I recently posted in regard to a jersey I had purchased in which a Lou Lampson letter was to be included, according to the auction house description. Upon receipt of the jersey, there wasn't any letter from Lou.
Just another major auction company's lack of attention to detail.
I wrote Troy in regard to this matter and he promptly replied with advice. I shipped the jersey via overnight mail to Troy for Lou to review. I recently received the jersey back via overnight mail with Lou's letter. All expenses were taken care of.
I wanted to publicly thank Troy and Lou for their professionalism and prompt attention to my request.
Troy, Dave Bushing, and the folks at SCDA / MEARS have always been courteous, prompt, and professional in regard to my concerns or questions.
I know they, and many other authenticators have been getting bashed on this board and elsewhere. It's a tough job and mistakes are made, but when a mistake is made, or someone has a concern, they are prompt in responding to that concern.
There is always room for other good authenticators in this business, and for those of you who consistently disrespect the ones out there now, join together and form your own company. If you are as good as you think, welcome aboard.
When others start bashing your expertise and opinions, perhaps the shoes you want to wear will not fit as well as you thought.
Without people such as Troy, Dave, Lou, and others, many individuals would be wasting a lot more money then they currently are, when buying memorabilia.
The hobby is getting better, and places such as this help it. These postings make all the people in the authenticating business more aware and more diligent in regard to the work they do. At least it should, if they want to continue in this business.
My thanks to all the folks at SCDA / MEARS, and to the members of this board. Keep the faith, and keep everyone striving to make this hobby cleaner and fun.
Hopefully Troy can shed some light on this recent news flash !
SCD Authentic has officially severed ties with Krause Publications/ F & W Publications. SCD Authentic is still going to stay intact, however they are changing their name to Memorabilia Evaluation and Research Service or MEARS. The new company will retain the expert services of Dave Bushing and Dan Knoll, and Troy Kinunen. The new company is also adding the services of Dave Grob who will be the companies new Policy Director. Lou Lampson, however, will not be with the new company. MEARS plans to have a new web site up and running in the coming months and is actively authenticating game worn material for the public and auction houses. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available to Auction Report.
I addressed the issues of Lou Lampson on June 4th with the following post:
I have also provided a mailing address for Lou Lampson for those interested.
With the formation of MEARS, Lou Lampson will not be authenticating under our umbrella. The reasons for this are twofold:
Regarding items submitted to us by collectors for retail opinions, our authentication team of Dave Bushing, Dan Knoll, and myself are located in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. When items are shipped to our home office, MEARS, 4034 W. National Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53215, we have regularly scheduled authentication sessions with our staff. Logistically, we can meet, inspect the items, prepare the LOO’s, and return the items from the Milwaukee office.
Regarding Lou Lampson, items submitted to us had to be shipped to Lou, retuned back to me, the letter had to be produced, then the LOO had to be reshipped back to Lou to be signed. (All items inspected by our authenticators were personally signed by that authenticator.) Then the LOO would be shipped to the customer. This process was slow and created customer service problems. But during the course of the time SCDA was in place, although cumbersome, this process was adhered to. All SCDA Lou Lampson letters signed by Lou were inspected by Lou.
Also, Lou Lampson is currently under contract with 100% Authentic. His contract remains until September of 2005. Lou has decided to finish out the remainder of that contract with no additional associations. When Lou was asked to become a member of SCDA, he made it clear to us that he was still under contract until September 2005. He was committed to honoring that contract and I commend him for that. An arrangement was made where he could work with both 100% us Authentic and us; therefore he was never exclusive with SCDA.
Lou Lampson is regarded by many to be the foremost expert of game worn basketball and football items. Auction houses and collectors will still have the opportunity to submit items directly to Lou at his home. I spoke with him today and he is preparing a price list with contact information. Since he has never participated in this forum, he asked that I would post this information for him. I agreed to do so.
From this point forward, Lou Lampson will provide his standard letter issued by him independent of SCDA or MEARS for those that request it.
I personally wish Lou the best of luck and thank him for all of the knowledge and expertise he freely shared with me during our association.
Dan Knoll, Dave Bushing, and myself spent the day with Doug Allen and staff at the Mastro Net auctions. We have compiled a list of items that we feel need clarification.
My duties today have not allowed me to post them as of yet, but a complete list will be posted here before the end of the auction.
Dan Knoll, Dave Bushing, and myself spent the day with Doug Allen and staff at the Mastro Net auctions. We have compiled a list of items that we feel need clarification.
My duties today have not allowed me to post them as of yet, but a complete list will be posted here today before the end of the auction.
These errors were caught after our preliminary research of these items. Some were very subtle differences that we discovered while photo checking these items.
Dan Knoll and our staff checked our letters of opinion versus the catalog write ups. We are going to list here the items that we found where we feel there could be misunderstanding in the catalog write up versus the letters we produced.
We did not issue any signed letters that were in error for the items that I am going to list. We delivered our final letters yesterday these were not included.
By utilyzing this forum, MEARS is able to highlight items in auction that need further clarification before the auction ends.
Mastro Net will also make the correct changes while at the same time notify current bidders of the changes made.
I'm so dizzy, I can barely write this.- - - - - Why are there so many mistakes (oops, sorry, needs for clarification, I mean) when you have already examined and evaluated these items? How many items from all of the other huge auctions you guys authenticated are in need of being reevaluated for mistakes (oops, there I go again)? I want to ask you a question and I mean this seriously: How can you have any self-respect? Or does the money fill that void? - - - - - - I'm staying up until midnight to wait for this soon-to-be-infamous list. Who else is going to stay up for a good laugh (or cry)?
This may seem like I am leaping over mouse droppings and over-reacting, but the BIOs listed on the MEARS page of auctionreport.com are in not for MEARS.
Before you say aren't these the same people??? Didn't they do all of these things? Please allow me to explain.
We are in the process of updating informtion for our web site. Part of that are the BIO's..My policy for these is that they must be written in the first person and by the actual individual...This ensures there can be no mistakes or wiggle room about anything reflected in a person's BIO...They can not say it was an oversight written by somebody else that was left uncorrected..The issue is personal responsibility and accountibility.
While I appreciate Ryan Friedman's effort to get informtion out about our organization, bringing information over from another source related to SCDA works against much of what I am trying to do with MEARS.
I know there was nothing malicious about this and I thank Ryan for what he is doing for the hobby...
