Sports Memorabilia

Paul Goldin, 62, a Cherry Hill resident who was a pioneer in the sports- memorabilia industry, died Saturday at West Jersey Hospital in Voorhees. Capitalizing on a growing demand for sports collectibles and memorabilia, Mr. Goldin and his son, Ken, opened The Score Board Inc., specializing in sports cards and memorabilia, in Cherry Hill in November 1986. By July 1987, the company had gone public, offering baseballs signed by Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron, jerseys autographed by Wayne Gretzky and Joe Montana, and basketballs signed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The hobby of collecting baseball cards and autographs, a symbol of boyhood innocence for close to a century, is no longer a hobby - and no longer innocent. With $1.5 billion having been spent on sports memorabilia in the past year alone, the boys have been overpowered by businessmen, and the innocence has given way to deceit. In the midst of its greatest boom, the industry has become inundated with forged autographs, bogus baseball jerseys and mail-order frauds. Even the cards themselves - the foundation of the business - have been tainted by counterfeiters.

Playthings will be featured at two two-day catalog auctions next week: dolls Wednesday and Thursday, sports memorabilia Friday and next Saturday. The dolls and related paraphernalia will be offered by Alderfer Auction Co. in Hatfield. The 1,300 lots, with collections from the family of Lorena Hershey (a cousin of chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey) and antiques authority Lita Solis-Cohen, include dolls made of bisque, papier-mache, cloth, plastic and celluloid, as well as dollhouses and furnishings, clothing and accessories, doll body parts, books, and 60-plus lots of Steiff stuffed animals.

With an estimated value of $5 million to $7 million, the Copeland collection of baseball cards and sports memorabilia being sold by Sotheby's this weekend in New York is no doubt attracting what could justifiably be called the "heavy hitters. " Oddly enough, however, it is not the only imminent sports-memorabilia sale. Two auctions in New Jersey over the next few days not only will offer baseball cards and similar collectibles, but also will sell baseballs autographed by Babe Ruth.

Here's something to look forward to during the dog days at the end of this month: Hunt Auctions' annual late-summer sale of important sports memorabilia. The two-day sale will be held Aug. 22 and 23 at the Holiday Inn on Route 100 in Lionville and will feature baseball cards, uniforms and collectibles. As usual, the top items will be offered at the Aug. 23 session, which begins at 11 a.m. Among the most interesting items to be sold will be a 1954 Brooklyn Dodgers baseball bat from a local consigner, according to David Hunt.

When he was in the seventh grade, David Hunt got his parents to rent tables for him on weekends at the Granite Run Mall so he could sell his baseball cards to passersby. Now he is 32, the owner of one of the major sports auction houses in the country. But he still relishes the thrill of those first ventures in entrepreneurial capitalism. "When you're 13 years old and you sell a few hundred dollars of cardboard, you're pretty happy about it," he said. Hunt owns Hunt Auctions Inc. in Exton.

They are the shock troops of sports memorabilia merchandising. Thirty of them arrived in Philadelphia late Monday night, mostly from Kansas City. By Tuesday afternoon, they had opened 15 sports-memorabilia outlets in formerly empty stores in strip plazas, hotels and mall kiosks throughout the city and the suburbs, selling NBA-licensed 76ers jerseys, shorts and other souvenirs. Yesterday, two of them - employees of an outfit from Overland Park, Kan., called SportsWon Inc. - were handling a steady, although not overwhelming, flow of retail traffic in the Brandywine Ballroom in the Double Tree Hotel on Roosevelt Boulevard.

He is married with three children, lives in a comfortable home about 20 miles outside of Philadelphia and works for a construction company. If it weren't for the cardboard box hidden under a blanket in the corner of his basement, there would be no tangible evidence of his former life. Inside the box are a few dozen baseball cards, three financial ledgers, a handful of other papers and several autographed baseballs and photographs left over from the time when he was one of the top sports-memorabilia dealers in the nation.

Can O.J. Simpson still make a living being O.J. Simpson? Events of the last 6 1/2 weeks suggest that it won't be easy. No publishers or pay-per-view television companies have clamored for his services. Corporate America has avoided any association with him, as NBC found out when it planned to interview him live in prime time after his murder trial. Even International Creative Management, his Hollywood talent agency of 20 years, dropped him, though he was found not guilty in the murders of his ex-wife and her friend.

A West Chester man who allegedly attempted to con the QVC home-shopping network by forging baseball cards and other sports memorabilia will face theft charges this month in West Chester District Court. According to court records, Gordon R. Robothum of West Chester stole more than $11,500 worth of sports memorabilia from QVC Inc. Using credit cards belonging to him and his wife, Pamela Cronk, Robothum allegedly ordered thousands of dollars' worth of autographed sports memorabilia from QVC. He then kept the autographed baseballs and baseball, football and basketball collectors' cards and sent back for refunds similar items with forged signatures and forged authenticating documents, records say. Court records indicate only the best items were stolen: baseballs signed by Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Thomas and Nolan Ryan and collectors' cards autographed by football players Troy Aikman, Drew Bledsoe, Heath Shuler and Marshall Faulk, Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal of NBA fame.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA authorities are investigating the theft of sports memorabilia and jewelry from the home of former Penn State star John Cappelletti, the 1973 Heisman Trophy winner. Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said yesterday that the burglary occurred on or around Jan. 20 at Cappelletti's home in Laguna Niguel. Amormino said he cannot say specifically what items were taken but they do relate to Cappelletti's playing days at Penn State and NFL years with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Chargers.

