Sports Collecting Hobby Rocked by Alleged $350M Mister Mancave Forgery Scandal
Details are still unfolding, but from early reports, the sports memorabilia market was dealt a horrific blow on Wednesday when longtime collectibles dealer Brett Lemieux admitted to forging athlete autographs under the business name Mister Mancave. The count of fakes is unknown, but the duration is at least 20 years that could include as many as four million items, under the assumption that all confessed by Lemieux to is accurate.
The Westfield Police Department in Indiana reportedly raided two locations on Tuesday and Wednesday. Coupled with the raid, Lemieux, posted on Facebook page Autographs 101 admitting to the crimes.
*Portions of Lemieux’s post have been removed to protect the potentially innocent. As much of the post as possible was exactly reposted with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
**COA holograms are used on Certificates of Authenticity as a security measure to verify the genuineness of an item or collectible. Some COAs also include serial numbers to give an extra measure of authenticity to help prevent counterfeiting.
“Mistermancave has sold over 4 million items,” Lemieux wrote. “Yes million. Surpassed 350 million in sales. Sold and produced holograms fanatics mays bonds you name it we made it. We sold over 5 million fanatics holograms alone outside what we produced to the biggest vendors in the industry.
“Jsa we made and produced over 3 million counterfeit stickers and holograms. We made yellow cards holograms and then numbered sets in the millions. Panini. Oh yea almost forgot. We produced holograms and cards for their entire database.
“When Kobe died we put out 80,000 items into the market place. Sold over 500,000 counterfeit panini items.”
Lemieux continued, “(Name removed) of Carmel Indiana was the sole person who put out the 100,000 tom Brady items in the market. He was the source of it all along with (name removed). He funneled every item (name removed) produced. (Name removed) sold under the name (name removed) which was his brother and multiple Florida accounts with the name (name removed) and all those accounts riddled with (name removed) work.”
More details as to how the crimes were committed were provided by Lemieux:
“He’s the one who showed me the dark side of the industry and the money that can be made. (Name removed) was the original artist for the holograms then it turned into auto pen. You can buy a 150 auto pen on Amazon have people overseas vectorize signature and use ink to scape to auto pen.
“There has been nothing like this since operation bullpen. We sourced it signed it offered it and sold it all over the us for 20 years. Ultimate sports. Athletes etc. Signature dog. All American authentics. And mister f***ing mancave. We are going to be at the top.”
The post continued: “We sold fake Tom Brady for 12 years. Steiner came at me then folded. Fanatics I bought so much they didn’t know what to say or do but when you ran your mouth and what Michael Ruben thinks he’s done to the industry I set out to make as many fanatics counterfeit stickers I could. Millions upon millions.
“There will be photos of this bust I’m sure of it. If it was fanatics they may try to bury it all but the Westfield police department came today at 9am with semi trucks. I hope no one tries to hide this. I want to expose it all and how big of operation you all knew was going on but grasp how big it was.”
The post continued:
“I always took it as a challenge. Started slow and bad. And shifted to the giant that was built. I spent sleepless nights planning what items to counterfeit next. I had every hologram we ever made extracted from every companies database and put into excel.
“So with a touch of a button I can type mahomes and a bin shoots out with every Mahomes sticker hologram or coa card. Every item automated and sorted. I’d spend countless hours scrolling excel finding my next score. It was a thrill having every athlete in every sport from every authentication company at your finger tips to produce the signature, flawless authenticate it with flawless bootleg holograms and then sell it for half of what a company does by the 1000s. That’s all I spent my time and my life on. What was the next item to do. Next name. Next flawless signature.
“I was addicted. It was a rush. I wanted out. But the money was too good. I can make 100,000 in a week if I wanted to. The fact that not one dealer that knew what we were doing to the industry, or when I took their exclusive no one ever picked up a phone to confront me. That baffled me. I told multiple dealers I will ruin you and your exclusive. They knew better.
“Once the heat turns on. New company same game but make it better than the last that got you caught up. Every company made changes. We did too. They added security. We did too. There was nothing that couldn’t be done. I sat on an auto pen machine 8 hours a day perfecting signatures that would pass any coa. It even passed by own players during signings we’d mix in items. What would you do if you could create any signature on any surface flawlessly and have the holograms to boot. I just couldn’t stop. You will see a boom in bad autographs with good stickers hitting the market like a fire storm. I sold over 2 million in just holograms to every avenue I could.”
For years, collectors in the hobby have been very suspicious of Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and Mahomes autographed cards and paraphernalia. For anyone that has paid top dollar for an autographed jersey, card, helmet, baseball – you name it, it sends a chill down the spine. As buyers and collectors, all we can do is trust the people authenticating the items.
With the shakeup in the collecting industry, it has been reported and confirmed by the Westfield Police Department that a dead body was found at one of the locations of the police raids. At the time of this writing, the identity of the body was not released.
Photo credits: MisterMancave.com; Tom Brady jersey.
