woa wrote:

You make some good and valid points. I think discussing authenticators is critical to educating the public. There are too many dealers who, as you say, "has no idea what he is doing or who to trust and blindly buys stuff and submits it and relies on the authenticators to know what is good and bad." These dealers are passing the responsibility for authenticity (which should be their primary job as an autograph dealer) to a bunch of corrupt, incompetent idiots.

You say, "One of the most trusted sellers of autographs is a consultant for one of the authenticators. Are you implying that he has no idea what he is doing. Yeah right..."
So what. There are tens of thousands of different celebrities that these companies claim to be able to authenticate. This seller may be familiar with, at most, a couple hundred, and even with those, the variations in how/when/where autographs are signed makes his familiarity worth very little.

Read my blog about Dan Marino autographs for a good example of someone whose autograph basically cannot be authenticated by ANYONE (even himself!):
http://autographsforsaledotcom.wordpres ... enticated/

I like what you have to say.

The autograph seller in question is easily familiar with 1000's of celebrities and sees thousands of autographs every month and was my mentor at one point.

But more importantly we need to do our part to bring fun and education to this hobby. I believe that eBay and, back in the day, Yahoo auctions made it easy for all orders of scum to print photos and peddle their forgeries to a mostly unsuspecting audience. Luckily there has been a shift at eBay (I help daily with removal of bad sellers) and Yahoo is gone. The only real big danger ,in my opinion, is Amazon. Already several well known scumbags have accounts there and are pushing their junk on another mostly innocent audience.

Again we just need to educate as best we can and over time there will be a shift.

The universe pays attention to what we focus on. If we focus on the negative we will get more of it. I find it is best to focus on the positive.

You make some good and valid points. I think discussing authenticators is critical to educating the public. There are too many dealers who, as you say, "has no idea what he is doing or who to trust and blindly buys stuff and submits it and relies on the authenticators to know what is good and bad." These dealers are passing the responsibility for authenticity (which should be their primary job as an autograph dealer) to a bunch of corrupt, incompetent idiots.

You say, "One of the most trusted sellers of autographs is a consultant for one of the authenticators. Are you implying that he has no idea what he is doing. Yeah right..."
So what. There are tens of thousands of different celebrities that these companies claim to be able to authenticate. This seller may be familiar with, at most, a couple hundred, and even with those, the variations in how/when/where autographs are signed makes his familiarity worth very little.

Read my blog about Dan Marino autographs for a good example of someone whose autograph basically cannot be authenticated by ANYONE (even himself!):
http://autographsforsaledotcom.wordpres ... enticated/

woa wrote:

autographsforsale wrote:

Doc Holiday wrote:Your absolutely right. I remember when this whole nonesense 3rd party authenicating started. I immediately didn't buy in to it. I want to say at the beginning there may have been good intentions BUT the dollar signs got in the way. Your statement ..."If these companies were honest they'd send back half the submissions with a form letter saying that they have no clue" ABSOLUTELY!!! I totally agree. I don't care how long you've been collecting, I don't care how many examples you've seen there is always some where you can't say one way or another if it's authentic. Amazes me that it's either authentic or it comes back not authentic with a laundry list of reasons why it's not but none of the laundry list defines actually why. They are laughing all the way to the bank and unfortunately the new generation of collectors don't see this.

Agreed. All I can do is try to educate my customers and the general public as best I can. Autograph dealers who rely on these companies are asking for trouble. At one time not long ago, GAI was treated almost equal to PSA/DNA and JSA. I tried to warn people that GAI was corrupt and incompetent or both. People blasted me. Now GAI is almost a joke in the industry and most GAI items are next to worthless. This could happen with PSA/DNA and JSA eventually because they are not much better than GAI.


Theo
http://AutographsForSale.com

I AM NOT defending any 3rd party authenticator.

I AM NOT defending any 3rd party authenticator.

I AM NOT defending any 3rd party authenticator.


The 3rd party authentication bashing is at an all time high right now. And yes they make mistakes, everybody does. I am the last person to defend any of them. I have seen some very sketchy stuff from all of them. I even wrote JSA off completely. GAI (which is no longer a company) had some bad employees a few years ago (BTW you need to know that GAI certs with the number GV250000 and lower should be avoided). They got fired and or forced out and went out and started their own companies. Then they started their old tricks again but this time everyone caught on right away (thankfully). About PSA, I never deal with them so I have no opinion. I am sure you can find me plenty of examples of mistakes and I can find just as many correct opinions. And yes I realize they are under pressure to make money and that has lead to a lot of issues.

But the interesting thing is that one of the most well known forgers (he mixes good with the bad but mostly bad) started this whole push against the authenticators by bankrolling a well known autograph blog. His only goal was to completely discredit the authenticators as his items were failing at all the main authenticators and he needed to protect his highly lucrative bogus operation.

