The Hobby Boards

Michael Jordan Jersey Scam: Did Fraudsters Create Fake Foundation Under Dead Photographer’s Name To Inflate Its Value?

A Michael Jordan game-used jersey may be the center of an elaborate scam in which fraudsters created a fake foundation in a dead photographer's name in order to get the collectible falsely authenticated, the Action Network has learned.

The Tony Ranze Foundation was indispensable in providing the research material used in the authentication of the jersey, which if legitimate, could have boosted its value from its sale price of nearly $27,000 to more than a million dollars, sources said.

But the Tony Ranze Foundation isn't real and was created by someone unaffiliated with the family, the man's son told the Action Network. Ranze had been the director of photography for the Lakeland Ledger with photo credits in AFP and Getty.

“I was my father’s executor, power of attorney, everything,” said Tony’s son Nic, now 41. “I sat in on all meetings he had financially and legally the last couple years and often was the primary care giver as we took him to Little Rock, Ark. for treatments. There is absolutely no way he wouldn’t have told me about [a foundation in his name]."

Not only does the Ranze family say the foundation has nothing to do with their father — who died in 2006 after a four-year battle with multiple myeloma — an Action Network investigation found that the Tony Ranze Foundation website was created in July 2023. That's 17 years after Ranze's death — after the sale of the jersey and before efforts were made by the Foundation to boost the jersey's value.

After the Jordan jersey — which was listed by Grey Flannel Auctions and represented as game-used but without a photomatch to any specific game — sold for nearly $27K, a person who identified himself as a representative of the new jersey owner endeavored to authenticate the jersey by presenting it to MeiGray, the leading authority on photomatching across the collectibles industry.

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:01 am Watched some vids on this guy, is it true he is also involved with Ken Goldin and the rest of the PSA chumps?

mindcycle wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:16 am

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:01 am Watched some vids on this guy, is it true he is also involved with Ken Goldin and the rest of the PSA chumps?

There was some speculation Juan or someone else (don't know yet if it was run by multiple people) was connected to PSA in some form. Basically because around late 2021 or so they would constantly call out on other grading companies but never PSA or associated companies. This was never proven though, but it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. We may very well find out others in the industry were connected to this guy/account in some form. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

mindcycle wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:27 am Also this..

10528381-792D-4693-A31C-0EB560D75624.jpeg

Not sure if it’s the same guy but sure seems like it given the location.

auburn35 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 1:31 pm That blowout thread is pretty interesting, especially if it ends up being the same alleged scammer. Recent posts suggest another match to the addresses.

For what it's worth, the address noted in the process server documents from the Lebron RPA lawsuit isn't a 100% match to the blowout info. It's close, so will be worth following that case, for updates.

CP was sharing lots of in-person videos at the National, so it will be very interesting to hear from those accounts, as the story unfolds.

mindcycle wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:16 am

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:01 am Watched some vids on this guy, is it true he is also involved with Ken Goldin and the rest of the PSA chumps?

There was some speculation Juan or someone else (don't know yet if it was run by multiple people) was connected to PSA in some form. Basically because around late 2021 or so they would constantly call out on other grading companies but never PSA or associated companies. This was never proven though, but it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. We may very well find out others in the industry were connected to this guy/account in some form. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 10:02 am Is he saying that the jersey sold by Card Porn is real, or not real?

auburn35 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 3:07 pm Newest update from Meigray

mindcycle wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:00 pm Thanks for the updates man. Scary that Meigray could be duped like this. I don't know what lengths the scammers had to go to in order to convince them to accept those photoshopped images as proof, but if it was just pointing them to a fake website that's pretty sad. One would hope the scammers were a little more elaborate than that. My guess is we may never know the full story there, probably too embarrassing lol.

auburn35 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:12 pm

mindcycle wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:00 pm Thanks for the updates man. Scary that Meigray could be duped like this. I don't know what lengths the scammers had to go to in order to convince them to accept those photoshopped images as proof, but if it was just pointing them to a fake website that's pretty sad. One would hope the scammers were a little more elaborate than that. My guess is we may never know the full story there, probably too embarrassing lol.

According to Rovell's newest article, Juan didn't have to do much at all.

https://www.actionnetwork.com/nba/micha ... tification

On Aug. 8, a man whose real name is Juan Garcia strolled into MeiGray’s offices, sources said, with a Michael Jordan jersey.

