@Young:
I actually have lots of jerseys dating way back and not just hockey jerseys… I highly recommend that every hockey fan watch this before spending a dime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-p3rvzlDjI
I have never been much for memorabilia and autographs. I mean, yeah it is cool if you can get one in person, but buying them? No way. Not worth it. Too hard to authenticate if you plan to sell it in the future. Plus there is just a ridiculous amount of memorabilia out there and much of it is not very special or valuable. Unless an item is truly unique (like Gretzky’s stick that he scored his last goal with or something), I can’t see it being worth that much.
This has even become true of sports cards. I have only ever collected hockey cards, but there are so many inserts and jersey cards and autographs out there… they just are not special anymore. So much so that I do not even care about them anymore. I prefer the simple, aesthetically pleasing cards. Don’t care about the value.
**And as for fake jerseys… I have a friend who has bought a few from the Winter Classic and Olympics and I have been tempted to have him order one for me. The Chinese are the ultimate capitalists now. While I do not like the idea of supporting communist China or any illegal operations, I can certainly see the appeal. The quality of the conterfeit product is vastly improved of late and they are literally less than 1/6 of the price of the authentic item. For someone who doesn’t care to have the ultimate, official, perfect apparel, but something that looks 97 or 99% as good… why not save a ton of money? $300 is a car payment for a normal person.
Like I said, I am not endorsing it one way or the other, but I do understand. And the NHL is just as much a racket as the scam guys, except that they are protected by the law. It is utter extortion because they have a monopoly on the apparel market.**
