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Questionable NFL Autographs: Raceworld.com

I'm a bit surprised that Raceworld.com hasn't been brought up in this forum before, because 1) they seem to sell quite a bit of signed sports memorabilia and 2) a lot of it is questionable.

Granted my knowledge base of sports autographs is limited to the Green Bay Packers, but when I type in Packers on that website - I wouldn't touch what they're selling with a 10 foot pole. Some of them are well done (some of the Matthews autographs), some of them not so much (the Greg Jennings autographs are a joke).

These days I typically try to avoid blanket statements about forgeries these days, but I would very enthusiastically take a bet that the plethora of Packers items I see is 100% fake, top to bottom. I'd love to hear others' takes on this company's items.

Here's my laundry list of red flags:

*None of the autographs are really that "spot on." Some are pretty well done though.

*Favre items without the Favre hologram. Unless you're selling stuff from the mid-90's (which these are not), it's pretty absurd to proceed on any thought that these might be real.

*The Greg Jennings autographs are a terrible misfire. Badly done. Some of the Rodgers autographs are equally attrocious.

*Items that don't make much sense. Alex Green SB45 mini helmets. Green was not on the SB 45 roster. He was drafted the following season.

*Rodgers autographs with a "12" inscription. He hasn't included "12" with any of his autographs at any signing for a couple years now. If you pay for an inscription, it's most certainly not going to be 12. Very common forger mistake.

*Rodgers signing style is off across the board. Rodgers has a different signing style he typically uses for footballs (two stroke "R"). The forger decidedly doesn't know which is which. Most of the R's in the Rodgers sigs are screwed up regardless.

*Rodgers dark green jersey numbers signed in black sharpie. He uses paint pen for the dark numbers.

*Zero information/documentation on where these things came from. The way the sports autograph markey works today, that's pretty unforgivable. At best it's incredibly lazy. At worst it's a major forgery red flag.

http://raceworld.com/rpm-cart/search.phtml?CatID1=&CatID2=&...

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Permalink Reply by Steel on February 5, 2013 at 10:29am

I'm kind of in the same boat you are in. I have a pretty extensive Steelers collection and some of the stuff on their site looks good, while others do not (I only looked at a handful). One thing i did notice is that they announced a new expert to their authentication team, and he is a member of this site. So maybe he will chime in.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 5, 2013 at 10:40am

That announcement has been there for at least two years.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on February 5, 2013 at 10:51am

Yes I used to do the NASCAR authentication. I can say that when I started looking at their NASCAR items, they would instantly remove any fake items that I saw.

They shouldnt use my name with anything other than NASCAR though.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 5, 2013 at 10:52am

Glad you chimed in - I can attest that they are very liberally using your name. Check out the COA's pictured with many of the photos.

A couple years ago, before Super Bowl 45, I bought an Aaron Rodgers mini helmet off of a large autograph company (I'll have to dig up the name - it was through Newegg). The COA was supposedly from Radtke, one of the very few businesses that had indeed had a signing with Rodgers prior to his rise to stardom. The item I got was from Raceworld.com. I didn't know about them but looked them up and saw that not only were they one of the few companies that had Rodgers autographs, they seemed to be selling them at a fantastic price ($150, I think). I looked at their other inventory and immediately found it mostly questionable. I immediately returned the mini helmet, as I was quite certain it was not authentic.

Brandon, I'm absolutely positive that your name was on that COA I received. That's the first time I heard of you. I found it really puzzling because they even explained that you were the NASCAR authentictor. I figured it was a mistake, but two years later I check out the website and see you name all over even more stuff. And bad stuff at that.

Hope you can clear stuff up with them.

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Permalink Reply by Steel on February 5, 2013 at 10:54am

Thanks for clearing that up. I agree with Rich, they seem to put your name with all the NFL stuff I looked at as well.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on February 5, 2013 at 11:19am

I will, and thanks! I have told them several times in the past that I am to opine on NASCAR items only. In fact, I reviewed the way they wrote the fact that I was for NASCAR items.

Rich, it has actually been on there for over 4 years at least. I always thought it was clear that I was the NASCAR expert. I will address it again.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 5, 2013 at 11:22am

It's hard to see the COAs in the photos, but I recall the one I got being pretty generic - i.e. not even stating Rodgers name. I think they're mass producing these things in order to sell questionable merchandise.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on February 5, 2013 at 11:45am

Thank you Rich! a LOT!

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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 5, 2013 at 11:59am

I should have said something earlier, but to be honest - I wasn't sure if this was them abusing your name or just bad authentication on your part. But seeing all this football stuff didn't seem to line up with your comments about only authenticating NASCAR autographs. And I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until recently. A couple years back, there were only a few Packers items (Rodgers and Favre, if I recall correctly).

Again, I can only give informed opinions on Packers and - to a lesser extent - some Brewers stuff (their Ryan Braun items look like trouble too). I have no idea what the scope of their damage is overall.