Quote:
Originally Posted by mainemule
Thank you Leon! I tried to choose my words carefully 
That's amazing that the Big Train's grandson is on this board. I'd love to have him give this a once over, though after thorough review of the PSA DNA on-line exemplars, I'm 90/10 going to pass on this item.
All the best..... |
Hi Scott,
I am the aforementioned grandson, and want to welcome you to this fabulous forum that provides so much to so many. I'm amazed, but not surprised, at how your little individual item post has generated so much thoughtful commentary ranging from the specific to some of the biggest issues in the hobby. A few thoughts:
1) Whenever I'm asked my opinion of a Johnson autograph, I always preface it with the caveat that I am no expert whatsoever on autographs or autography (if that's a word!). Yes, I've seen a lot of genuine WaJo signatures in my time, but have never attempted to make any kind of study of it. I can't tell you how he makes his "r" or crosses his "t" or anything like that. My totally unscientific method is to take one look, and a fairly quick one at that, then render my distinctly amateur opinion, which I'm happy to do for you. On that basis your cut gets the thumbs down from me. The only specific thing I'd say about it is that it looks too good, if that makes any sense. Just too clean, too practiced, maybe? Oh, and it just doesn't look very old to me, no indication that almost 100 years have passed since he was supposed to have written it. As I said, strictly one amateur's opinion, and doesn't mean that Grandpa didn't do it. And that leads me to my second comment.
2) Because they have set themselves up as the Gods of the hobby--able to smite the mightiest card or autograph with the mere stroke of a pen--the TPAs come in for a lot of criticism, here and elsewhere. And that's healthy, they should be accountable for the great influence they have with their decisions, which are rendered in darkness and never explained. Their mistakes and shortcoming should be exposed and examined in great detail to encourage them to be better. But, in general, I just don't know how you can improve on a system whereby some of the very top experts in the field, with access to an enormous database of exemplars, looks at your autograph with the aid of state of the art technology and tells you whether, in their opinion, it's good or not. They're not infallible, and the best will be the first to tell you that, but to me that's about as good as it gets. I remember well the old days of the hobby, the "wild west" some call it for good reason. Anybody want to go back to that? As for PSA, which you mentioned, they now have two of the very best autograph guys there have ever been in our hobby rendering their professional judgements on the good stuff. How can you beat that? DISCLAIMER: Kevin Keating is one of my very best friends and I did shows with him for many years, and Bill Corcoran is without question one of the most knowledgeable and lovable characters you'll ever meet. I'll give you my car if you can prove to me that either one of those guys ever did anything dishonest. Someone said not to depend on PSA for building your collection, but I would ask why not? As long as those fellas are running it, I don't see how you could do any better. Yes, it's great (and fun) to learn all you can yourself, but if you did nothing else for the next ten years you'd only begin to approach the kind of expertise they will give you for a few bucks a pop.
Wow, didn't mean to go on like this, but it's a slow Tuesday here in the Bat Cave. Enjoy your collecting, and hope to see you around here a lot.
Hank Thomas