This is a tough one! On one hand you don't want to burst someone's bubble and tell them they've received a sec but on the other hand you don't want others to see their success and think "Brilliant! I'll write to that person too!"

Personally I'd rather know the truth. There are a lot of collectors on here whose opinions I trust implicitly. When you've been here a while you get to know who are savvy collectors and who are just immature kids making trouble! It's just about knowing who you can trust around here

This has been the best read I've had in a long time

If people want to believe that an obvious sec is real, then that's their problem.. it's silly and quite frankly unfair to have other members seeing a success, belieiving it to be real, sending off for it and then thinking they have an authentic when they don't. Some threads are so funny on here where it's "it is of course real", when quite clearly it's not.

If you get your photo signed by someone via a US address and they're not in the US, how can anyone say it is real? It's beyond me. :neutral:

TheORKINMan wrote:It bothers me badly when people refuse to share addresses. I've done my homework to find a good number of addresses, some that people really wanted and always ALWAYS share even if it's only via PM.

Yes, you are right- for exmaple: Scream 4 address...topic with two pages but nobody posts the address ...

Despite collecting autographs ip for forty years, I've only just started collecting ttm, and in two months have had some great successes, mostly taking heart and inspiration from this board. However, even in 2 months I've got pretty savvy about checking who sends secs, IPs, autopens etcs. The first person I wrote to is an Incredibly Famous Person, and I was delighted to receive a very quick reply. A few days later I found out it was a sec and, quite honestly, felt cheated - not just by the IFP, but by the many, many posts on here and on other boards screaming "IFP - INCREDIBLE SUCCESS!!!" when with not much research it is pretty obvious that it is not only anything but an INCREDIBLE SUCCESS, but a waste of the time and effort put into writing a sincere and heartfelt letter, and a waste of time and money getting photos printed, finding US stamps for the SAE plus postage from the UK. Since I have no intention of trading , but will show them to friends and family who express an interest, I could have saved all that hassle and signed a piece of paper myself.

It's probably the unseasonably warm weather making me ratty, but even after just a few weeks collecting TTM I can look at just the first page of 'successes' on the "Post Your Feedback" board and know that three of them are as worthless as if I'd written them myself.

If I tell my three-year-old that his picture of a cat is lovely, it makes him feel proud, and good about himself and encourages him to produce more, improving steadily in the process. Adults telling other adults on these boards that fakes are not only fake but by implication have some intrinsic value by being defaced by someone pretending to be somebody else doesn't seem either big or clever.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to start posting "Sec" on posts when it's not invited, but neither am I going to clap my hands and jump up and down with excitement when someone claims to have received a genuine IFP who has been known to have been sending only secs for (in the case of one megastar listed as a success in the last couple of days) OVER FIFTY YEARS, others who've only been sending exclusively Secs for 20-30 years, or a genuine Santa Claus sig through the mail.

In short, I'd rather know - I'd rather know before I send out, which is where boards like this ought to be able to help.

I know it's not the rules, and I respect the rules while I'm here, but after a great deal of thinking about it, I do find it very difficult to agree that this one is helpful to anyone over the age of about fourteen.

But take heart its not just this bored lolz. In my sports collecting I've seen a lot of guys (Orlando Cepeda is notorious for this) that shy of a handwriting expert or dna analyist its hard to say whether its real or not. Got flamed at a F2F because of Cepeda with 3 guys standing with me that had also just gotten him and all 4 of us had an autograph that looked signif different so I'm sure theres just as many in other industries that the autograph is never quite the same. And in anything that can be turned into competitive like this there's always going to be haters. I can understand the angle of wanting to keep fakes off the buy/trade board or if they are openly asking if its authentic but otherwise why rain on someones parade?

i like to have some sign if a success is an ap etc. theres another web site where people post the 100 percent authentic Barbra Streisand/John Travolta/Liz Taylor successes etc. and i eventually stopped going there (but i agree if someone doesnt know they should scream 'fake' for no reason)

The problem becomes when clueless people try and trade/sell these bogus autographs. This site's For Sale/Exchange Forum is littered with people who are selling these autographs. Only way to clean this up is to post saying that their autograph isn't real. There is enough forgeries on Ebay and elsewhere that we don't need more and more people selling/trading autographs that are not legit when a simple post saying: Sorry your signature is secretarial or autopen goes a long way.

Marshall wrote:

dobie516 wrote:

capmonte wrote:I think if someone asks if an autograph is authentic, that's a different kettle of fish. But yeah, people shouldn't just volunteer opinions on the authenticity of an item.

I agree. If someone wants to know if their autograph is authentic we have a page for that where they can post it. I never question the authenticity of anyone's items. If they are happy with it, then that's great. We're all here to have fun with the hobby.

Although I agree with most of this topic, I don't quite agree with this. I'm glad someone points out Secs or APs or PPs or whatever just because I gage what to send out based a lot on if others had some success. If no one pointed this stuff, then I'd see a success and be super excited to send to that person only to find out later it wasn't real. I mean, there's no need to be a douche about pointing it out, but it's good that it is pointed out at least in passing.

If you bother to do your own study, it is invariably fairly obvious. For something like pp/ap, if you look at three or so part successes, it is also obvious

dobie516 wrote:

capmonte wrote:I think if someone asks if an autograph is authentic, that's a different kettle of fish. But yeah, people shouldn't just volunteer opinions on the authenticity of an item.

I agree. If someone wants to know if their autograph is authentic we have a page for that where they can post it. I never question the authenticity of anyone's items. If they are happy with it, then that's great. We're all here to have fun with the hobby.

Although I agree with most of this topic, I don't quite agree with this. I'm glad someone points out Secs or APs or PPs or whatever just because I gage what to send out based a lot on if others had some success. If no one pointed this stuff, then I'd see a success and be super excited to send to that person only to find out later it wasn't real. I mean, there's no need to be a douche about pointing it out, but it's good that it is pointed out at least in passing.

capmonte wrote:I think if someone asks if an autograph is authentic, that's a different kettle of fish. But yeah, people shouldn't just volunteer opinions on the authenticity of an item.

I agree. If someone wants to know if their autograph is authentic we have a page for that where they can post it. I never question the authenticity of anyone's items. If they are happy with it, then that's great. We're all here to have fun with the hobby.