Travis, you assume people love your threads and give you love because you are "beloved" within, and that simply isn't the case. People just like arguing with you. Don't confuse the two.
We get it, you don't like PSA/DNA or JSA because they make mistakes on Boxing autographs. Do you have more knowledge in that avenue then them? Perhaps. Probably. But the bottom line is that with all due respect, nobody knows who you are outside of the Net54, which is a baseball forum, for the most part. A Randy Turpin autograph with a Travis LOA will bring little attention outside of saying "Who is this Travis guy?".
TPA's work. That's why people use them. We (the new collector) have been programmed and re-designed to understand that the certificate of authenticity is in fact key (who really cares about what the signature looks like, just look at the Art Shell debacle on the card side) and this is the essential part of the collecting world.
"Does it come with an LOA from PSA/DNA?" is the most often heard words spoken at shows. That's just a fact. Love it or hate it, complaining constantly isn't going to matter, but if it makes you feel like you made some sort of a difference because you type and type and type with an intense fear of the SHIFT key. :-)
I got in contact with John and I asked him if he was interested in commenting through me on his behalf on this thread and he politely declined.
A web site took private comments and made them public with a clear agenda, and then rehashed (which is fine, if you like the message and we know you do) in this thread. Nobody is ever going to confuse anybody on these forums for Woodward and Bernstein.
And I like curling...it's like chess on ice.
DanC