Here’s my take on Todd. First, a little background. I have known Todd since the mid 90’s. I live just South of Dallas, and Todd used to have his business at The Colony, a community North of Dallas. He and I used to frequent a particular autograph business in Richardson, and that’s where I met him. We would both buy/sell/trade etc, with the owner. Once I became friends with Todd, he would send me his autograph auction lists, which at that time was not really a catalog, just Xeroxed type pages. Eventually, it got to where I was buying and selling a lot (a lot by my standards then was a thousand or so a month) with him. Todd paid a nice price for quality pieces. I could buy/sell/trade with other collectors at shows, through magazines, direct mailing, etc., and Todd would pay a very fair price to where we could both make money as he had some clients that he could move the pieces too. I used to love going up to his warehouse, hanging out, bs-ing, talking graphs, and taking a carload full of stuff for him to consider buying. Most of the times, I’d leave with a nice check, which was always good, and most importantly, would clear His mailing lists went from typed pages to black and white color catalogs, and business seemed to be going well. Then, ebay turned up, and slowly but surely, competition seemed to kick in. It became a bit harder to move pieces at mark ups. Eventually, his catalog auctions stopped completely I believe, and he came to rely on ebay for moving his product. At some point during that time period and the next couple years, he moved to Colorado I believe. I was disappointed to see him go, cause I had fun going to his warehouse and basically chatting with him. We had some joint friends in the business that we all did deals with. Somewhere along the line, some of his items began to disappear from ebay, because like ALL autograph dealers, some of his stuff was not legit. Sometimes, it really was legit, but ebay has certain opinions that it values more than others, so they would remove it anyway, and sometimes, it really was bogus and should be removed. Don’t forget here that ANY dealer that has been around a decent amount of time and tells you that they’ve never sold a fake, is full of BS. This is not an indictment, just a statement of fact that even the best intentioned people make mistakes occasionally. I think ebay suspended his account once or even twice for continuing to post those items, and it made him upset enough that he began his own website and own auction sales at his own site. It’s at this point too, that I believe that he began to go against the third party authentication aspect that was taking a foothold in the hobby because of good marketing and strategy. I don’t know this to be fact, but I think he aligned with Koschal around this time to create the Autograph Alert site that touted itself to be a watchdog, but that actually character assassinated a lot of former friends and associates. I was disappointed to find out that Todd might be a part of that. Again, I don’t know that to be a fact, but I have heard it from other people I trust. I think a lot of this was out of frustration, because the people on that site, thought they were BIG enough to put a dent into third party authentication since it had hurt their business, and they found out they were not as big as the marketing machine of a publicly held corporation. Thus, a lot of the people aligned through that process, have become the “champion” of bashing third party authentication and grading. You have seen the same or very similar dribble cut and pasted ad nauseum on many websites over the years.
As for Todd these days:
1) I still consider him an honest businessman. Meaning that I wouldn’t hesitate to send him an item first, and wouldn’t have any concerns with him stealing it, or that I wouldn’t get paid. I trust him to take care of those business aspects of transactions
2) I still occasionally buy stuff directly from his online auctions. As whenever I purchase anything, I try to do my research first, as again, he does have some items that IMO are bad, just like EVERY dealer has from time to time. He does occasionally have really nice items, and they go relatively cheap because of who is selling them. I was able to pick up a nice Babe Ruth a few months ago from Todd, that I had vetted on Net54, which I subsequently had slabbed by Spence and that I was able to move for a substantial profit rather quickly once slabbed.
3) If I bought an item from him that was later found to be bogus, I have little doubt that he’d take care of it. Todd is not a thief. I believe he is a little too trusting sometimes of “stories” that go along with graphs and relics, but he is not a thief.
4) Like most people in the business, I believe Todd to be a “niche” authenticator. Meaning he has good skills in some specific areas, but not in all, just like anyone else.
I believe when he alledgedly started the crusade against the TPA’s that it was done probably from a combination of spite, as well as a belief he had that it was the right thing for the industry. However, at some point along the line, I think it spiraled out of control for him, and his effort was joined by many that peddle almost nothing but fakes exclusively. I often wonder if he could go back and change the last few years, if he would. I haven’t asked him, but the Todd I knew back in the day, was a good guy.
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