Anthony Bourdain Deserved Better: The Forgery Problem on Ebay few Know About

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There seems to be a lot more who sell fake signed Bourdain photos. See further below for a list of all the different usernames associated with this ebay seller (likely just one person who operates a “farm” of these bogus accounts, each account almost always listing signed photos). If you’re uncertain, best to go with a listing that has been certified authentic by JSA, PSA or Beckett (less preferably).

Unfortunately, eBay doesn’t seem to proactively remove these listings or better yet, suspend their account for fr@ud activity. Many of “lovecollecting” listings are showing in the “sold listings” for Medium Raw books that are FORGED. Any one of the seller’s buyers is able to contact the fbi cyber crime online link and report as being a victim, scammed buying an illegitimate/ garbage signature.

Examples of Genuine Bourdain autographs

These show how he would sign books (Medium Raw era, post 2010), very similar to how he’d sign his Nasty Bits book.

As you can see, they all had a unique style, with a unique swirly action and he only seemed to sign the ‘B’ in Bourdain. I honestly don’t understand the reasoning for why he signed his name this way.

See Also: Anthony Bourdain Autographed Books with Rare Sketches

Now, examples of Anthony Bourdain forged signatures (by the same seller “lovecollecting”). Most sellers would never take an offer or sell for less than $100 for a genuine autographed Anthony Bourdain copy.

His signature changed from his 2001 “A Cook’s Tour” book release, to the more common Medium Raw signature style, published in 2010. His writing reminds me of how creative he must have been in the kitchen as a chef, and all the different foods he wasn’t afraid of trying in different countries.

In 2001 his signature was more formal/ reserved, but he seemed to include more personal messages then. Then fast forward nine years and he didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass, like writing certain letters off the page as you can see from some of the pictures above!

I’ve obtained a number of different Anthony Bourdain signed books in the past, from a Cook’s Tour to his Medium Raw 2010 title and have found the most appealing and unique style of signature Bourdain evolved to was starting in 2010 when he would sign his book “Medium Raw”. Although from what I’ve seen, he wrote much cooler inscription messages in some of the copies of “A Cook’s Tour”. One of those I happened to acquire, with the message (prior to his signature) written “Next time I want to go to the Philippines!!”

Avoid these Accounts selling Forged Bourdain Photos

Notice above how these different accounts slightly modify the titles for these forged Bourdain photos, a very spammy tactic for a serial forger. And it just so happens all these accounts at the same time last year (December 2024) showed this message: “The seller is away until Dec 31, 2024.”. They’re almost all priced under $100 along with having “best offer” enabled. He will commonly send a direct discount (like 10-15% off) for those that have viewed one of these listings. Also, he’s also probably using fake addresses for most (or all) of these ebay accounts.

Thanks to a reddit user who exposes fake autograph sellers, here’s are some screenshots of the scam accounts he linked together:

And at least one of the bogus COA’s this seller has used:

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