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Did You Purchase an Item from Anthony Nurse or Charity Fundraising Packages? Please Let me Know...

I saw items at an auction recently that I believe to be forgeries. I'm in the process of trying to figure out if they are real or not, and would like to hear from others on experiences they've had with Anthony Nurse or his company -- Charity Fundraising Packages.

I remember being at a party 15 years ago, and somebody had a signed "Hotel California" album by the Eagles. It was fake, and I knew it was. I asked the guy how he acquired it. He told me an auction for his sons school. I didn't have the heart to tell him.

So, when I saw another fake Hotel California album at this auction, it made me cringe.

Anyway...please contact me if you purchased a forgery or ANYTHING from this company -- and I'll see if Steve and Roger can help me authenticate these items, and we'll move into the next steps involved (if, in fact, they are forged items).

It's bad enough if forged items are sold to unsuspecting people, but to do it in the name of a charity is just despicable.

(and a website that shows generic pictures of bands signing for 50 fans doesn't prove anything...neither does a photo of Anthony Nurse standing by Rod Stewart at a book signing).

At book signings, they don't let you bring albums, cds, or guitars. They sign THE BOOK ONLY. And having a photo taking with somebody, doesn't make any autographed item you sell "authentic." Most people don't realize that.

Anyway....contact me at: joshboard87@gmail.com

Thank you!

(or post your stories on this thread)

Tags: Anthony Nurse, Charity Fundraising Packages, Forgery, autograph authenticity, charity auctions, fake autographs

4 members like this

Comment by roger epperson on November 21, 2014 at 5:36pm: Bruce,

This article is horrifying and I will forward it to the people at IE and to my attorney. Thanks for posting this!

Comment by Bradford on November 21, 2014 at 5:51pm: Incredible. May people continue to expose these frauds.

Comment by Rick Meyer on November 21, 2014 at 7:52pm: Wow. Interesting stuff. Hope they get sued huge.

Comment by Bruce Juice on November 21, 2014 at 8:05pm: My favorite quote when Charity Grow was confronted with the smoking gun evidence regarding the Tammy Wynette guitar: "Regarding the Country Legends Guitar featured in the story, we have reason to believe the Tammy Wynette signature in question may have been forged by either an unscrupulous producer at Inside Edition or one of the three competitors who appear in the piece."

Comment by Bradford on November 21, 2014 at 8:09pm: What a joke! I hope these guys go down hard. Amazing how Josh was ostracized over his efforts to expose the frauds.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 21, 2014 at 8:13pm: Inside Edition recorded the opening of the boxes Charity Grow sent the guitars in.

Comment by Bruce Juice on November 21, 2014 at 8:29pm: Here is the website of the "authenticator" who is in cahoots with them: http://rmreal.com Needless to say, his COAs have never been used by a legitimate auction house. Some of the items he certified are such bad forgeries it would be laughable -- except for the poor people who think they are donating to a worthy cause and getting ripped off. Must be millions of dollars over the course of a few years. The FBI has to get involved with this bunch of thieves.

Comment by Sidney Fields on November 21, 2014 at 10:38pm: Steve, you know they will go through all kinds of twists and turns to try to "defend" themselves. If Inside Edition recorded the opening of the boxes, the company can say IE resealed the box after placing their own guitar inside.

The one thing they won't do is react in a way a business with nothing to hide would and provide straightforward answers to serious questions.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 21, 2014 at 10:44pm: Good point, Sidney. Well, in case no one from Charity Grow is a member of this site, here's what I wrote about them in our newsletter. This way they know to add me to the people they want to sue:

Inside Edition Exposes Charity Music Memorabilia Fraud

Anthony Nurse's charity forgery scam has been discussed on AML for years. First as Autograph Store Charity Fundraising and now as Charity Grow, Nurse, who's real name is Anthony Barone, consigns millions of dollars in entertainment autographs a year to charities to sell in fundraising auctions, mostly music. If any are genuine, we've never seen them.

Then again, maybe Tammy Wynette did sign that guitar made more than a decade after she died....

Inside Edition keeps America abreast of Nurse's charity fundraising fraud in an eye-popping investigative report airing today. Check your TV schedule for times. Watch the preview now at InsideEdition.com and check their site later in the evening for a web version.

Comment by Josh Board on November 23, 2014 at 7:06am: You know what? In their idiotic response...I love how they claim "the competition" (ie Roger Epperson), signed the fake signature. If that is true, all they have to do is show the photo of the guitar before they sent it out. EVERY COMPANY that deals with signs items (especially high end items), would have photos of said item, in case somebody wants their money back for any reason, or damage in shipping, etc. You need to prove what the item is. So, they'd show a picture of the guitar without Tammy Wynettes signature, and then they'd ask how that signature got on there. Nope. Instead, they do that lame thing about discrediting Inside Edition, or talking about lawsuits, blah blah blah. And again, as I told Make-a-Wish Foundation, when trying to warn them about the forged items Charity Auction gave them....show us the picture of Eric Clapton signing the guitar. Instead, Anthony Nurse gave us two pages on how Claptons signature had changed over the years! Yet I never said the signature looked different. It did look like his signature, problem was -- IT WAS NOT. and all he had to do, is provide a photo showing Clapton sign the guitar. He couldn't do that. This company can just have 50 different signed Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Clapton guitars -- yet not a single picture of those guys sitting in a room signing that many. And, having a photo of Roger Waters leaving The Tonight Show, isn't proof of anything (although they haven't provided that, either).

Lastly, if Epperson was going to do what they claim...why would he pick Tammy Wynette? Why wouldn't he sign Hank Williams...or Woody Guthrie? I mean...do they seriously think the Inside Edition producers would risk their jobs, and jail time, to sit there with Epperson and say "How in the world can we nail these guys? Ah yes, let's sign a name on here of somebody that is dead, that'll get them!" For what? For a 5 minute segment on a show that most people didn't or wouldn't see? It's the same logic I tried to use with the black guys I played basketball with, that insisted OJ Simpson was set up. I said, "Did the cops show up one day and say 'Okay, here's the plan. We're gonna frame OJ today. You bring the gloves. Put one at his house, one at Nicoles. You...you're in charge of the blood. Put some at her house, some at his." And...50 cops (of all races) agreed to do this? So again, they're response is totally lame, and anybody that has common sense will tell you that. But seriously...somebody needs to explain to me why the authorities aren't getting involved. Using charities to sell forgeries, is a thousand times worse than how the FBI stopped that sports ring doing fake signatures.

Oh, and one more thing. They call Epperson and the others "competition". WRONG! They sell their autographs, legitimately. They don't piggy back off well-known charities and say "Sell them. Whatever you get, we take half."

This scum bags have NO COMPETITION, because they're the only ones doing this!!!!!