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Judge DredAutograph authentication is a subjective opion rendered by a so called expert in the field. A buddy of mine tells me that a lot of these grading services and authentication services only legitimize fraud. I'm sure he didn't mean that they are wrong too often but they do make mistakes.
As far as autograph authentication goes follow these rules of thumb:
1) If an autograph authenticator buys an autograph then you know it's going to be authenticated, regardless.
2) If you were to buy the same autograph then there is a lot of scrutiny placed on the item.
Here's something that I don't understand - perhaps someone can explain this to me: Services will charge an arm and a leg to authenticate a Babe Ruth signature (or some other very high dollar autograph) but will charge much less for a lesser known star. I would think that they would spend as much time on both signatures and they would be able to determine if a Babe Ruth autograph was legitimate because they've seen so many good ones (and bad ones) that they'd be able to pick out the fake signature with only a few quick glances. On the other hand perhaps the lesser known star has far fewer examples with which to compare.
If I had deep pockets I'd love to submit an autograph that was rendered authentic at one time until it came back as questionable or non authentic. This would only go towards proving the subjective nature of this procedure.