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The Weird Story Of The Goldin LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto Lawsuit

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When it comes to our hobby, few personalities loom larger than Ken Goldin. Everything he does makes headlines. Usually, they are positive ones involving Netflix specials or massive sales.

But now he is involved in a lawsuit featuring a dispute over the authenticity of a 2003-2004 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto card. What is the story, and who is at fault here? We have the whole story in our overview of the Goldin LeBron James rookie patch auto lawsuit.

As of late October, Goldin has filed new filings in this case. So, we will get you thoroughly up to date on this story that is rocking the entire hobby.

How the Goldin LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto Lawsuit Started

Like so many of us, Steven Spiegel grew up collecting cards. His particular love was basketball cards, and he remembers pulling a Shaquille O’Neal rookie card in 1992 as a significant experience in his collecting journey.

We all had a moment like that. Of course, Steven grew up and was forced to get an actual job. But after marrying and settling down, he was attracted to his local card store in Brooklyn, Hot Corner, at 2980 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn.

It was 2012, and the card store guy recommended that Steven invest in LeBron James and pointed out the 2003-2004 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto card as an excellent investment.

Of course, they turned out to be some truly fantastic advice. But they didn’t just have one of those babies lying around. Instead, it took Hot Corner two years to track down one of the cards. But they finally got one. It was a BGS 9, meaning it had been graded and authenticated by (at that time at least) one of America’s biggest and most prestigious authenticators.

Steven paid $35,000 for the card. That seemed like a massive sum at the time. Then he locked in the safe at the house.

His brother Alan did not approve and said, “To me, it made no sense. My initial reaction: It was feeding these childish fantasies of buying cards again. It didn’t register as an investment.” Meanwhile, Steven told the LA Times, “We … kind of just forgot about it.”

The Spiegel’s decide to sell the LeBron James rookie patch auto

In 2019, after seeing that the card’s value had increased significantly, they placed it on eBay. After some bids had come through, they received a private message on Instagram from him, in which he posted a picture of the card that read, “I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for it because you got duped. The patch was swapped out.”

They also included two pictures of said card, one with the same patch as was sitting in his safe and the other a white one.

Then, he received a $150,000 offer for the card on eBay and a message that the prospective buyer was low-balling because there were suspicions the card was not real.

Spiegel suspects that the two accounts may have been linked or that the buyer was even the same person.

Concerned, the Spiegel brothers asked Upper Deck to investigate the card. They looked into their records and vouched for its authenticity once again. They explained that there had been an issue surrounding the card because its original owner had complained to the company that his copy had suffered factory damage.

Therefore, Upper Deck asked him to mail and destroy the card. They then provided the owner with a replacement card.

Spiegel then sent the card to be re-slabbed by BGS, and they did so successfully.

Sending the card to Goldin

In 2021, Steven Spiegel decided to offload his 2003-2004 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James Rookie Patch Autograph card. And who could blame him?

It was a fantastic time to try to offload big cards. A copy of the same card had sold for $1,500,000 that year.

At this time, Ken Goldin had already made a massive reputation in the collectibles space. His presence on social media seemed ubiquitous, and he was constantly making huge sales.

It was some time before he had become a legit megastar with his own Netflix special (King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch), but he was on his way to that level of fame.

Therefore, it was natural for Spiegel to consign his card to Goldin and his company. The card was placed for sale in a June 2021 auction. Ken promised him that the card would “smash records.”

Goldin’s website estimated that the card would sell for around $1.8 million. The card began to receive bids. However, when it reached $690,000, the card was removed from the auction. No immediate explanation for the move was given.

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The involvement of Card Porn

At this point, an individual running an account known as Card Porn got involved. This person, Juan Garcia, was pretending to be a sports card watchdog while involved in several scams. I wrote a primer on the many scandals in which they were involved. But there have been many.

As I wrote then, “The Cardporn account had posted comments doubting the item’s authenticity. In particular, the report insisted that the jersey in the card was not genuine. They also claim that Garcia contacted Goldin and asked him to remove the card.  According to the lawsuit, this directly led to Ken Goldin pulling the card from the auction. Cardporn then posted that Goldin had “done the right thing.”

Meanwhile, Ken told Spiegel that “he was facing too much pressure from CardPorn and its followers.” Spiegel replied, “How do you … go with some Instagram [account] named CardPorn and say this will overrule a letter from the manufacturer?” 

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Things get weird

Usually, sports card stories don’t involve any holiday miracles. But this is not a typical story. It is something completely different. On the fifth night of Hannukah, the Spiegel family opened a box of 2003-2004 Upper Deck Exquisite that they had bought years earlier with Steven’s son, Jacob.

They opened it on livestream, and wouldn’t you know, they hit a /99 version of the card. Jacob screamed, “It’s a Hannukah miracle!”

The Spiegel family now had another card copy and could compare them. According to their filings, they sent it to Josh Bouganim, a software engineer, who put it under 200x magnification to see if the materials matched and found, “The weave of the jerseys looks the same — the gold glitter is the same.”

Help came from another quarter. Bobby Middleton is a collector who gathered info on the 2003-2004 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto card. He was interested in the story of the pulled card and gathered as many pictures of these cards as possible to put together the patch.

The card in question is no. 44, and it fits it in seamlessly with the other cards to recreate the original jersey. He found the patch fit in perfectly to help create the V in Cleveland (for the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team LeBron played for as a rookie).

Thanks to what Spiegel calls the “Hannukah miracle,” they now had substantial evidence to sue Goldin in court. And that is precisely what they did.

