PAWN STARS Shoeless Joe Jackson signed book...

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by alexautographs

Actually, Travis, that machine would be ideal for the examination of that "foul" Truman ball. It would show right away any adulteration or addition to the writing.

I've known John for many years and would be surprised to learn he'd be involved in anything so despicable. I would expect he'd have some thing to say about it.

yes, it would be ideal to look at the foul truman ball, but the ball is so foul the machine will implode. since the ball had "provenance john reznikoff" listed with it when it was put up for auction by eac gallery, i would think eac vetted the provenance at the time, or at least looked at it.

[gnaz01]

Wonder why they took the Pawn Stars video down, can't find it anywhere.

[alexautographs]

Probably because it made Rick look like a greedy idiot?

Any event, he got stuck with what appears to be a bogus item with questionable provenance, but what the hey - he makes a kabillion bucks a year with his show so he can write it off, hop in his Bentley, sign a few autographs and go eat at the Brown Derby, Le Canard en Merde, or wherever those guys strap on the feedbag.

He'll likely be joined by the the same people who foist these frauds on unsuspecting suckers...like him...who are more driven by greed ("It's a steal!") than by intelligence.

And that, dear friends, is why the autograph industry, especially in baseball, rock, and pop culture, has turned to sh_t.

The hard truth.

[travrosty]

It really is a sad state of affairs, its pushing autographs for profit at all costs.

More and more people don't care if the autograph is really real, just that it can get a certificate, that it gets passed, that's good enough for them.

It's all treated as a game, you have to play the game. If Grad or Spence say good, it's good and you have won the lottery, if they say bad, then it's bad no matter if you saw it signed in front of you.

Two people get to decide for all of us whether or not autographs are good.

Both have passed wife signed sonny liston autographs as good until some "lowlifes" i.e. real collectors notified them and the auction houses that they were wife signed and not signed by Sonny. We get called rabblerousers and undesirables who are just interested in upsetting the apple cart that is called autograph authentication.

I would go to a long time dealer who knows his boxing all day and twice on sunday before having an abc service look at it and make their determination, because they get them wrong so often.

One of spence's authenticator consultants said the same thing, and when Jimmy found out, Jimmy took his name off JSA's website.

But he's got a lot more consultants who evidently work for free while the gods of authentication rake in a ton of dough by pushing through autographs at breakneck speed. PSA has four full time autograph authenticators, and last year they authenticated almost 200,000 autographs from what I can see. Joe Orlando can correct this number if it is error, but no one has ever heard from him. that's 50,000 autographs per year per man, a little over 4 thousand a month, over 1 thousand a week, over 200 per work day.

8 hours per day, that's 25 per hour. or 1 autograph every two minutes without doing anything else but authenticating, no printing out or signing certificates, no visiting the restroom or taking phone calls, nothing.

Who feels confident that your autograph is getting 120 seconds or less to be authenticated and can be done in a thoughtful and thorough manner? They can't even pull up enough exemplars in 120 seconds to properly authenticate, let alone actually look at the autograph, study it, compare, call or email other people to get a second opinion.

1 minute to glance at it and 1 minute to print and sign the certificate? Is that it?

[travrosty]

Fast food authentication is what i call it and it's a horrible application to what on paper would seem to be a good idea. Have some experts truly study and use information at their disposal in a thoughtful and thorough way. They have created a monster and now they don't know how to handle it. It's grown way out of hand. Reminds me of the movie King Kong.

They took a business model of pushing them through and finding out ways to get more autographs in and push them through faster and faster, they forgot what it was suppose to be all about. 4 people at 50 thousand autographs per year per man?

If someone dumped 50,000 boxing autographs on my lap at once, which would be a stack to reach the ceiling several times over, and told me I have 1 year to authenticate them, I would laugh and tell them to take a hike. A couple thousand would be a lot to do a thorough job in one years time.

I have many, many exemplars of heavyweight boxing autographs. And if a John L. Sullivan came in, I would pull up a dozen examples, and if that wasn't good enough, seek out more examples, until i was confident in my judgment that i was looking at a real or not real autograph. But it would take a lot longer than 120 seconds, I can tell you that.

Sometimes it might take 15 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, sometimes all day, but I am not going to let some deadline push me into making a determination good or bad based on the fact that I have a huge stack of other autographs I have to get to today, and I had better hurry. Ain't gonna happen if I put my name to a certificate.

I look at a few autographs that people email me and I do it for no cost, because they are friends of mine and they have good enough sense not to send 150 dollars to get an opinion from who knows what company, who knows who looks at it and how much time they spent looking at it.

My friend Mark O. does the same and sometimes we cross check with each other, and after I have compared an autograph to 12 or 15 different exemplars and am certain its real, taking 35 or 45 minutes to do so, I learn that Mark compared it to 65 different exemplars and took 2 hours. Makes me feel like I did an inadequate job because he is so thorough, but here someone can email us and get an opinion from 2 people in boxing with over 40 years experience between the both of us, with several dozen exemplars and a couple/few hours of study if that's what it takes. We don't feel rushed because we don't let anybody rush us.

If someone emailed me 10 boxing signatures and needed answers in 30 minutes I would just reply to their email "no thank you, not interested"

the hobby and the way these autographs are authenticated are abominable and it should stop and be done right.

