Sport Memorabilia has become one of the biggest industries in the world. There are a ton of both dealers and collectors who make a good living by selling and buying sport memorabilia items. It can be equated to the stock market as some people buy items and flip them on the open market for a quick profit while some people might buy a game-worn jersey, for example, with the big picture in mind. They will sit on the game-used jersey for years, let it mature and then sell at an astronomical profit depending on the market.
Two types of collectibles are the kind that are made by sport memorabilia companies with the intent to sell at games, conventions, and online. Then there are the items used in the actual games called Game-Used Memorabilia. If an item is related with a big game or a broken historical record, someone is creating a market and trying to profit off it. There are a few ways sport memorabilia dealers go about this. They can sell an autographed baseball on the internet via their own website, or they can post items for auction EBay, or they might even post online advertisements on sites such as Craigslist for customers who will get their memorabilia mailed to them all over the world. A lot of dealers, in addition to selling game-used memorabilia online, have a traditional brick and mortar store where customers can come in and evaluate the items in person.
The people who collect sport memorabilia are an interesting bunch. They are known to travel all around the world, going from convention to convention in an attempt to further their collection. If there is a Mickey Mantle autographed baseball in New York or a Joe Montana game-worn jersey in California, many hardcore collectors won’t hesitate to jump on a plane in order to bid on the item they have their eye on.
The business of sporting memorabilia is a dynamic one as evidenced by the daily online auctions that are now the norm. As with any lucrative industry it has produced greedy people, both dealers and collectors, who are giving the industry a black eye. These people have lost the true meaning of sportsmanship and what collecting should be about. Lots of major collectors will use young children to gain an advantage. They will pay the child a few bucks to get a bunch of equipment signed by a player in an attempt to create a valuable autographed baseball, for example. This type of behavior is embarrassing and the grownups who are plotting these schemes should be ashamed of themselves. Some real fans wait a long time after games for an opportunity to meet their hero and maybe score a game-worn jersey. These true fans should not have to complete with someone who is there simply to profit off of the athlete’s signature.
Major League Baseball is trying to authenticate memorabilia like a game-used jersey and other items as to stop the counterfeiting that is plaguing the industry. Now that it has become business instead of a hobby, it seems that anything goes with all of the money involved. MLB and other professional leagues should be applauded for stepping in and trying to insure that all items are authentic. Ideally this will keep everything on the level, but more likely than not the game of cat and mouse will continue.