COA Wars- hypothetical questin

[travrosty]

Coa wars-hypothetical question


I have a hypothetical question I would like to ask because I am curious about how people react toward COA's and autograph authentication.

Suppose a round of COA wars started - EBAY vs. PSA and JSA.


Ebay being the largest online auction house in the world, is many, many times bigger than all the brick and mortar auction houses combined. With that much power, suppose they started their own coa system with their own autograph authentication system. let's call it Ebay Autograph Services Team

EAST

So EAST starts and ebay announces that all autographs are required to have an EAST COA or it can't be listed on ebay. They give a 1 year grace period in which to have all psa or jsa autographs crossed over to EAST for a discounted fee. And they have a submission service for all uncerted autographs to be sent into EAST, or brought to a show in which they are present. But after 1 year, only EAST certed autographs are allowed on Ebay, no exception.

My HYPOTHETICAL question is that knowing this, would you start certing autographs with EAST knowing it is needed to be sold on EBAY with their own cert, or would you stick with PSA and JSA and skip Ebay all together and just sekll elsewhere online and at the auction houses?

Remember that the brick and mortar auction houses that have agreements with PSA and JSA would probably band together and not allow EAST certs to be listed with them but any EAST certed autograph could still be sent to them uncerted and go through their precert and auction loa route like they offer now, so the autographs wouldn't totally be shut out of the major non-ebay auction house route if they were only previously certed by EAST.

So what would you do? Go with Ebay certification and continue buying and selling on EBAY? Or stick with PSA and JSA and drop Ebay alltogether?

Also remember that buying on Ebay would be buying all autographs with East certs so sticking with PSA and JSA would mean getting any autograph you buy on Ebay recertified through PSA and JSA if you liked their services better. Would you still BUY from Ebay?

If the COA wars went down this way what would you do? There is no wrong answer and I am just curious and thought of this by myself and not coaxed from any company whatsoever to ask these questions? It's all hypothetical.

My own opinion is that I don't go out of my way to buy certed autographs so it wouldn't matter to me, but I think if Ebay had enough leverage they could gain a foothold and maybe enough people would want to stay on ebay and get their certs if they gave a grace period and didn't kick off their certs for a year or so. I don't know what JSA or PSA could do to counteract this except to circle wagons with their present auction house contacts and maybe give up aution loa's and precertification and make it a true war convincing the other auction houses to band together and require all consignments to have a full psa or jsa cert before consigningm thus forcing all customers to choose one avenue or the other, Ebay or PSA and JSA. I think we can agree that Ebay is big enough to be the only one that could maybe pull this off.

If that happened, what would you do? Maybe more Leland type auction houses would spring up, that don't need or recognize any TPA certs, they do their own in house authentication.

thoughts? no wrong answer. hypothetical question only. Don't be scared. No one is writing your name down on a list.

[jgmp123]

I would probably lean the way of JSA/PSA....My main reasoning is because I have ALWAYS had better results going with an auction house. Also, depends on the value of the item I am listing.

[travrosty]

Thanks for starting it off, the actions people could take is to choose ebay, choose psa,jsa, - choose a mixture, -- choose none, which is to dump coa's altogether and go with the non cert auction places that would try to fill a demand.

also, if this war took place, both sides would hold out until either the regular auction houses caved and took Ebay certs also because Ebay certs were flourishing and the auction houses cave to $$$ concerns, or Ebay caves if enough people leave Ebay in enough quantity for the Ebay exclusivity concept to fail.]

A mixture of Coa's could mean certing some with ebay and some with psa and jsa, or it could also mean double certing everything with both sides.

[MooseDog]

There is a big question not addressed here.

Unlike cards, you simply cannot train someone who hasn't seen and handled a LOT of autographs to be able to do autograph authentication.

My answer would depend on WHO WAS DOING THE AUTHENTICATING. If eBay hired Jim and Richard, or someone else whose opinion I trusted. I'd probably feel OK to go with eBay for some items that didn't warrant going to an auction house. But if eBay's authenticators were anonymous, I'd say screw them. They could hire someone like Morales under your scenario and what would that lead to?

Another thing that popped into my head would be that eBay, given their huge size, could do such a thing as you suggest, and offer some sort of guarantee, although doubt there would be a way to implement that without opening up a huge can of fraud.

[drc]

eBay wouldn't do it for liability reasons, because all their existence they have done their very best to stay away from being seen as responsible for the authenticity of auction lots. They have protected themselves from liability by saying the transaction is between the buyer and the seller and eBay is just the web site where the sale takes place. Once they start a service to directly authenticate lots, even if just some lots, it would be harder to make that argument.

[Plinvestments]

I could see Ebay buying Collectors Universe and owning PSA. Then, they could double dip.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by drc

eBay wouldn't do it for liability reasons, because all their existence they have done their very best to stay away from being seen as responsible for the authenticity of auction lots. They have protected themselves from liability by saying the transaction is between the buyer and the seller and eBay is just the web site where the sale takes place. Once they start a service to directly authenticate lots, even if just some lots, it would be harder to make that argument.

+1

Also keep in mind that, while it seems like there are a ton of autographs on eBay at any given time, they are a tiny sliver of the overall pie of sales on eBay. Risk vs. Reward would never allow them to go down that road.

But, since "this would never happen" was not one of the choices here, let me say that I would never trust eBay to set up any such system for any reason other than to make money for eBay. Meaning they collector's best interest (validating authentic autographs and weeding out fakes) would never be their primary concern. At best, they would implement a system whereby if the buyer could prove the autograph they purchased was a fake, eBay would refund their money (and probably find some way to make the seller pay for the refund). There would be some elaborate series of hoops to jump through to get your money back, but I would never trust them to set up anything other than a money-back-guarantee system funded by the authentication fees, not a true authentication.

And somehow the final value fees would go up and further restrictions would be placed on sellers, as happens with any major change at eBay.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by drc

eBay wouldn't do it for liability reasons, because all their existence they have done their very best to stay away from being seen as responsible for the authenticity of auction lots. They have protected themselves from liability by saying the transaction is between the buyer and the seller and eBay is just the web site where the sale takes place. Once they start a service to directly authenticate lots, even if just some lots, it would be harder to make that argument.

+1
Hypothetical games are fun to play but David is right, ebay would never do something like this due to liability reasons.