On the other hand, maybe Barry Halper wasn't a fraud ...

Just to update a post on our site yesterday, which linked to a New York Post article which described a long list of alleged frauds by Barry Halper.

Well, it seems that maybe, just maybe, the Post story was a bunch of bullshit.



This is from the Gotham Baseball blog:

The newspaper industry is in enough trouble these days without printing smear jobs written by “journalists” who have a conflict of interest about the very subject they are writing about. But this past week, the New York Post did just that by publishing this gem by Peter J. Nash about deceased baseball memorabilia collector Barry Halper.

What the New York Post doesn’t tell you is that Nash is involved in a long-running litigation with a memorabilia auction house that represented Barry Halper, has admitted in publicly-filed court papers to committing fraud against that very same auction house, and has an outstanding warrant for arrest related to a $760,000 judgment against him.

... Never does the fact that Nash, who according to Sports Illustrated, has been investigated by the FBI for selling forged memorabilia items ever even get mentioned. Or that in his testimony in the litigation with the auction house, Mr. Nash repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to dozens of questions about his memorabilia transactions to avoid incriminating himself.

The article goes on to defend Halper and his collection.

So, was Halper a fraud? Is Pete Nash a fraud? Is the New York Post a rag that published an article written by someone with a massive conflict of interest?

Don't know. I just know this. There's one rule to remember about the memorabilia industry. There's only one way to absolutely, positively be sure about the authenticity of any autograph ... if you saw it signed with your own eyes.