authentication blues
 

How many of you break down and get things slabbed not because you have that much faith in the ability of the authenticators but because you know it will fetch a better price if you are planning to sell now or in the future. I haven't done it for many of the same reasons most of you do not.
I am finding so many folks unwilling to bid a decent price without the blessing of PSA, SCG or JSA. Kind of disheartening especially since they seem to be getting worse and worse in their skills

i was following your auctions and i actually thought the prices were quite strong for them being raw. after you pay the authentication fees i think the difference would be negligeable. i was mainly looking at the $50-$200 items. was there a big difference from your asking prices here to the actual ending prices on ebay?

Michael I agree with you totally.
I do not get my stuff slabbed my PSA or JSA . If I buy a piece that is slabbed by one of them it is because it came that way and I was satisified myself it was real, not because they LOAed it. I can imagine that if the time came to sell some of my items that they would have to slabbed and certed by one of them in order for them to be sold. It is a depressing trend nonetheless that it is becoming a necessity to get something slabbed by JSA or PSA in order to sell it even considering the glaring mistakes they make and lack of experience they have overall in the autograph market.
I think it also reflects a lot of times the lack of experience the collectors have today in buying autos, and that they would rather trust someone else's instincts rather than their own and developing their knowledge...this way they have a fall guy if later on there is a question about a piece.

If you're in the business of selling, you've got to maximize your profits. I wouldn't say I get the blues having things authenticated. In the end I make more money and for people who aren't huge names, the fees aren't bad if you submit in person at a show.

Yeah It Is A Trend But....
 

PSA or JSA does not push me over the top when I am buying. I trust my instincts and do my due diligence on the autograph I am seeking and go with my gut. I have seen some balls both of these companies have authenticated in the past that raises eyebrows and we have all heard the horror stories on Haulofshame! I do not resell however so I see your point. I have two high end cut signatures that are slabbed by one of these companies but who knows? It is an opinion based business as they all say and truth be known we probably all have had an Operation Bullpen forgery in our collections for all we know at one time or another. They claimed to have faked a million items! Follow your gut and if you like it run with it!

I had the chance to purchase a rare signed T206. It was questionable and I paid to have the seller send it in as he promised to sell it at an agreed upon price if the certified it. They turned it down. It got sold to another friend of mine who does much business with the company and they OKed it and slabbed it for him. That pretty much sums up what I think of those companies
It is hard to know what something will bring on ebay as so many people have unreasonable buy it now prices on items they let sit for a year or two. I put my minimum bids at what I thought was below what the item was worth and sold maybe half. many were bought at the minimum bid by companies that will slab and double or triple the prices. That is OK.
One thing I found was if it didn't sell and then I relisted with a very low minimum bid- it often got bid up above the price I had previously listed it at when I got no takers.
It will be interesting when I list 20 nice multisigned cards in a week or so.
The high priced items that didn't sell I will probably hold for trade. Slight chance I will have a friend get them slabbed and relist then just as an experiment

I have often believed the very thing you said is true in regards to business volume with those two companies....small fries like myself who does not sell only collects is probably burning good money after bad money with them!

As a matter of principal, and to not support businesses that are a travesty to our hobby, I absolutely will not send autographs to either of them. There is more to life than making money - if there wasn't, then I'm sure some of us have the skills to make a very good living through dishonesty. Supporting those who do is hypocritical.

I would love to see 2-3 (or more) honest grading services that are not in the pockets of auction houses, do not let the almighty $ influence a go/no-go decision on an autograph, and who actually have an eye for autographs. There are so many 'big 2' authenticated laughing-stock forgeries in circulation, that I'm really not sure how good of an eye these guys have. Perhaps they are more honest than I think, but should be instead, working at Burger King.

No, it's not worth it.

amen, Scott

Perhaps this might sound like a violation of my own personal hypocrisy rules, but I do not throw away LOA's from the 'big 2' that arrive with autographs I purchase. I used to not even mention them when selling more expensive autographs, and only provide them if asked. As far as I could tell, it didn't affect my business and few non-tire-kickers ever asked for a LOA. I probably should go back to that policy, mentioning that I personally guarantee authenticity of the autograph, despite errors that TPA's will sometimes make.

This is one of the reasons that I really liked buying my higher-end autographs from Leland's, with only Josh's word on them - I paid non-LOA prices and could sell them as such with my guarantee and the auction house's. Same for RR. If I don't like the autograph, I don't buy it, and I shouldn't be buying expensive autographs that I'm not personally able to identify as real.

For lower-value autographs, I think TPA-certification makes sense - they can affordably take a look at a lot of autographs that forgers won't normally bother with, and give a general level of confidence to the purchaser that they aren't being scammed by an ebay seller. But on the large cert'd lots, you'll almost always find a few secretarials, and some will be fairly expensive ones, so at most you are getting protection from actual forgers.

I look at them like the McDonalds of autographs - you wouldn't buy a filet mignon dinner at McDonald's and a Babe Ruth certified at one of these places isn't going to taste any better than a Bob Feller.

Scott- besides Josh you also have Hefner's word on those autographs too.
That makes two guys who are better then anyone at JSA or PSA.

I had a friend who had bought a very early McGwire signature, a type most people haven't seen (college days). One of the Big 3 shot it down. He contacted me and I sent an email to one of the authenticators and voila' it got certed. Plus I've seen many Mac signatures that they did cert that were no good. I've even seen a rubber stamp that was certed! And it was OBVIOUSLY a rubber stamp.

I forgot about Travis and boxing. There are also some experts in non-baseball autographs at PSA who know their stuff. Baseball and football seem to be the real problem.

It's amazing when I hear of rubber stamped items that get passed by the "experts" at these TPAs. Even some of these well known auction houses seem to have them up without knowing. Here's one example:

http://www.legendaryauctions.com/joe...-lot23908.aspx

http://www.legendaryauctions.com/Ite.../10912_lg.jpeg