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.

[travrosty]

i dont think there would be any more liability risks more than now. we see companies that authenticate use the "its an opnion" excuse and they are wrong in some stunning instancs, and i dont see lawsuits being filed.

people forget that ebay is so huge with such a powerful legal dept. anyone suing them would be in for years of litigation with a legal tab stretching from here to the moon. who is going to sue ebay for a 5000 dollar autograph and expect to win and collect and not spend less than 5000 doing it considering the legal team ebay has? almost all autograph listings are 5000 or less. peanuts for ebay. they just have to have an ironclad agreement that their coa is their opinion and that all disputes go through mediation, etc.


cons for ebay: people might leave ebay and sell their autographs elsewhere.

pros for ebay: no more dueling authenticators, no more joe blow's corner coa's, no more quick opinions, no more banned coa list.

they could require that everyone who lists an autograph upload their ebay cert onto their listing, they could have recognition software compare that image to the one they have in their database when they authenticated the item. and also a hidden field that you have to enter the coa number when you list. then you couldn't list something that didnt have an ebay cert and get away with it for awhile. they could have a verifier word on the back of the loa, say the word 'walnut', when you list, there is a hidden field to ask for this verifier word, so no one can steal the front image of the loa and try to list something similar with the loa. The coa #, the front image of the coa, and the verifier word on the back of the coa would all have to match what ebay has in their database in order to list.


i wouldnt say they would be bold to actually do this service, but i think it would get all the junk off of ebay, the crazy fakes and even the bad psa and jsa items, if they hired people to authenticate within their specialty, like a music dept. a sports dept. , an entertainment dept. instead of one person to do all of sports, like steve grad does. they are bigger than CU, they have more resources.

[Lordstan]

Well. I kind of agree with Travis, in that I don't think liability would be a huge issue for them. I think they would endure some pain in order to boost revenue. Basically guaranteeing the authenticity of every autograph on the site, would cut down on the junk. Sure, they get paid right now for the junk, but also have to refund, what I would think is a fair amount of money and lose FVF's.
I think they would more than offset any money lost on junk sales with money gained both on cert fees and higher final value fees that would more than likely come with ebay "certified" items.

I think perhaps the stumbling block could be a monopoly issue. In this scenario, I do wonder if PSA, JSA, etc could ban together and put together an antitrust lawsuit? I'm no lawyer, so I could be totally off base here, just wondering.

As far as what I would personally do...I don't know. Here's my thinking.
I don't think the average buyer cares who is actually doing the certs for their items. Much like with PSA and JSA now. No one knows which person is reviewing any specific signature, yet the masses accept it without question. In this scenario, If eBay says it's ok, they'll go along as well.
For the serious collector, including the overwhelming majority of people on this board, who is doing the certs is of paramount concern. If acknowledged experts in their field are doing the certs the more serious bunch might go along. I do think Lelands would probably get a bump in business from this decision, as would independent sites like GSB.

[travrosty]

some astute comments, i agree with them.

if ebay would seem to the collector to be a safer place to shop if all autographs had ebay exclusive certs, i think that would help. no more CC and funny looking certs and saying something has a cert but not showing it.

but hey would have to put together a great team, not just a good one. the stamped signatures with a psa cert and the laser prints etc. would have to stop. if you are just psa or jsa under a new name, then whats the point? you would have to be better than them and advertise that you are. psa and jsa get overextended and overstretched and go too fast and thats why the bad mistakes are made.

there were ramblings 7 or 8 years ago that ebay might buy collectors universe, and someone even wrote a research paper about it. it never happened, maybe because ebay would have to buy the whole company, and they would now be card graders and coin graders too. i dont think they could just pick off the autograph authentication unit psa/dna from collectors universe just by itself.

part of the reason it would be worth competing with psa and jsa , is that psa and jsa have done a horrible job distinguishing themselves from each other.

psa and jsa= interchangeable. they do almost everything the same, you submit the items the same, the pricing structure is the same, the non guarantee is the same, there is no innovation, no progress, just stagnation.

same old thing year after year. it was three years ago that they wanted a boxing guy at psa. in three years they still havent got one. why? can't they find one that wants to work for them as a consultant for near free?

ripe for a competitor like ebay to eat their lunch by giving the customer what they want. but i dont think it is on ebays radar.

[RichardSimon]

Liability is a factor in this but all other category sellers might say "why are you certifying autographs and not all the other categories that need certificates?" That opens up a whole new can of worms that ebay definitely does not want to get into IMO.

[Plinvestments]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Liability is a factor in this but all other category sellers might say "why are you certifying autographs and not all the other categories that need certificates?" That opens up a whole new can of worms that ebay definitely does not want to get into IMO.

Ebay will get into anything that will make them money, regardless of the risks. Amazon doesn't seem to have liability issues and ACE is one of their approved TPA's. It is more likely they acquire a company and keep them separate but use them for cross promotion and marketing. Like I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if they owned Collector's Universe someday.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

I believe if eBay were to do that, then possibly PSA and JSA would merge together to not battle each other out for the auction houses.