Random Thoughts on this Hobby and its Future
 

As I sit here on a snowy, sleety,and freezing Friday night I am pondering the future of autograph collecting as we know it.
After reading Hauls of Shame's latest post concerning the Heritage Auction offering tomorrow of the Joe Jackson autographed photo and others from the featured collection they are offering, and seeing that the bidding on Jackson's photo has topped $ 100,000 and that now the FBI may be getting involved makes me wonder where will it end. Let us not forget that net54 members called it (them) out weeks ago on the signatures from that collection.
We talk about forgeries and questionable signatures but yet they keep coming at what seems like a record pace and many with histories seemingly too good to be true .
It seems now that there are more forgeries of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Williams, and Mantle than there are authentic signatures....and they keep coming and keep getting authenticated and keep getting bought whether by novice or "experienced" yet uneducated collectors. The forgers know their market , their focus is determined. After all when was the last time a forged signature of Musial,Greenberg,Sisler, Grove, or Hack Wilson was offered for sale or a Black Sox player ( other than Jackson) was offered for sale or wrongly authenticated? Sure there are forgeries of probably 90% of all HOFers and upper tier players but the majority of forgeries occupy a narrow scope of players living and dead. Remember when we worried about Pujols' forgeries and now that he is kind of off the grid it is Jeter and Trout. Concerning rare autos only CCA has the determination to consistently offer questionable signatures on a regular basis but yet nothing is done to them. There are probably more forgeries of the big 5 than the total for all of the top 25 rarest HOFers, and of course there is no real knowledge as to what is truly a forgery and what is not for those rare HoFers due to a lack of certifiable life long examples and the consideration of signature variations.
After forgeries we have to contend with issues of provenance and possible theft and title issues for the rare and ultra rare signatures.
Now it appears that good ole " Say it ain't so Joe" Joe Jackson is in the spotlight now .
It makes me wonder who is next to get the spotlight for questionable authenticity and where is our collecting and hobby headed now but also in the extended future? What will occur with the big 2 TPA companies, who continue to certify glaring forgeries; as well as those auction houses that put money and the latest " find" before integrity? What about those dealers who intentionally or unintentionally continue to sell or resell questionable autographs? Will all of these go the way of Mastro or continue to prosper ?
I guess I should be happy that I only collect baseball and HoF autographs and not rare books or artwork where forgeries exist but at oh so much of a higher price.
But you know I can't wait for the next auction or to get my next autograph in the mail.

Can someone tell me how to move this to the autograph thread site?
I put this here by mistake.

Moved it

It's amazing how Joe Jackson signatures have gotten more common over time. My theory with autographs is that if you didn't see the player sign it, it has a chance of not being good (with the probability going up as the value increases), regardless of what knucklehead authenticated it. Actually, taking it a step further, I have no idea why people collect autographs.

There is a reason I do not collect autographs.

LMAO...they probably say the same thing about us card collectors....

We should be thankful for Mr. Bob Feller and Mr. Bobby Doerr who signed so often that not only would making forgeries of their signatures not be profitable, but affordable genuine signatures of both are readily available.

I think if I ever met even one HOF member, I would be just as happy to shake his hand and say thank him for all the memories.

As for my autograph collection, I go for the ones inserted in modern sets...with the faint hope that as least THEY may be genuine. At least someone appears to be accountable.

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