London Knights & Fan In Dispute Over Authenticity Of Game-Worn Mitch Marner Jersey

[flemingc04]

This story is slowly starting to come to light and will surely gain more attention as time goes on. Basically the guy is claiming that the game-worn jersey, bought from the London Knights off the CHL auction site, was never worn by Mitch Marner in a game.
www.lfpress.com/2016/08/22/a-london-collector-who-paid--3510-for-a-game-jersey-worn-by-london-knights-star-mitch-marner-believes-its-actually-in-the-hockey-hall-of-fame

Surely there's more on the web about the story as the article above doesn't seem to paint the whole picture about the issue. The article mainly talks about the guy getting a regular season jersey rather than a Memorial Cup jersey, meanwhile the auction started in March and ended the day before the Memorial Cup started. From reading around on another forum, the claim from the fan seems to be based on buying a game-worn jersey from the regular season and claiming it was never game-worn.

[Sharky94]

If he is claiming it isn't game-worn, he'll have a hell of a time "proving" that. Even minor league jerseys are pretty durable, and if a guy plays one game in it and has an easy game, there is a good chance you won't be able to tell it from a new one (especially with a BLACK jersey). I am betting with a prospect like that, in a big season, they had him wear many, many different jerseys. If a minor league team can make $3K off selling a single jersey, you know they are going to do that a lot. Pro teams have guys wear three or four different sets each year (not including one-gamers/special event jerseys) to sell/give away, and the money means a lot less to pro teams. I can imagine selling used jerseys is a big money maker for minor league teams. But with so many games, it takes absolutely no effort to give the kid a new jersey each night to make sure it is game worn, so I can't see any reason they wouldn't do it. It's not like they are going to sell 80 GU jerseys when he only played in 79 games, or anything like that. Unless the jersey still has the manufacturer labels/price stickers attached to it, I don't see any way he could have a case.

[flemingc04]

The Toronto Star has a good article on it, which explains it better and sheds more light on the details of the disagreement betwen both parties.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...morabilia.html

Apparently the Marner jersey has a few things that set off red flags in the buyer's mind. I would think that most notably, the sticker inside the jersey on the tag (toward the bottom of the Toronto Star article). I would think that sticker should have washed or worn off quite quickly. I'm fairly green in the area as I'm not big into the game-used equipment hobby. However, my fiance and I do have some game-used OHL jerseys. From looking at them, right away you can see a bit of wear along the inside of the neck lines from friction over the course of the year, the smell is ever-lasting even after hanging them outside to dry and wearing them several times in public, and there is some discolouration to the tie-down straps as they were once perfectly white, and have turned off-white over time from wear.

[Sharky94]

All jerseys will show wear over time, but if it was only worn for a game or two, it can still look brand new. I have an AHL gamer that was worn in 3 games. Two separate players wore it, and they appeared in exactly three games that season (and I assume washed at least twice, if not three times). It still has that same sticker on it that the Marner fan was using as "proof" it was brand new. And his claim that the fight strap had never been used -- well, I just have no idea how he could claim that. They are not shrink wrapped or anything like that when new. They are Velcro. You can open and close them and not tell the difference. There is literally no way you can prove if that is true or not. This guy's whole argument seems to hang on the "playoff" jersey he expected to get, when they admitted it wasn't from the playoffs and never promised that to him.

Believe me, if you wash a new jersey one time, it will still look brand new. I do it all the time. When you get a new jersey that you want to get autographed, you should always wash it once (or at least put it through a rinse cycle). The reason is, the numbers sometime have a coating on them that will make Sharpie ink bleed a little. Your auto will come out much better if you wash the jersey first. So I always do, and you can't tell the difference after just one time. The only way the guy could "prove" his Marner jersey was new would be to get it signed, and if it bled, then he'd know. Not sure that is going to happen though until this all gets decided.

The only thing that has me maybe believing this guy is the whole thing with the Knights having to fire their merchandise manager. Why was he fired? There is definitely some smoke there.