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GFA Certification of Maris/Mantle Items Defies Logic

I am truly amazed.   I remember when the movie "Safe at Home" came out in 1962.  I was a huge fan of Mantle and Maris and that historic 1961 team.  It has been over 50 years since that movie was released, along with the 8 different lobby cards Columbia created to promote the movie.

In all those years, I never saw even ONE example of any version of those lobby cards authentically signed by Mantle and Maris.

That is why I am amazed that no less than TWELVE examples of the SAME lobby card "signed" by the M&M boys and of course, "authenticated" by GFA, have sold on ebay in the past two months.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=roger+maris+gfa&a...

Are collectors that naive?  When you search ebay now for Mantle signed items, an overwhelming number of them carry that ugly red GFA sticker.

The cancer is spreading.  I do not understand how collectors continue to purchase these obvious forgeries.

I keep thinking that some day the bubble will burst but as long as there is a market that will continue to buy this junk, the forgers and authenticators that are behind this scam will continue to prosper, and continue to produce these.  And Ebay does not care.  That is the saddest part of this whole deal.  

Look at this crap.

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Permalink Reply by James on February 20, 2016 at 10:28pm
It truly is amazing and baffling. The auction that you provided a link to garnered 47 bids. I didn't see exactly how many individual bidders there were, but obviously there was more than one. So these individuals had time to reflect on what they were doing, and yet continued to think, "Yeah, this is a nice, authentic item. I better up my bid. I sure don't want to miss out on such a great piece of history!"

You wonder where these idiots come from. And then there's the great enabler, eBay, the company that just can't wait to collect that next 10% fee.

Obviously, knowingly selling forgeries is a crime. And since eBay is the engine that drives this bus, aren't they aiding and abetting or in some way culpable here? I would think that eBay would be concerned that at some point they might be under investigation. I just don't see how they can continue to turn a blind eye and keep hauling in the cash and never have to worry about getting in trouble themselves.
Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 21, 2016 at 5:09am

I keep thinking that they will screw the wrong person some day, and then it will unravel for all of them.  But it is getting worse, before it gets better.  As for the bids, I suspect many of them are part of the "the circle of deceit" and are shill bidders.

Permalink Reply by Mike White on August 29, 2017 at 1:28pm

Obviously, knowingly selling forgeries is a crime. And since eBay is the engine that drives this bus, aren't they aiding and abetting or in some way culpable here?

The key word is "knowingly".

eBay doesn't know anything. For every person who says "GFA=Bad" there are people who say "The people who say 'GFA=Bad'=Bad".

eBay doesn't have to decide who's telling the truth, nor do they have the expertise required to (nor are they required to have said expertise).

When the Feds, as with Operation Bullpen, say "these COAs are fraudulent" and prove that in court, eBay bans those COAs and removes items that are paired with them. That's all eBay can reasonably be expected to do.

Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 21, 2016 at 7:54am

Those "Safe At Home" items with forgeries of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris are coming off the production line fast and furiously.

The primary seller of that crap is Ebay seller Gofsu2010, who has probably sold more GFA (Guaranteed Forensic Authenticators (Stephen Rocchi and John Goraczyk) "authenticated" forgeries than any other Ebay seller.

Every three or four days Ebay seller Gofsu2010 lists a new batch of GFA-certed forgeries; looks to me like he may have a direct pipeline to the forger of these laughable Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris forgeries.

These are simply laughable penned by a dopey, amateur forger, and they sell; they don't sell for nearly what authentic Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris autographs would sell for, but.....

The people that sell that crap have EBay on their side in my opinion; by Ebay doing NOTHING to stop the selling of this garbage on their auction site, they encourage the selling of those GFA-certed forgeries.

Ebay is filled with wannabe autograph collectors who are delusional and scammers who know how to play the game and the cards that Ebay has dealt them.

The primary sellers of this crap are:

Ebay seller Gofsu2010

Ebay seller Rbisportsinc

Ebay seller Ranger191

Ebay seller Pan4life14

Ebay seller Silly_shelly

Ebay seller Alihamed

Ebay seller Dbvint123

Ebay seller Sportsstuff

Ebay seller Dc22td

Ebay seller Djmick7

Ebay seller Honestabe232323

Stephen Rocchi must be real proud of himself being discussed in the same circles as Chris Morales, Drew Max, Ted Taylor, etc.

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 21, 2016 at 9:15am

here are examples of authentic Mantle and Maris signatures, authenticated by JSA.

while we all know that the TPA's do make mistakes, when it comes to Maris and Mantle, they are very good.  I challenge one of the "collectors" to send one of these GFA certed pieces of crap to JSA or PSA and see what happens. it has zero chance of passing.  Every one of them is a hideous forgery. WAKE UP!!!!!!

Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 21, 2016 at 9:24am

Here's a Mickey Mantle/Sandy Koufax mess (forgeries) "authenticated" by Stephen Rocchi and John Goraczyk (Guaranteed Forensic Authenticators).

These are listed by Ebay seller Gofsu2010 (the biggest seller of GFA-certed forgeries on Ebay).

Stephen Rocchi:  Complicit or Incompetent?

Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 21, 2016 at 9:29am

Stephen Rocchi:  Complicit or Incompetent?

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 21, 2016 at 11:35am

I seriously doubt it is incompetence, Chris.

Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 21, 2016 at 11:39am

I have to agree with you there, Terrier!!!!

Permalink Reply by Steve on August 20, 2017 at 11:34am
Incompetence would be a step up for this crook!
Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 21, 2016 at 10:18am

Here is what a Mickey Mantle "Florida forgery" looks like under 50x scope.

Note the dot pattern in the image. In my opinion, this pattern indicates the photo was produced on a high resolution inkjet printer... not a lab produced photograph.

Did this type of printer exist in Mantle's lifetime? I do not believe it did.

And it certainly did not exist in Maris's lifetime. You think the Maris "signed" photos were produced similarly?

Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 21, 2016 at 10:37am

I do believe the new Roger Maris "signed" items (especially on those Safe At Home posters) were probably hand-penned within the last year; probably as recently as six months.

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