and no documentation anything like that
nothing at all
welcome to watch mojo and today we're
counting down our picks for the top 10
fake items on pawn stars sometimes
cory's ego gets the best of them
but it's a lesson he's gonna have to
learn don't know what to say
at this point i'm just gonna pass i
guess i'm just gonna go home and soak in
my own misery
oh well for this list we'll be looking
at interesting items that were brought
in on the show but turned out to be
fakes
whether or not the world famous gold and
silver pawn shop ended up buying them
do you have any fake items you've
collected let us know in the comments
number 10 john lennon artwork the john
lennon
um come with me aside from being one of
the greatest songwriters in music
history
john lennon was also an accomplished
artist his artwork
is universally recognized especially the
self-portrait doodles he did these
doodles and things like that
and you know in the 70s he realized
people would pay him money for it
then he started doing the really large
ones i mean he did full like
portrait-sized ones
almost all the yard i've ever seen from
him is like this a man came into the
shop bearing some supposedly original
john lennon doodles which the owner
claims to have picked up at a thrift
store of all places
there's a reason it was sitting in a
thrift store and not in someone's
personal collection
the owner believed it was worth twenty
thousand dollars but when rick flipped
the paper over
he saw a kodak paper watermark as lennon
passed away in 1980
long before this computer paper was
readily available he easily declared it
a fake
and the owner walked away with nothing
so uh it's cool
but it's 100 fake
glad i didn't pay much for it number
nine shoeless joe
jackson book do you know how rare it is
to find his signature
no not at all it's the rare sports
signature period
wow one of the most divisive and
controversial baseball players of all
time
shoeless joe was an exceptional player
however his legacy was tainted after the
1919 world series
which saw players of the chicago white
sox intentionally throwing the games for
money
a customer on pawn stars arrived with an
old book titled say it ain't sojo
that was allegedly signed by jackson but
joe jackson's signature is
so rare and so expensive i just have to
take the gamble before this guy walks
out the door with it
according to rick jackson's signature is
the rarest in sports
and the owner even had it certified rick
ended up paying 13
000 for nothing he had it looked at by
various experts all of whom deduced that
the signature was
fake several factors became apparent
during our thorough examination that
prevented us from certifying the
autographs
which means it's fake the entire small
case e
in joe's first name has been erased and
signed over the original
[Laughter]
the title of that book has a certain
irony to it
number eight napoleon letter that
wouldn't be the last time that the pawn
stars were fooled
in season eight a man walked in with a
letter that was allegedly written by
napoleon bonaparte
the item contained many authentic
aspects including the period specific
wax seal and a certificate of
authenticity
okay it seems like it's from a pretty
legit company
what do you want for it and don't be
crazy man i mean i gotta make money here
too
okay okay cory ended up paying a
surprisingly small two thousand dollars
for the letter but even that was too
much
two thousand two thousand all right
sweet man i'll meet you right over there
thank you
rick had corey go to an expert who was
quick to judge the letter a replica
his primary concern was the ink which
was neither smudged
nor faded we would see where there are
blobs of ink
and we'd see that the ink would have
faded in color
i can't say that this is worth very much
as a historical artifact
well there goes two thousand dollars
down the drain corey tried selling it in
the shop for twenty dollars
but even that proved a failure as rick
prevented him from selling a fake item
we don't sell fake stuff here sometimes
cory's ego gets the best of them
but it's a lesson he's gonna have to
learn number seven
prison memorabilia a tough looking man
with a handlebar mustache showed up with
a suitably tough item
a wells fargo strong box an antique ball
and chain and some handcuffs
i'm looking to get around two thousand
dollars for everything the least i would
take is probably around 18.
