If I only had a nickel.....
 

for all the forgeries on the bay, I could afford several of these replica balls:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Autographs-Reprints-/50115/i.html?_catref=1&_ssn=celeb-billz&_trksid=p3911.c0.m1538

The seller is listing these as 'replica', however, how much longer will it be before these show up elsewhere as 'authentic', along with a story about how the owner found them in his grandpa's attic. Or will they show up in a CC auction?

I honestly feel these should N OT be allowed on ebay. Its just for the reason that some scum will pass/try to pass , them off as real, and another moron, or someone who doesn't do their homework, will get ripped off. This is all so pathetically bad..:mad::(

Check the completed listings. They appear to be selling like hotcakes.

Maybe Im just a pessimist, but that scares me in and of itself. Some will want one just to have, but MANY Im sure are crooks. Darn.

I have no problem with the balls themselves, other than as many of you stated, at some point, someone will try to pass these off as real..

Now, the easy way around that would be to somehow mark the balls as replicas. Like an invisible stamp(s) that shows up only in black-light or something...

These have scared me for a while. And David you are right marking them as a replica would certainly be the right thing to do, but lets face it can we expect the right thing here?

I my lifetime as a collector, I have been called by people from my ads telling me they had this team ball etc thinking they were an autopraphed ball. Many of you have had the same thing. No special markings, no notice that they were fake. They were stadium balls.

We can't police everything, people have to become knowledgeable about what they are buying

If I had a nickel for every stadium ball I have looked at that was supposed to be "real." :D:D.
The best stadium ball story I have had the non pleasure of experiencing - I get a call from a guy with a 1970's Munson era Yankee ball. "I was in the dugout and got this ball signed." He pays me a visit bringing his two teenage boys with him. I meet him in my apt. bldg. lobby. He pulls out a stadium ball and I immediately tell him what he has. He goes into this angry screaming rant, right in front of his two kids, "this ball was signed for me, blah, blah, blah." I tell him, "maybe you got a ball signed for you,but not this one." I just turned around and walked away and heard him mumbling to his sons.

+1, I also feel they should not be allowed to be sold on ebay or any place for that matter. The damage they can do far outweighs the good that can come out of them. I think what is really scary is, after only a couple years these replicas have gotten better and better. The ones showed in this link are "average" at best, but there are other replica vintage signed baseballs that are being produced today that are much better than those. How long until they are able to produce a "replica" that can not be distinguished?

not our fault that people are stupid

I think I saw that quote at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Just kidding Murph :):).

more like the collectors creed of, "I gotta have it"

To the Op's and others concern of these being passed of as authentic,that is not likely, I am familiar with the technique used to make these repos, in fact I make them for my own personal displays. In the past few years, I have grown very weary of adding to my autograph collection with all the fakes, frauds, and authenticators making mistake after mistake. I enjoy making my own signed balls FOR MY COLLECTION,let me be clear I do not sell these on Ebay or anywhere else.The process used to make these balls is very simple and make a nice display piece but that is about it,no chance anyone would mistake these for an ink signature.

Well, I wasn't speaking specifically of these balls. Sure that would be nice, but I wouldn't expect it to happen. But more specifically in a business sense, if someone were to responsibly make replica balls, while taking steps to prevent the wrong thing from happening when they fall into the wrong hands.. We all know that eventually they will. PSA should honestly mark any non-authentic autographs that they come across. There shouldn't be a choice. You submit a known bad auto and it either gets destroyed or marked...

How great would it be for some A-hole scammer to buy a bunch of these replica balls, hoping to flip them as real, only to find out that they've been marked. Would be even better if ebay/paypal blocked all attempts at refunds on items clearly sold as reprints or replicas.. After that, anyone caught selling a marked ball as authentic, could possibly be prosecuted.

Problem is, if an autograph is submitted to the alphabet guys (and anyone here has permission to shoot me if I ever do that) and it is bad, the owner of the autograph might have just bought it from a dealer. That dealer now owes the collector a refund. How does the collector get a refund for a destroyed autograph?
And it is only their opinion that the autograph is bad. Travis and I have pointed out many items that were INCORRECTLY deemed to be not authentic. What does someone do then, if PSA destroys an autograph (especially boxing where they seem to know nothing) that is really good?

Well, that's why I mentioned marking as an option for the TPA's, as opposed to just destroying.

To answer that David, if TPA marks an item that is good, when they think it is bad, then the item is doomed forever.
I have told the board about two Ruth autographs that I had sold which I bought, along with others, from a man who lived in my apt.bldg. He was an in person collector , worked on Ruth's radio show, hung out at Ruth's hotel and became a close friend of mine. These two items were incorrectly rejected by PSA when they were submitted by the people I sold them to.
One of the two was then submitted to Lelands who sold it, the other one was kept by the dealer I sold it to because he knew I was right about it being authentic. He then sold it later on.
What if they had marked those two items as not authentic. I think the owners would have wanted to return them to me then. I would have sued PSA in half a second if they had marked them as not authentic and I am sure I would have won.

Yes, that is a very good point..

Can you imagine what would have happened to the boxing market if all those "bad" Liston autographs and the Fitzsimmon picture and whatever else they were wrong about in boxing had been permanently marked as bad by PSA?

I'm unfamiliar with the incident you're speaking of. But yeah! I'd assume it would've been a very bad thing if they were marked.

David - Travis has made many posts about those incidents, I am not as familiar with the details as he is. Search his posts and you will find them.

Very Good. I'll definitely check that out.

yeah, they know very little about boxing, they knocked down a dead on sonny liston that a swedish collector showed them, it was a great liston.

they rejected my sonny liston signed picture, and it was spot on. but they kept certing the wife signed sonny liston autographs.

a fitzsimmons signed photo they said no good, but they certed both wife signed and manager signed fitzsimmons autographs. and to date no one can say what is wrong with that good fitzsimmons signed photo, just generic weasel words on the letter of regret. lol.

an early 70's muhammad ali signature with the A frame A in Ali they called no good when it was textbook. i cant think of more right now off the top of my head, but the list goes on and on. they call the good ones bad a lot and the bad ones good even more. coin flippers. If they destroyed any of those it would be a lawsuit.