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Baseball card set collectors: Beware of master forger, ebay seller lock-em-up-bob

This guy has been at it for years. He takes complete sets of baseball cards, usually 1980-1992 Topps, and will forge the entire set. Then he will list the forgeries individually preying on autograph set collectors. He will often auction off a 5-6 different cards of a Hall of Famer with the same picture of himself posing w/the player in each auction. Each forgery is signed perfectly on each card, many times with hard to come by inscriptions. One of bob's special's are dual/triple signed 'Team Leaders' cards. He claims he gets all the autographs he sells at spring training or hotels, which is a LIE!!! TPA's will not pass his forgeries from what I've seen. Do NOT bid on his crap! He works closely with another scammer, ebay seller samsobo. They both are part of a South Florida forgery ring!

This is NOT an authentic Ryne Sandberg

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on November 12, 2014 at 9:30am

Based on my experience ebay will not pull an item, even if multiple members report it.

Understood and agreed. But, they used to pull and item if PSA QO failed it. I assume there was some behind the scenes link that made it automatic.

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Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on November 12, 2014 at 11:18pm

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Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on November 13, 2014 at 8:43am

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Permalink Reply by Steve Gruber on November 13, 2014 at 5:41pm

I made big mistake dealing with him and won in small claims court. Beware!!!

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on November 13, 2014 at 7:56pm

Congratulations, Im glad to hear some people fight back with these shysters.

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Permalink Reply by wascher on November 13, 2014 at 8:02pm

Good to hear Steve,

Was this recent and can you share more on this?

-w

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Permalink Reply by KennyD. on November 13, 2014 at 8:59pm

What a joke...

his signatures are ALL in the same spot and pretty much the same slant...

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Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on November 14, 2014 at 12:47am

I'm glad to also hear somebody fought back to this clown! It's amazing the autograph set collectors that have told me they have bought forgeries off him. Most of them seem to take ebay's course of action and do nothing about it, allowing bob/samsobo to continue selling thousands of fake auto a year!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Gruber on November 14, 2014 at 4:55am

Samsobo is his brother.

Lock Em Up was a long time collector who did get many signatures IP over the years. I know this for a fact. He has sold some good stuff but there have been many forgeries scattered in there as well.

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Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on November 14, 2014 at 8:41am

I have yet to see either of these clowns sell one authentic autographed card. I sent a letter out to a former player that bob has sold cards of with pics from his auctions. I'm waiting to hear back from him on what he thinks of bob's auctions. There's no doubt that they graph IP and get their "proof pics." Also no doubt they keep any real autographs and use those examples to create their forgeries on the 5 cent base cards.

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Permalink Reply by Null on November 14, 2014 at 11:26am

Nice idea here Dom, let us know how it goes. I would think more athletes/celebs would be more proactive in people making money off their fake signatures...

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Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on November 14, 2014 at 2:47pm

Ryan, I sent to a former Miami Dolphins player a few months ago regarding a Lee Trythall Coach's Corner auction that had 25+ signatures from the 1972 team on a jersey. Not only did he say his autograph was not real, but insisted his teammates were all forgeries as well.