Goldin LeBron James rookie patch auto lawsuit commences

Spiegel was stunned. Not only was the lucrative potential sale of his card blocked, but now the card has essentially been blacklisted.

Once an authority as well-known and respected as Goldin implies that your card is fake, other buyers will be very reluctant to take the risk and buy the card. Its value suffers terribly, especially nowadays when the hobby is filled with information through social media.

That means Goldin’s actions had a material impact on Spiegel’s financial well-being, at least in theory.

Since then, Goldin has considerably increased his net worth and position in the hobby. In 2021, Collectors Holdings bought Goldin’s company for a sum worth reportedly over $200 million.

That company, owned by New York Mets owner Steven Cohen, also runs sports card grading giant PSA. Indeed, Goldin and PSA have partnered to place graded cards for auction through Goldin Auctions.

In other words, he now has plenty of money from which Spiegel can try to get his compensation.

What Is Goldin claiming in the lawsuit?

According to a court filing on October 26, Goldin claims he had an excellent reason to take the card out of the auction. On September 12, a sworn testimony deposition from Upper Deck employees occurred.

The deposition shows that Ken talked about the card with Chris Carlin, an employee of Upper Deck. That is the same individual who had spoken to Steven and assured him that the card was legitimate.

That employee: “expressed his doubts about the authenticity of the jersey patch inside the LeBron RPA” and to “make clear that Upper Deck’s letter of authenticity for the LeBron patch cannot be relied on.” According to the filing, Carlin said, “I just don’t know how to answer the questions that will come up…if you try to resell the LeBron RPA again.”

Goldin’s lawyers claim that according to the deposition given by the Upper Deck employee, he “still believes that the patch in Mr. Spiegel’s card is likely altered or inauthentic.”

Goldin also claimed that the BGS holder, which said “PATCH AUTHENTICATED BY UPPER DECK,” was based purely on the letter provided by Upper Deck, which did not authenticate the patch. Therefore, Goldin’s lawyers blame Spiegel for deliberately misleading BGS. Based on this, Spiegel told the auctioneer that “this is the only LeBron RPA patch to be authenticated by BGS.”

The filing then uses the Spiegel brothers’ words against them. Goldin’s lawyers write that the original claim had been that “there are NO SOURCES MORE RELIABLE than the manufacturer of that card.”

What did the Spiegel Brothers know and when did they know it?

In addition, Goldin claims that “years before the auction ever took place – the Spiegel’s knew that Upper Deck had significant doubts about the authenticity of the patch and knew that Upper Deck could not and would not authenticate the patch.

But the Spiegels chose to conceal this crucial information when they consigned the LeBron RPA for auction.” Goldin claims that this is a breach of the terms and agreements of Goldin Auctions and, therefore, a breach of contract. Goldin is further alleging due to these claims that the card was “fraudulently induced” into the auctions.

Goldin’s filing claims that while Upper Deck had confirmed the card’s authenticity, they believed that the patch had been swapped out.

According to the deposition, Carlin said, “No one at Upper Deck physically examined the LeBron RPA, let alone its patch, before writing the letter.”

The deposition also claims that the Spiegel brothers asked for the patch to be authenticated, but Upper Deck refused to do so because of their lingering doubts on the matter.

If he had known this, the filing claims, “there would have been no contract to allegedly breach, there would have been no auction to withdraw, and this entire dispute would have been avoided.”

Therefore, Goldin claims that he suffered damages from this affair due to lost revenue from another sale he could have made instead of the LeBron RPA. He also claims reputational damage for listing an item with an inauthentic patch and dealing with the fallout and questions arising from the dispute.

Open Questions About The Goldin LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto Lawsuit

Goldin has submitted a substantial filing since they have Carlin backing them up. But I still have many questions.

First, the filing includes several references to Carlin’s deposition. But no direct quotes and no copy of the deposition. How come?

Second, if the letter from Upper Deck did not authenticate the patch, why does it directly reference replacing the patch? Here is a quote from the letter:

“The original was destroyed, and this replacement card was numbered 44/99. It was rare that a consumer would get a better patch for a replacement back then, and these days, the best replacements pack out, so we seldom have customers waiting on replacements for these cards. Seldom can we provide this level of detail, but I was actually managing the Customer Care team at the time and had a personal experience with this exchange.”

While the language used here could be clearer, Carlin clearly addresses how and why the patch was replaced. He also says he has close knowledge of the entire process. None of this expresses any doubts about the patch.

My final question is why the Cardporn connection is not addressed directly. Goldin responded to claims from this user and allegedly mentioned them to the Spiegels, but that is not addressed here. We look forward to answers to this.

Final Word On The Goldin LeBron James Rookie Patch Auto Lawsuit

The ins and outs of this specific case are fascinating. But we always try to find the bigger picture emanating from these filings.

One thing that really stands out here is that even if you get a letter of authenticity from the manufacturer AND an authenticated slab, it can still be contested if employees do not follow their decisions. That isn’t comforting.

I am also wondering how Goldin got Carlin to undermine his work and letter of authenticity. It is weird to have an individual from a credible card company do so.

Carlin left Upper Deck in 2022, and we have many questions about why he is doing this and why his deposition does not appear in the filings. We will update you on future developments.

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Shaiel Ben-Ephraim

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim is the emeritus editor of Cardlines. He continues to write for several hobby outlets, including this one and Cardbase. He collects primarily vintage baseball and soccer and has a weird obsession with 1971 Topps.

In his spare time, Shaiel is sobbing into his bourbon when the Mets lose and playing Dungeons and Dragons. In a past life, Dr. Ben-Ephraim was a political science professor, journalist, and diplomat. But cards are more fun.

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