The sports memorabilia industry is a billion-dollar business. They autographed sports memorabilia niche makes up a significant part of that industry. For as long as we have had sports in our society we have had sports heroes. With sports heroes the desire by sports fans to trade and collect autographed sports memorabilia.

Collectors of all ages worked themselves into a frenzy trying to find the sports memorabilia that will connect their sports hero with her item of memorabilia. Many different collectors define sports memorabilia, in many different ways. For some collectors autographed item such as a baseball bat, a baseball or an autographed football is the ultimate in sports memorabilia collecting.

At any given sports event you will find collectors clamoring at players locker room exits and entrances to hopefully secure an autograph from their sports hero. This activity is not reserved for young people or kids. If they middle-aged man was a collector of autographed sports memorabilia as a child, it is likely that he grew into a man who still collects memorabilia. The only difference is he can afford more expensive and rare pieces of autographed sports memorabilia.

There is a significant problem however, that permeates the autographed sports memorabilia industry. That is, a majority of autographed sports memorabilia is said to be counterfeit or fake. Collectors who are unable to secure their own autograph baseball card memorabilia, have no issue whatsoever of purchasing an item from memorabilia dealers. That creates demand and unscrupulous dealers will stoop to the lowest levels to make sure they have enough supply to satisfy frenzied collectors.

There is really only one sure fire way to collect authentic autographed sports memorabilia. That is, if you secure the autographed yourself, in person, with the sports athlete. From that point forward, buying and autographed item from another source, you’ll run the risk of receiving a bogus autograph.

Players like Peyton Manning and Sidney Crosby are some of the most counterfeited cards.  Some of the best Peyton Manning rookie cards and Sidney Crosby rookie cards that are authentic can sell for thousands of dollars.

That is not to say that all dealers of sports memorabilia are unscrupulous. They are not. Ultimately the collector must find a comfort level with the dealer they choose to buy their autographed sports memorabilia from. There are many companies who now authenticate their autographs in a wide variety of ways. Upper deck authenticated, for example secures authentic autographed and embeds a DNA code on the item, thereby authenticating the autograph as the real deal.

Many dealers will issue certificates of authenticity on the autographed items. For the most part certificates of authenticity are forged just as often as the sports memorabilia itself.

If you desire an authentic sports card autographed or sports memorabilia item, do the best you can to get the autographed yourself.

There are many doctors that will tell you that burn victims can suffer through a lot of pain much after the occurrence.  Many of these burn victims can get addicted to pain medication and sometimes even commit suicide.  Michael Jackson’s death has brought some light into the suffering that is caused by severe burns.  Michael Jackson was prescribed strong medication for his burns and seemingly admitted to being addicted to the pain medication a few years later.  There are many people that believe this was one of the main causes of his untimely death this year.

Cosmetic Surgeons have begun experimenting with some new techniques that help relieve pain with some of there burn victims.  In some instances Botox injections have been used to help numb the area of where the skin tissue was affected.  Mark Simons, of Manhattan Cosmetic Surgeon clinic,  has stated that these injections can sometimes be very helpful to the patient.  Mark has done more that a few pro-bono cosmetic surgeries on burn victims.  Even though most of these surgeries are cosmetic and reconstructive they can be very helpful to try to bring some normalcy to a patients life.

As Baseball Cards have become part of many collectors and investors lives technology is growing to help companies refine baseball card grading into a new age.  Companies like Bionicam have developed affordable microscopes that can help people grade there own cards at home and help professionals determine if certain cards are authentic or cheap counterfeits.  Its amazing what you can do with new affordable technology.  As baseball cards become more and more elaborate in production and more money is pored into the industry, creative tools like the Biocam can change the way people do business.  We all know that were there is money there is possible corruption and as the sports card industry reaches amazing popularity cutting edge technology is needed.

We interviewed Michael at GMA Grading- a Baseball Card Grading company and he explained how with the amazing new printers and scanners on the market counterfeits have been popping up everywhere.  New technology will help collectors not get burned when making large purchases which in turn protects the hobby and help people determine what there baseball cards are worth.

Dee Kamen, inventor of the Segway has invented a water filter that can be used by third world countries to give clean water to millions of people.  He and his team have developed a portable water filter that will purify through distillation any type of tainted liquids poured into it.  Kamen will soon be producing this in mass and hoping that they can be delivered to some of the countries that are in need the most.  This invention will help with early prevention of many diseases that are passed through drinking water.  This can also deter the spread of many diseases in third world countries.

Kamen was recently on tv drinking his own urine after it has passed through the water filter.  Now that is advertising and belief in your work.  Kamen has proved to be a great humanitarian in trying to help prevent sickness and talking is entreprenurial skills to better the world.