It's like packing parachutes, You can have it done fast, or done right, kind of important to get it done right I would think. But with autographs, collectors want fast, so we end up with exactly what we asked for, and not for the better.

[travrosty]

Joe Orlando, Jimmy Spence, or Steve Grad, please come on here and tell me where I am wrong.

According to Heritage which listed certification by JSA and PSA on the listing, both of these companies passed and gave certs to a Thomas Sayers 1880's boxing signature to which their are no reliable exemplars in existance, and pulled the certs only when seasoned collectors notified the auction house. That's what we are dealing with these days.

How can they pass an autograph when even they admit there are no exemplars known? The auction house still sold it saying that both companies still believe it is real even though they pulled the certs because they got caught authenticating without exemplars. How can they make that determination that they still believe it is real if they have never seen one before? I don't get it and I get it at the same time. If that Sayers autograph comes to me, I say 'i'll take a pass on that one, inconclusive", Mark O. says the same, but those companies say "looks good"


on unrelated note
favorite youtube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNQW-63OuE4

[thekingofclout]

Let me ask you this, Travis. When people here post a scan of an Ali/Joe Louis/Sonny Liston autograph, and you reply that "it's bad." Do you spend 15-30 minutes studying the autograph on the screen? If not, how can you come to the conclusion that the signature is bad? According to you, the TPA's must spend a good amount of time comparing known examples before a valid opinion can be reached. Can you see the discrepancy here, Travis?

[brownscollector78]

I've been signing my own name all my life and I see differences in my own signature quite often that would probably lead these authenticating services to deem it fake.

The moral of the story is...unless you're filthy rich and willing to lose your money on fakes...stay away from autographs. Theres pretty much no way to know if a signature is real or fake unless you're present at the signing.

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

Let me ask you this, Travis. When people here post a scan of an Ali/Joe Louis/Sonny Liston autograph, and you reply that "it's bad." Do you spend 15-30 minutes studying the autograph on the screen? If not, how can you come to the conclusion that the signature is bad? According to you, the TPA's must spend a good amount of time comparing known examples before a valid opinion can be reached. Can you see the discrepancy here, Travis?

I can't answer for Travis nor would he want me too, but when you "know a signature is bad" & your an "expert" on that particular signer, you can just tell it's bad in seconds.

When it's real, it takes a bit more going over. So when I see a Mantle, I can usually tell if it's fake in 1 second. If it it appears real on the internet, it still really hasn't "passed" anything, only a formation "thumbs up". Technically, one would need to handle & examine the item carefully and actually should need to know what they're looking for, which I certainly don't.

Whenever corporate america is involved, you will get short cuts to making as much money as humanly possible at the moment, not giving a rats ass for the future. PSA & JSA are a conglomerates in this industry with obvious warts. I do appreciate JSA & PSA not passing EVERYTHING they see; however, They are getting too big and way too SMUG for their own good. This not answering questions crap, not owning up to their mistakes by recalling a thing, and "their word is gospel" will be the end of them. I can't wait for the day they crumble.....and with this attitude of theirs, that they can do no wrong, they will get theirs. Think GM in the 80's. (how's that for an analogy Travis) If not for the bail out of GM, I would have got my wish and watched them go out of business. No way is the govt going to bail out PSA or JSA

[sago]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

Let me ask you this, Travis. When people here post a scan of an Ali/Joe Louis/Sonny Liston autograph, and you reply that "it's bad." Do you spend 15-30 minutes studying the autograph on the screen? If not, how can you come to the conclusion that the signature is bad? According to you, the TPA's must spend a good amount of time comparing known examples before a valid opinion can be reached. Can you see the discrepancy here, Travis?

I cannot speak for Travis, but there does not seem to be a discrepancy here. You are choosing 3 of the most common or commonly forged signatures for him to answer to.

If it is bad it is easier to tell than if it is good. There is a range for everything. Mantle autographs that are obviously bad are easy to detect from a scan. Earlier signatures may take longer. If the scan does not pick up all the nuances in his signature clearly, it may also take longer to authenticate.

Based on Travis' expertise, I do not think anyone would question his opinion on an obviously bad Sonny Liston or Joe Louis. I would think he would hesitate to declare a little known heavyweight, or an obscure signature to be good/bad just from a scan.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

Let me ask you this, Travis. When people here post a scan of an Ali/Joe Louis/Sonny Liston autograph, and you reply that "it's bad." Do you spend 15-30 minutes studying the autograph on the screen? If not, how can you come to the conclusion that the signature is bad? According to you, the TPA's must spend a good amount of time comparing known examples before a valid opinion can be reached. Can you see the discrepancy here, Travis?

actually i do spend quite a bit of time with opinions i give on most boxing autograph unless it is very, very obviously bad, childlike signature. But the ones that are questionable or even the ones that look obviously good, and that is a majority of the ones that get submitted to these companies, i spend quite a bit of time or i will not make an opinion at all. The tpa's cannot afford to spend that time because they have subscribed to a system where they have scant little time on each autograph, so they cut corners in my opinion. that have a business model that maximizes their profits, but i think it does not translate into giving the customer what they deserve, which is time to do a proper authentication.

thank you for your question.