the ball and chain allegedly came from
yuma territorial prison
which opened in 1876 and the handcuffs
from california's folsom state
however rick was very quick to point out
some historical discrepancies
the old handcuffs from folsom had
electrically welded chains
which proved anachronistic and despite
rick claiming that prisons never put
their name on the ball and chains
the yuma ball and chain had a clear yuma
stamped into the iron
okay so what are you trying to say it's
fake
even the strong box was fake a fact that
rick regrettably learned after shelling
out 450
i thought it was fake to start with well
then why didn't you say anything
i didn't want to bust your bubble what
so you wrote let me spend the money
instead
now i can holler at you number six pete
rose baseball cards
pete rose is widely regarded as one of
the best baseball players of all time
he's a 17-time all-star won three world
series
and currently still holds the mlb record
with 4
256 hits as one can imagine his baseball
cards are worth some good money
before i buy these i gotta know that
they're legit and these things look like
they're in great shape
maybe a little too good of shape in
season two a man tried selling
five 1967 rose cards the fact that he
had five proved a major red flag
and rick instantly identified them as
fakes how can you tell that what do you
what do you mean because the color's all
faded everything's a blur
even his face it doesn't look silk
screened various aspects of the card's
physical design were totally off
including the faded colors and
overexposed picture
it's amazing how quickly dreams of cash
can be dashed
if these cards are fake then you know
what else is real
the wife reel the dog the cat
you know what's real number five babe
ruth signed baton glove
speaking of baseball in the fifth season
premiere a man walked into the shop with
a particularly special baseball bat and
glove
babe ruth is probably the most famous
baseball player of all time
the accomplishments that babe ruth made
in his career i mean he outshines just
about
every baseball player since him the
glove was signed by none other than
babe ruth and the bat co-signed by ruth
and christy matthewson
a dominant pitcher who played for the
new york giants the owner was hoping to
get 120 000
for the two items an exorbitant cost
that had rick
rightfully consulting expert advice who
is your guy
and what makes him special uh because i
trust him and i know him but i don't
know you
okay that makes sense the expert deduced
that the authentication papers were
fraudulently signed by a criminal
who was caught in an fbi sting known as
operation bullpen
14 individuals from five states were
convicted in the scam
so what's the bottom line
with all the circumstantial evidence my
gut tells me that this is
unlikely genuine the signature isn't
considered legitimate and rick walked
away from the deal
i don't know what to say at this point
i'm just going to pass
i'm sorry i can't do nothing for you man
i can understand that
number four titanic newspaper
pardon the pun but an authentic
newspaper reporting on the titanic
disaster would be a titanic find
for a 1912 newspaper it's in perfect
condition i mean perfect
the pawn stars were certainly excited
when a man tried selling a copy of the
boston daily globe with the tragic
headline
titanic sinks 1500 die however rick
instantly took note of the impeccably
white paper and pristine ink
major red flags considering the paper
had ostensibly been around for a century
he also noticed that the picture
accompanying the story was from a copy
machine
you see right here huh that's from a
copy machine
okay so when when they copied it
probably right after the movie came out
needless to say the newspaper itself was
fake but fake or not
it's still a really interesting thing to
have around the house i guess i was
going to go home and sulk in my own
misery
oh well number three
monet painting okay um
where in the hell did you get this a
founder of the french impressionist
movement
oscar claude monet is one of the most
famed artists of all time
his paintings of course go for big money
with his work
le bacione selling for 80 million
dollars in 2008
the owner of this particular supposed
monet painting was asking for one
million dollars
nothing compared to his greatest works
but a sizable chunk of change
nonetheless
people have walked in my shop and i have
bought hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of merchandise off them but a real
monet
that might be the most expensive item
yet the painting was supposedly on
exhibit at the las vegas art museum
in 1997 and the art came with numerous
pieces of documentation
an expert was brought in and he noticed
that the paint wasn't sweating through
the canvas
the brush strokes are there it's it's
very thin usually you'll get some sort
of impasto a little bit more texture
he usually had some texture in his
pieces and this again there's very
little of that
regardless of its beauty the painting
was not a monet original
number two lincoln family photo as rick
says
you never know what's going to come
through those doors in season 16
a man came through with what seemed like
a huge catch
a photograph of mary todd and abraham
lincoln dated from 1863 so where'd you
get this
i bought it from a collector who sold me
a collection of 11 photographs
that were unidentified and i
painstakingly was able to identify every
single one of them
and did recognize that to be abraham and
mary together
and no documentation anything like that
nothing at all
if correct the photo would have been
taken during the civil war while lincoln
was serving as the 16th president of the
united states
you have to look at everything in the
photograph from what they're wearing to
what type of picture it is
to then what's happening with the face
the owner asked one million dollars for
the photo
and while the expert called it a
gorgeous picture it was nevertheless a
fake one but that wasn't enough for the
owner
who rudely claimed that the expert was
discrediting herself by calling it a
fake
i know you think this is worth a million
dollars no you would like it to be worth
a million dollars and all i'm saying is
it's my opinion
that it's not abraham lincoln we think
someone was just a little upset
before we unveil our number one pick
here are a few honorable mentions
1967 chicago bears autographed football
signatures were fakes these are
contrasting signatures very
typical for what you see in a clubhouse
signature they were signed by somebody
else
other than the athlete jimi hendrix's
poetry
the pen lettering and signature were all
wrong the last name
seems to be you know printed type style
he would always write in cursive
colt's army model 1860 number stamping
was
off well i've never seen one of these
numbered here this connector rod
i can just tell you i don't like the way
the numbers are stamped they're usually
marked
right here 1777
french musket the grime and rust were
completely artificial
from everything i'm seeing here this
most likely
is a movie prop gun before we continue
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number one baltic amber now we're not
gem experts or anything but something
that's 40 to 50 million years old is
bound to be worth a good chunk of change
that is if the item in question is
actually millions of years old
piece of baltic amber with a tarantula
he's got some paperwork it's a tarantula
a man arrived at the pawn shop believing
that he was in possession of some baltic
amber with an entombed
tarantula yeah i sent it off to berkeley
and uh
to the entomology department the owner
had some sketchy paperwork supposedly
proving that it was real amber
but the gemstone expert had it sent to
the gemological institute of america
at the personal cost of the owner who
paid 200
to have it sent out and appraised
unfortunately the amber was actually
just plastic
and the owner was out two hundred
dollars now that's what we call getting
ripped off at a pawn shop
this sucks do you agree with our picks
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