An oil painting by the leader of the Scalp Level School, a southwestern Pennsylvania art colony that predated the Brandywine and Bucks County impressionists, will be for sale this afternoon. Alderfer Auction and Appraisal's sale in Hatfield will offer 200 lots of American and European paintings, including the oil by George Hetzel, probably the best-known artist southwestern Pennsylvania had produced until the advent of Andy Warhol. The Scalp Level School took its name from its location, a once bucolic town southeast of Johnstown where around 1830 an art gallery opened that became a nucleus for area artists.

Many people are buried with sports memorabilia. Fishing rods. Golf clubs. Shotguns. Even duck decoys. Being buried inside sports memorabilia is another story. But now it's possible. A Phillies funeral casket - the first on view in the region, the distributor says - sits in a showroom at the Kingston & Kemp Funeral Home, just outside Trenton. The exterior is a lustrous white with wood-veneer inlays, and the handles are in Phillies red, sporting red tassels at each end. Logos are strategically placed above the handles, on a fabric liner, and at the casket's ends.

On the first day the Daly family moved into their Upper Darby house, two patrons from the nearby bar got into a fight on their front lawn. During the four years they have lived in the neighborhood behind Craig's Tavern, the Dalys have had to deal with loud music, the smell of marijuana from the bar's parking lot, cars blocking their driveway, and the crashing sound that beer bottles make when they are poured into the trash at 6 a.m. ...

The popularity of sports can be attributed in large part to the anticipation of waiting for results that are never predetermined. A similar uncertainty clouds the future of the Delaware County Athletes Hall of Fame. Temporarily housed at Delaware County's Brandywine Conference and Visitors Bureau in Chadds Ford, the hall of fame is looking for a permanent home before the bureau moves to its new quarters in Rose Tree Park next year. Since 1939, the hall has sought to highlight the county's many contributions to sports, ranging from Villanova and Philadelphia Warriors basketball standout Paul Arizin to former Sharon Hill resident Gertie Dunn, who was rookie of the year in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig scheduled a conference call today for owners to vote on the proposed move of the Montreal Expos to Washington. A notice to the major-league teams went out late Wednesday. The vote by owners is expected to be conditioned on the District of Columbia's completing legislation to fund a new ballpark for the team. The D.C. Council voted this week to approve financing but must vote a second time for the measure to become law. In addition, the Council added a $630 million cap to the project that was not contained in the agreement signed in September by the Expos and Washington Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

Playthings will be featured at two two-day catalog auctions next week: dolls Wednesday and Thursday, sports memorabilia Friday and next Saturday. The dolls and related paraphernalia will be offered by Alderfer Auction Co. in Hatfield. The 1,300 lots, with collections from the family of Lorena Hershey (a cousin of chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey) and antiques authority Lita Solis-Cohen, include dolls made of bisque, papier-mache, cloth, plastic and celluloid, as well as dollhouses and furnishings, clothing and accessories, doll body parts, books, and 60-plus lots of Steiff stuffed animals.

Two auctions will be welcome harbingers of spring: a Valentine's send-off sale tomorrow, and a two-day sale next weekend heralding the arrival of the baseball season. Tomorrow's sale will be conducted by Ron Rhoads, who calls it a "sweetheart" auction. Beginning at 9 a.m. at the Kimberton Fairgrounds, it will have its share of sentimental items, including elegant costumery from a prominent Main Line estate and a large collection of Maxfield Parrish prints. But the auction's highlight will be original artwork, including the personal collection of David Ellinger, along with more than a dozen of his works.

When he was in the seventh grade, David Hunt got his parents to rent tables for him on weekends at the Granite Run Mall so he could sell his baseball cards to passersby. Now he is 32, the owner of one of the major sports auction houses in the country. But he still relishes the thrill of those first ventures in entrepreneurial capitalism. "When you're 13 years old and you sell a few hundred dollars of cardboard, you're pretty happy about it," he said. Hunt owns Hunt Auctions Inc. in Exton.

The bat Babe Ruth used to hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium was found after languishing under a bed in Newport Beach, Calif., for two decades. The owner of the bat plans to put it up for auction soon, Professional Sports Authenticators, a sports memorabilia company, said yesterday. Ruth hit the homer in the third inning on April 18, 1923. The three-run shot sent the Yankees past the Boston Red Sox, 4-1. He autographed and inscribed the 45-ounce bat to Victor Orsatti, a winner of a California youth home-run-hitting contest.