You feel pretty good about those red and blue, gold-bordered “Celebrate Texas” playing cards you sent to Uncle Ted in New York. You’ve kicked back, sipping a cold one-good and cold, because you’ve got that poly-cool insulated “Proud to be a Texan” can holder with the Sesquicentennial logo. The kids are playing with the official Fuzzy People Weeple; the wife is gazing with pride at her set of “Take Time for Texas” place-mats with the state flag, bird, and flower. Officially sanctioned commemorative products, every one.
You hope.
The items named above, along with 718 others, are bona fide bits of Sesquicentennialiana, but somewhere out there, even as we swagger, unscrupulous and unpatriotic “Texans” are laying plans to profit from our 150th birthday by selling bogus jolly giant pens, custom coasters, belt buckles, and muscle shirts. And “bogus,” herein defined, refers to products bearing the Sesquicentennial logo but not formally approved by the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission.
Counterfeit cufflinks and coffee cups are no laughing matter. Senate Bill 1002, passed by the 66th Legislature, handed the commission sole authority to okay Sesqui souvenirs. The bill, recently modified by the 69th Legislature, also gave the attorney general power to fine offenders up to $5,000 a day. But don’t expect to read of sting operations in which Texas Rangers make undercover buys of unauthorized bolo ties and lapel pins. SB 1002 didn’t allocate any funds for enforcement.
“The only thing we can hope for is that the local [Sesquicen-tennial] committee leaders are on the lookout for bootleggers,” says Patrick Terry. Sesquicen-tennial assistant deputy director. However. Richard Gryczkow-ski, president of R.J.G. Inc. of Hurst, says he and the other 199 officially sanctioned vendors will have to be the main watchdogs to prevent fraud. “Most of the problems arise in small gift shops and flea markets,” says Gryczkowski, whose company markets caps, jackets, and other items that bear the official Sesqui logo. The real vendors are paying the state royalties ranging from .5 percent to 30 percent of retail on products they sell. The money will be used, among other things, to help construct Exposition Plaza just outside Fair Park and fund several Ses-qui activities in Dallas.
“The grey goods market can do some big numbers,” says Gryczkowski. “No one who’s paying royalties wants a bootlegger to take a piece of their market for nothing.”
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