MeiGray had seen this jersey before and couldn’t find a match, but Garcia said that he had purchased two photos from the foundation of late photographer Tony Ranze that showed it to be a match.

MeiGray looked at what was provided to them and took Garcia’s word on its face and gave him what he wanted: A MeiGray letter saying it matched Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a game at which Ranze was indeed taking photos.

Even when collectors pointed out that nothing else publicly available showed a match, including TV footage from those games, MeiGray stood by its story. That was until the Action Network's reporting last week.

MeiGray said it would explore its legal options and will have a more complete report on the incident. It is not known where the jersey is at this time.

AbraCalabro wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 7:13 am Makes you wonder how much the big wigs themselves get away with, huh?

Michael Jordan, Banksy and How a Collectibles Watchdog Turned Into a Fraud

In June of last year, a $150,000 card trade went down just past lunch time at a table inside a McDonald’s in Sydney, Australia.

A long time collector was trading two of his best Michael Jordan cards for a 1986 sealed Fleer basketball box, home to MJ rookie cards.

Both parties arrived on time and the exchange went flawlessly. Nothing was out of the ordinary, until the next day when the collector with the box froze.

He stared at the business card the man had given him. It had the phone number of the man who he traded the box to.

“Is there any insight that you can provide one with, and why you picked me as part of this scam?” he DM’d the man on Instagram.

Within minutes, the man who called himself Johnathan Studdart, had deleted his Instagram (The.apollo.11) and any form of communication that the man had.

Last week, the man who traded the 1986 Fleer Box was sent a post on a Blowout Cards Forum, posted in July 2021, saying to stay away from a guy named Juan Garcia.

The poster had bought a 1985 Michael Jordan signed Star rookie card from Garcia in a silver Beckett graded soft case — the card, the signature and authentication likely all faked.

In the post from three years ago, he posted Garcia’s address in Melbourne.

The address matched the address Steve Hart was sending BBCE product to and Garcia — who at some point had the gaul to tell Hart he was going to buy a 1986 Fleer box.

Hart had told the man who wound up with the Fleer box, likely tampered with and free of Jordans, that address, and he remembered it when it popped up.

Recall those 1983 Olympic cards, which are close to worthless. Why would Garcia pay $300 for them?

Once Hart found out about the fraud, he figured it out.

“The rack pack boxes were the biggest things we sold, so it gave him the biggest piece of our wrapping he could work with,” Hart said.

The man who had been defrauded then revisited the recording from his phone that he made when the transaction happened inside the McDonald’s and listened to the man’s voice. He said he got help from a Cardporn critic who compiled a short video of Garcia’s accent.

Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions sold roughly $138,000 worth of memorabilia for Garcia in his auctions out of $350 million in total sales. Goldin said that what Garcia sold at the auction house was double certed so he’s not worried about authenticity.

He set up Goldin's 1986 Fleer box break with Drake, a broadcast that commanded many eyeballs. Garcia flew with Goldin on a private plane to see it through.

“For the most part, I hated him and he hated me,” Goldin said. “When my Netflix show came out, he bashed it.”

Goldin might have dodged a bullet.

As part of his consignment to Goldin, Garcia gave him two pieces of Banksy art.

One was called “Warning Sign,” which featured a plane about to hit the Twin Towers. When Goldin saw it, he told Garcia he couldn’t sell it. A second Banksy was also pulled.

Sources said Garcia first tried to sell the Banksys privately for $1.25 million each. When he couldn’t, he went to Goldin with reserves of past $800,000. When Goldin passed, Garcia took them to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, where he took a further haircut. They sold for just $362,500 each.

Pest Control, Banksy’s official authentication group, was reviewing the pieces and certs sold in Heritage, which was doing its own work.

"In light of your initial inquiry, our Urban Art experts and leadership team have been working diligently to access and reevaluate our cataloging and attributions of these pieces," said Heritage's Chris Ivy.

But this is more cause for concern.

Garcia owns a company called artFido, which at one point purported to be the go-to auction site for independent artists. The company claims that "when Banksy wanted to break his infamous shredded painting footage, he went to artFido. True story, trust us. (The real Banksy.)”

When asked about the story, a member of the Pest Control team replied, "not true."