Sporting clubs searching out footy collectables for award nights or fundraisers have paid a premium price for framed famous faces in the past.
The days of going around to a footballers place sat morning or Monday night and getting twenty guernseys signed or non AFL memorabilia and running it as a business… those days are over.
Terry Lindblom has been managing footy elite for decades. His company Vegas Promotions will now be the only officially licensed agent able to sell AFL memorabilia in SA.
“…they just want to bring it down to one place where it is sold at a set price, bring the retail price down by turnover and get it out to the local clubs… some person puts his hand up at a corporate dinner and buys something for six, seven hundred dollars and it's cost the guy twenty dollars to produce," says Terry.
Now those clubs and charities will be protected from the opportunists and worse.
"There's a lot of shonks out there… this has been going on for years… bit of tracing going on, there's product out there that's not AFL product that they are saying is AFL product," explains Terry.
With photo-shopping and digital wizardry around these days it's relatively easy to turn out a bodgy Boak or a dodgy Dangerfield and after it's under glass, well who can tell the difference?
"You want to make sure it's the real Mc’Coy and the stuff… product being sold out there, that isn't," says Terry.
Even using the generosity of an AFL superstar to earn big bucks on the side.
“… I've had luncheons where people have turned up, one particular guy turned up one day, and he had twenty or thirty photos of this particular character and, I'm not going to mention names, and he was signing them and I said what are you doing? Now you're not going to take twenty signed photographs and put on your wall are you? You know you get one or two," says Terry.
Crows fans agreed telling us "… that's what really upsets the players because they sign something and five minutes later it's on Ebay and that's when they get really upset and I don't blame ‘em… I've never seen any kid coming up with twenty guernseys to be signed or something like that… they always come with one, or two at the most".
And that's the other side of this fight, to protect a brand. Parents get upset if their kids can't get an autograph or a footy signed by their idols.
"I mean when I was a little kid I used to come down and try and get my, my guernsey signed so I always like giving a little back, so good fun," agrees Crows midfielder Bernie Vince.
And Terry Lindblom says that will not change.
"You know a kid comes up with a football or a charity comes down, they will do that sort of stuff but they won’t be signing fifty footballs or twenty guernseys… those days are over,” says Terry.
And if you are one of those leaching off the local clubs and AFL, be warned, they will come after you!
“There's going to be fines involved and the players have been told about it, the clubs are behind it, they want to control it," says Terry.
