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Tired of these fake team signed shirts, please help by giving your opinion!

These sellers have over a long time sold LOTS of these fake team signed shirts at swedish sites and I´m fed up of this!

Why do I believe they are fakes:

1. They are always perfectly signed, never any smudge or any signatures overlapping eachother. Just like someone have signed them under perfect conditions at home...

2. They all seem to have been signed by the same hand.

3. They come with these bogus COA, who never have any contactinfo = useless.

4. The sellers always have new ones to sell, a never ending supply of these extremly difficult to obtain signed shirts.

5. They sells them for a fraction of the price real one would cost, $75-$225.

I guess they gets them from eBay thieves like this:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/signingsrus/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_...

I will report them to both swedish sites where these are listed, but before doing this I would like to have yours opinion about these! There is always a better chance of these being pulled if I have more "proof" than just my own opinion...

So please, let me know what you think!!

Thanks for helping!

Here´s pictures (click to enlarge):

And here´s links to all fakes that these sellers have right now:

Tradera, alias "Liten20":

http://www.tradera.com/finding.mvc/itemlisting?ftgnr=514278

and

Tradera, alias "junglelanders":

http://www.tradera.com/autografer-c3_2901?ftgnr=148859

also at Blocket, using the name "linda":

http://www.blocket.se/varmland/Signerad_Barcelona_troja_hela_laget_...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on December 17, 2013 at 5:49am

Don, I am not sure there are many subscribers that are that well versed in soccer autographs. I certainly am not.

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Permalink Reply by Cogo on December 17, 2013 at 8:23am

I actually don't think you would have to be an expert on soccer autographs to know that these are all fakes...

Just the fact that:

- there is no way that these signatures can look that perfect if gotten in-person outside for example a training facility. The conditions are to tough (often crowded and often signed "thru" a carwindow when the players exit/leave the facility) to look this "good"!

- these are signed under perfect conditions on a flat solid ground. Teams only sign like this maybe once/twice a year, and often for charity reasons. These shirts then sells for more than 10-20 times what this seller takes!

- this seller has 10-15 new ones of these every month. Always with the most famous teams and with the same bogus COA. And this has been going on for years!

makes me sure that these are fakes.

But unfortunally the swedish sites are slow to remove fake autographs. They claim that they know to little about what's real or fake to decide if the item should be removed or not. That's the reason I were hoping for some other members opinion on these. And as I said, I think that the reasons listed above are enough to form an opinion, soccer expert or not... :-)

So please let me know what you all think of these! Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on December 17, 2013 at 10:20am

The Messi is bad and I dont like the United jersey either. Check Icons for authentic Messi.

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Permalink Reply by alan david munns on December 17, 2013 at 12:20pm

they are all awful , stevie wonder could have done a better job

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Permalink Reply by Rich on December 17, 2013 at 9:28pm

All the "common sense" points you made seem valid (supply, pricing, neatness). I know roughly zero about how the sports autograph business works in Europe vs. the US (though I gather it is significantly different). The Barcelona shirts strike me as bizarre, regardless. It's as though everyone on the team is vying for the most colorful, elaborate, artistic signature they can. Not what I would expect of a bunch of athletes. Really does seem like the same guy signed it, even without a close analysis of the signatures.

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Permalink Reply by Carl Ryan on December 18, 2013 at 12:02am

Hi Don,

Everything you said makes 100 percent sense to me. I think you have these guys figured out. The signature styles and flow are just too similar from signature to signature and from item to item. I wish i could be more helpful on soccer items, but thats about all i can say.

I looked at the links posted to see if i could find any auction items from that seller that were music related but couldnt see anything on ebay. And the other sites im not familiar with, and my translation isnt so good, so i wasnt sure how to search them. Do you happen to have any links to any music items they have sold or are selling. If so i will do my best to give an accurate opinion.

But great job finding these items.

Carl

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Permalink Reply by Dan Gregory on December 18, 2013 at 12:58am

I was lucky a few years ago to be present when the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team signed many shirts and items at once for sponsors etc. Literally one shirt was signed, passed along, signed and so on until all players signed it and coaches too.

Of about 60+ shirts I saw some were just a mess and others had overlapped where others signed. Most signatures got either shorter or more rushed as people signed more.

Even at the start when arms and hands were fresher for signing most did not sign perfectly and although neater still looked messy compared to most of the items you show.

Almost all the items you posted are signed far too neatly and are not genuine. These stars do not take minutes to sign perfectly, they sign and move on to the next one.

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Permalink Reply by Trond Johansen on December 18, 2013 at 2:50am

Hi, I agree with all that have been said here. I am absolutely no expert in soccer-sigs, but these shirts seem all too neat and organised in the signing to be real. One must consider the circumstances they must have been signed in, and they wouldn`t look like that, and as you said, the seller have tons of them all the time. It doesn`t add up!

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Permalink Reply by Mick Taylor on December 18, 2013 at 5:24am

Even before looking at the signatures It is simply impossible to get this quantity of full signed shirts. Any regular ip collector will tell you here in the UK it can take months to get everyone on just 1 Liverpool or United shirt.

After looking at the signatures the shirts are nothing more than rags now. Sigs definately all fakes signed by the same hand with the same pen. They are most probably not even genuine replica shirts. These sellers usually buy in fake Asian rip off shirts too

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on December 19, 2013 at 11:54am

Don- All of these jerseys are 100% forged. I believe these originate in the UK; I've seen some pop around Australia. These are all hand signed by the same person(s) I believe.

There is also a forgery ring in Spain, eBay seller becks20092010 notoriously pops up during the World Cups and sells forged jerseys for $300-500each!! Here's a link:http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=... They are no longer a member, but you can still see the ridiculous amount of money they made from the sale of forgeries. 40+ pages in feedback for soccer balls and jerseys that sold for $200-$400 each = well over $200,000 in forgeries. People think they have the real deal, but it's very sad to tell them that hundreds of dollars does not equate to legitimacy.

Here are select few of forged jerseys I could find from them (the links seem to disappear after a while so I wont be surprised if this one "disappears" as well) but I have now downloaded them so they can't:

- Both of these jerseys are forgeries, and these are methodically signed. The seller becks20092010 claimed to have insider access due to being from Spain. Believe it or not, due to the preciseness of these signatures (especially since they have multiples of every jersey offered-same signature styles in all of them) I believe these to be signed by machine (either from one of the Asian countries or Spain itself). The signatures are perfectly placed, have the same pen pressures, and look the same in every piece signed. No variation is found at all; very robotic-like.

These type of jerseys pop around during the World Cups (which is this year in the summer, so we should be seeing these soon on eBay)

Getting back to the jerseys you have provided,

The Messi autograph is 100% forged. Here is one signed by Messi at Icons- a company licensed by UEFA based in the UK that hires Messi to do private signings. http://www.icons.com/lionel_messi/profile

As you can see, no resemblance to the fake one you have shown here:

A team signed jersey, if real, would show many variations in pen pressure and signature size, which these do not. All the signatures look to be the same exact size and same pen pressure. I don't want to post my team signed jersey because forgers will use it to their advantage, but I can tell you that the pen pressures differ DRAMATICALLY; one signature would be very clear and bold, but another would be very light due to the way the athlete held the pen.

You can see the same pen pressure in the Barcelona scan you provided. If you see in the lower right hand corner (the forged Andres Iniesta signature) the "A" is the SAME EXACT "A" in the Xavi signature in the upper left. Here I have edited your scan of the Barcelona jersey provided: