Case in point.
http://www.fighttoys.com/Firpononauthentic.htm
If it ever goes to ebay, good luck getting it off. And I heard but can't confirm that all the authenticators at JSA look at each item and they all have to pass it for it to pass. What is going on? When you click on the link, the firpo on the bottom left (circa 1958) is one i obtained myself from a friend who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, so it's directly from Firpo's stomping grounds. Show us your exemplars you used to authenticate this item, Mr. Spence. I want to see your Firpo signatures. Please discontinue boxing.
When I first saw this Firpo, I figured it had to be an April Fools joke, or a Halloween prank. But it has a valid JSA cert, which is equivalent to getting a passport and visa, ready to travel the world.
It's insulting to people who study boxing signatures and it would look the same to baseball collectors as calling the following Babe Ruth "authentic." When i see this Firpo, that's what I see, the boxing equivalent to this Ruth ball. Why do they bother with boxing?
I don't know. They don't seem to have the phone number of someone who can figure out this Luis Firpo, which ends up going to auction. And they aren't autographs on the fence in my opinion, not questionables that could go either way. They are obviously no good, but how can you get this through to Spence so he can understand the gravity and width, depth, and breadth of the situation?
Now if Morales name were in place of Spence, all the guys would pile on and say "yeah, get him!" (That's fine, I don't have a problem with that), but evidently JSA is above reproach. The third rail of autograph authentication? Why is it so sacrosanct to ignore the criticism and NOT hold these guys feet to the fire and demand explanations when they authenticate like this, and instead just make excuses for them? (My favorite is that "hey they just make a few mistakes like anybody else. They authenticate a lot of autographs. If you only knew how many autographs they cert.") Maybe they should do a little less then.
That's attitude seems fine if you don't collect boxing, but if they start doing this to YOUR favorite sport, then you might think different.
They don't even make excuses for themselves. They just say nothing and hope it goes away?
This is all my opinion, and if people want to use JSA, more power to you. I think people are scared to say anything about the top two authentication outfits because they think they need their certs to sell.
(I didn't make the ruth ball, it came off the internet, looks like the sig is computer generated.)
Travis Roste