As a result, many novice collectors and so called dealers now have started to follow his crew blindly. I think it is hilarious. People read this stuff and think they are in the know. They are not! They see some examples of mistakes and then instead of stepping back and thinking for themselves they follow like sheep. But trust me most have no idea just how evil autograph dealers are and what is really going on. I do know what is going on. I know guys who work at the authentication houses and I know the guys in the street in NYC.

One of the most trusted sellers of autographs is a consultant for one of the authenticators. Are you implying that he has no idea what he is doing. Yeah right...

My point is simply this- How is a person who knows nothing of autographs and wants to start collecting them going to find authentic stock? If they go on eBay it is not likely is it? Via the mail? Not likely. Sure I know a bunch of IP guys who sell on eBay and can be trusted. But, how are they going to find these sellers? It is likely they will not. At least not at first.
We all know the basic eBay forger is not going to just send in their bogus stuff and magically get it certified. Thus, if a dealer has his items 3rd party certified at least there is a chance the item might be good. Now, if the dealer has no idea what he is doing or who to trust and blindly buys stuff and submits it and relies on the authenticators to know what is good and bad. Then that is a problem. I know several dealers like this and wish they would just go away as they do more harm then good. So in a way 3rd party authentication helps even if it not perfect.

And I agree with everyone that education is one of the best ways to help ourselves, our fellow collectors and this hobby. I do my best to train all my customers and write up educational articles when I have time.

This is just my opinion and just like politics I know this will not sway anyone's position. I think the new rule should be no discussing politics and 3rd party authenticators.

Ultimately, maybe instead of making all this noise about authenticators why not work on a better solution.

End of my rant and end of my responses to this thread.

autographsforsale wrote:

Doc Holiday wrote:Your absolutely right. I remember when this whole nonesense 3rd party authenicating started. I immediately didn't buy in to it. I want to say at the beginning there may have been good intentions BUT the dollar signs got in the way. Your statement ..."If these companies were honest they'd send back half the submissions with a form letter saying that they have no clue" ABSOLUTELY!!! I totally agree. I don't care how long you've been collecting, I don't care how many examples you've seen there is always some where you can't say one way or another if it's authentic. Amazes me that it's either authentic or it comes back not authentic with a laundry list of reasons why it's not but none of the laundry list defines actually why. They are laughing all the way to the bank and unfortunately the new generation of collectors don't see this.

Agreed. All I can do is try to educate my customers and the general public as best I can. Autograph dealers who rely on these companies are asking for trouble. At one time not long ago, GAI was treated almost equal to PSA/DNA and JSA. I tried to warn people that GAI was corrupt and incompetent or both. People blasted me. Now GAI is almost a joke in the industry and most GAI items are next to worthless. This could happen with PSA/DNA and JSA eventually because they are not much better than GAI.


Theo
http://AutographsForSale.com

Dobbie wrote:Judging by these prices,
I may have decent investments
http://cgi.ebay.com/2003-Upper-Deck-Man ... 3cb8167313

http://cgi.ebay.com/DAVID-BECKHAM-2001- ... 588d703395

autographsforsale wrote:

Dobbie wrote:Theo,

I have no idea how you obtained the following David Beckham autograph but in my humble opinion, it looks nothing like David Beckham's signature.
http://autographsforsale.com/dabeau20vafa.html

I'm not saying that it's not authentic as it may have been a rushed signature.
I wonder how much I could get for my two David Beckham autographed trading cards if you deem yours at that price!

The Beckham autographs I have for sale (including that one) were obtained in person in the US since he joined LA Galaxy. They were all "rushed" as he is obviously one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world.

A custom matted and framed autographed magazine cover would be priced much higher than a mere autographed trading card. Where did you obtain your autographed trading cards, by the way?

Theo
http://AutographsForSale.com

Dobbie wrote:Theo,

I have no idea how you obtained the following David Beckham autograph but in my humble opinion, it looks nothing like David Beckham's signature.
http://autographsforsale.com/dabeau20vafa.html

I'm not saying that it's not authentic as it may have been a rushed signature.
I wonder how much I could get for my two David Beckham autographed trading cards if you deem yours at that price!

Doc Holiday wrote:Your absolutely right. I remember when this whole nonesense 3rd party authenicating started. I immediately didn't buy in to it. I want to say at the beginning there may have been good intentions BUT the dollar signs got in the way. Your statement ..."If these companies were honest they'd send back half the submissions with a form letter saying that they have no clue" ABSOLUTELY!!! I totally agree. I don't care how long you've been collecting, I don't care how many examples you've seen there is always some where you can't say one way or another if it's authentic. Amazes me that it's either authentic or it comes back not authentic with a laundry list of reasons why it's not but none of the laundry list defines actually why. They are laughing all the way to the bank and unfortunately the new generation of collectors don't see this.