McManus Auction and Christopher Morales

[Darin Harvey]

Its the second coming of Coaches Corner. Morales seems to be the main authenticator. Mantle, Williams, DiMaggio just to name few are being sold. Just more garbage that needs to be exposed

[Tyler Johnson]

I dont get it... why would the feds bust all those ppl in bullpen, but not shakedown morales and this florida ring??

[CJCollector]

This is what is going to happen.

This crap is going to sell cheap on McManus Auctions.

The buyers will be looking to flip this garbage on Ebay and then we will expose this crap for a second time.

[Rick Meyer]

Without forgeries this crook has no auction site. He knows that. Another unethical business and crook owner.

[Erich Jerozal]

perfect post Rick.  The like button has been hit. 

[Mike Miller]

You know absolutely nothing about which you speak. I live in Las Vegas and have attended auctions at McManus a few times. His normal auctions contain antiques, coins, dolls and the like. This memorabilia auction is the first time I've ever seen this auction house do anything like this. To say that without forgeries this crook has no auction site is equivalent of me saying that without a keyboard you are as interesting as socks.

See what I did there? You commented on something you know absolutely squat about, and then I did the same. Makes us both about as right as each other now, huh?

[Rich]

The guy has been outed as being completely opposed to protecting his customers, as he has been informed of the issue and shown a clear indifference to the matter.  If you think that's okay, then I have no idea how to respond to that.

[Mike Miller]

I guess my question is: How is he supposed to know what's authentic and what's not? There's over 700 items in the auction. I went there and viewed the items personally, and while I completely agree that there are items I find questionable as well, there are also a lot of first time items that I've never seen before. Items I certainly don't have the expertise to say if they are fakes or not. To ask the auctioneer to just throw a blanket over everything Chris Morales has authenticated as a fake is just too simplistic.

[Rich]

Here's the issue with Morales, if you're not aware.  He's not viewed as merely a terrible authenticator.  He's seen as a figure who empowers forgery, and forgers know they have a free pass when it comes to getting things "authenticated" by him.  This is to such an extreme that the odds of finding authentic items of any sort with a Morales COA are very low.  In the realm of high-end vintage items, you can essentially forget it.

Morales COAs, as stated, are banned on Ebay.  If you see the insane thousands of forgeries offered on Ebay on a daily basis that the company can barely address, the fact that he's among those figures who is actually banned is a HUGE statement.  This guy is cited as one of the hobby's most notorious figures, even by critics or opponents of this website.

Had Patrick come on to this site with an interest in protecting his company's name instead of being dismissive and indifferent to the clear issue at hand, this thread would have taken up a distinctly different tone.

[Mike Miller]

Fair enough. As a memorabilia collector myself, I absolutely don't want more Chris Morales stuff out there as it devalues what I already have and floods the market with fakes. I would never purchase anything authenticated by him. My main issue was the personal attacks on a person or a business from people who don't know anything about them. I know the people that run that auction house and they are good people simply trying to run a business. Trust me, no one there is anywhere near an expert on this stuff, and they had no reason to believe the items weren't real when they agreed to accept them for auction. To ask them to immediately become experts, or to remove anything questionable from the auction at this point just isn't realistic. Thank you for being civil in your comments.

[Rich]

Here's the thing:  Unless you're out getting items signed yourself purely for your own enjoyment, collecting and dealing autographs is a minefield.  There are infinitely more pitfalls than rewards, and jumping into it with minimal knowledge about it is flat out dangerous.  Some major auction houses have had serious issues and negative attention for it.  While I wasn't keenly following the topic beginning to end, Juliens got into some really hot water for selling a bunch of expensive Michael Jackson signed memorabilia without doing their homework.  Jackson fans and collectors saw that something was drastically wrong, and things got ugly.

[Randy]

If he had indeed gotten PSA/DNA to come in and look at the items as he said he considered, he would have known they were bad BEFORE he listed them for auction.

There are no high dollar items in his auction that are authentic.

I have no idea if Patrick McManus runs legitimate auctions on the other various items he sells, but most definitely he should have stayed out of sports collectibles as he obviously knows nothing about them on his own and his choice of authenticator proves he has no desire to confirm his likely concerns that many, if not all, of these autographed items are poor forgeries.

He stopped responding on this forum because he knows he is caught and the publicity he will get from now on is going to kill his reputation. If he will auction obvious forgeries, customers will likely become wary of his other auctions.

Bad decision on his part.

If he is smart, he will cancel this auction while he still has time to do so and state that he has been made aware of potential problems with the items and he needs to conduct more due diligence before the auction. That gives him a legitimate out and I can assure you he will find out these items are BAD if he uses any legitimate 3rd party authenticator.

[Steve Cyrkin, Admin]

Buying an autograph authenticated by Christopher Morales is comparable to buying a steak sold by Jeffrey Dahmer.