[Exhibitman]

That Mantle story sucks, Dave. FWIW, I do not believe that JSA or any merchant paid with a credit card could give you a credit instead of a refund if the item failed the full cert. The back of the JSA ALOA form clearly states that "In the rare event that our opinion differs from our original consultation with the auction house, no upgrade fee will be charged." If I got a credit and I wanted a refund, I would demand it and if JSA refused, dispute the charge.

As to why not have a full LOA up front, well, there are many answers to that one, but only one that counts: MONEY! The ALOA is a lot cheaper for the auctioneer to get and if the buyer wants the COA he needs to spend another $50 to 'upgrade' the ALOA to the full LOA. Everyone makes money, except the buyer, of course.

Another thing that infuriates me about the ALOA is that JSA has been refining the fine print to make the already feckless ALOA even less useful. I recently won some authographed items from Clean Sweep, with the JSA ALOAs on them. One item that I got had a JSA ALOA from 2008. The other one had a new ALOA. When comparing the fine print on the backs I noticed that the 2008 ALOA has no expiration date. You can hold it for years and not use it, then exercise the upgrade right when you decide to sell, or just pass the ALOA to the buyer as an ALOA that they can exercise or not as they choose. That seems fair to me. The new 'improved' ALOA expires in 45 days! I cannot tell you how pissed off I am to buy an 'authenticated' item that has an expiration date akin to a tub of yogurt unless I dump another $50 into it.

Which brings me to my next peevish pet peeve about the ALOA: Some auctioneers do not differentiate between a full LOA and the ALOA in their listings. They just say "JSA LOA" when they mean ALOA. It should be clearly and carefully disclosed. The ALOA thus lends itself to abusive sales tactics. I was pleasantly surprised recently to actually bid on an item with a full LOA from an AH. Unsurprisingly, it was from Lew Lipset, who runs an old-school honest operation. Funny story on that: I took the item to the JSA reps at the Glendale CA show in the spring and asked to have the PC encapsulated by SGC. JSA wanted $25 to do it. I asked SGC to do it directly and it costs $15.