds we're going to find out more. But for now, I have several thoughts.

1. eBay has failed to take the fake autograph problem seriously for DECADES. eBay has grown into the dominant online marketplace for collectibles and with that status, introduced policies to supposedly protect buyers from fake autographs. But as someone who's been selling autographs on eBay since 1997, I can personally attest to the level of enforcement having ranged from decent to mediocre to almost non-existent. Unfortunately, at the current time I would characterize the enforcement as "almost non-existent." I have reported obvious, blatant forgeries, and even obviously preprinted autographs via eBay's reporting system. Most of the time my reports are rejected. "We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy." I don't even bother wasting my time nowadays. Of course, eBay collects the exact same fees on real autographs and fakes, so what real incentive do they have to crack down?
2. It's almost certain Lemieux greatly exaggerated his number of forgeries in the "millions." If that was the case, simple math and common sense means he'd have bank, crypto or investment accounts somewhere with 7 or 8 figure balances, and that's not been reported. Even if he only forged thousands or tens of thousands of autographs, which seems more likely and realistic, the damage done to the reputations of certain companies is significant and not to be downplayed. But we should assume someone this dishonest and about to kill himself had plenty of reasons to exaggerate.
3. All the companies whose authentication processes were violated by Lemieux have a black eye, but Fanatics is the biggest loser. How could this much damaging fraud have been going on for this long without being noticed, investigated and stopped? "Embarrassing" doesn't begin to describe this fiasco for Fanatics. This throws at least a temporary wrench into their plans to dominate the sports memorabilia industry. If the volumes that Lemieux boasted about are even remotely accurate, that means that the Fanatics authenticated autographs of their biggest athletes such as Tom Brady, Aaron Judge and Patrick Mahomes have been severely compromised. How will they resolve this?
4. Third party authentication has never been foolproof and it never will be. I'm sure the Mister Mancave scandal will tarnish all of the major third party authentication companies, and maybe deservedly so. But all they were ever selling, and all they can sell, is an educated opinion. The reality of evaluating the authenticity of a hand signed autograph is it's sometimes impossible to determine beyond a doubt whether it's real or not. I've had one company approve an autograph that another rejected. I've had the same autograph approved months after it was initially rejected. But overall, despite their mistakes and limitations, I understand why many including myself often rely on third party authenticators, and it's unlikely this scandal will change much.
5. The FBI shares some blame here, too. In a much less publicized bust, back in April Tony Tremayne pled guilty to selling "more than $250K" in fake autographs "dating back to 2010." The problem with this is that Tremayne had been running this fake autograph scheme much, much longer than 2010, and his heyday was decades earlier when he probably was selling a lot more than $250K EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I witnessed his crews of lowlife autograph chasers in operation at NFL team hotels and other major sporting events going back to the early 1990s, where they would get many authentic autographs in person . . . and then "fill in" fake autographs of any key players they missed. So where was the FBI the previous 2 decades? Perhaps if the FBI had been doing a little more to crack down on criminals like Tremayne, people like Lemieux might never have gotten started.
   
6. Obviously the first thought that entered my mind reading about Lemieux was whether my business AutographsForSale.com had ever bought or sold any of his forgeries. Without more information I can't begin to research this, but based on the eBay IDs identified, and the named athletes and types of products Lemieux reportedly made the most money on, I'm pretty sure I had zero or nearly zero involvement buying or selling any of his fakes. I pretty much stopped buying all but a select group of specific items several years ago, and even before them I was especially careful buying the big name autographs that Lemieux claims to have made a fortune forging. Also, I am fairly diligent about removing autographs of questionable authenticity and lacking solid provenance from sale.
7. The million dollar question going forward for sports autograph collectors who aren't ready to abandon everything based on this scandal is how to protect themselves from being burned going forward? A. Consider manufacturer certified autographed cards, which are harder to fake than autographed memorabilia, although there are some out there. If they're authenticated and slabbed by a third party authenticator like Beckett or PSA, even better. B. PROVENANCE. For centuries fine art dealers and museums have relied on written records of who owned this work since it was created. For autographs, this may be as simple as an original Fanatics or Upper Deck receipt. For other autographs, the 2 old questions that collectors used to ask before third party authentication became popular may be useful: When and where was this autograph signed?
8. Finally, be honest with yourselves. While no one deserves more blame than Lemieux, if you bought a Tom Brady or Aaron Judge or Patrick Mahomes Fanatics authenticated autograph for half the price of the same or similar autograph on the Fanatics website, you can also blame yourself. Ditto for a LeBron James or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods UDA autograph. The old adage that if it's too good to be true, it probably is, has never been more pertinent.