It finally happened to me...
Hello all,
I am surprised this is my first post on here. I have been coming to this site over a year now and I recognize a lot of the posters on here from either buying from or selling to them (or both) in the past.
I am a collector and dealer in vintage non Hall of Fame autographs, in addition to being a serious collector of pre-1900 Pirates/Alleghenys memorabilia.
I have a horror story to tell all of you which reflects the state of the autograph business and authenticators today. I am going to preface this by saying that I am not a big fan of any of the 3rd party authenticators, because I have seen far too many fakes slapped or come with a COA.
Now, I have heard stories of this sort of thing happening to others, but this is the first time it has happened to me.....
I am not going to mention the item or the auctionhouse's name (or the specific item). In 2004, I bought a nice framed/matted cut of a figure off of the auctionhouse. The signature looked good to me and it came with a letter from PSA (Grad/Spence at the time). Well, this was one of those purchases where afterwards I thought to myself "Why did I buy this?" as it was something I didn't deal in or collected. A few months ago, I sent it to the same auctionhouse to consign for a future auction. A week ago, I got the item back in the mail with a letter from them saying it had "authenticity issues". Since it was past their business hours, I emailed the company and a few of their employees I know personally. I was able to find a link on their site from the auction listing from 2004 and offered them two choices:
If it was authentic then, it has to be authentic now, b/c after all, it came with a letter from the all-knowing PSA.
The other option was I wanted a full refund of the original purchase price or I was no longer going to bid in their auctions. (I have dealt with this company since I was a senior in high school, 12 years ago).
To my surprise, they were quick with a refund check and an apology.
The thing is, I know someone who had problems with the same company in the past with team signed baseballs. I know auctionhouse COAs are basically junk, but still, if you sell something as authentic in one auction, and then say that there is a problem with the same item if the buyer wants to re-consign it, then there's a problem there.
This is why I am sticking to buying collections from people I know personally or who have a good name in the business.
Happy Thanksgiving all
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