A Very interesting auction
 

I know there are sellers and auctioneers who shop authenticators, just looking for one good COA.
But this is certainly different.
Check out the description for this baseball.
Never saw an auction house say it quite this way.
I have to commend them for their honesty about the COA, I guess.
JSA and PSA mano ah mano.

http://catalog.scpauctions.com/LotDe...EAGUE-BASEBALL

oops, now people dont know who to trust. but most dont care, as long as it comes with a cert from one of the big 2. they trust spence when jsa gives it the cert but psa doesnt.

but then again, they trust psa when psa gives it the cert and spence as JSA doesn't. People just want the cert. But scp certainly didnt have to disclose it if they didnt want to, as it is just jsa and psa opinion, and how many peoples opinion do they have to disclose, that Chad Watertown of Hacksville, Tennessee didn't like it either. It all comes down to "if it has a jsa cert, it has a jsa cert", "if it has psa, it has psa." there has never been any guarantee that if it gets one, it will automatically get the other.

But David Wells must not be happy about that disclosure.


This looks like a case of these companies not getting together beforehand to decide whether or not they will agree to both cert it or not.

but the balldome example of the high end Ruth signed baseball is only JSA certed I heard.

http://www.beckett.com/news/2011/11/...hed-baseballs/

So who are you gonna trust?

Sounds to me like they're just letting you know that if you buy this ball and PSA rejects it later, dont come to them for a refund cause they warned you up front it had already been rejected by them.

And what happens if you buy it and Ron K. rejects it??

I agree with Travis that the TPA's have created a sort of Chicken and Egg dilemma when it comes to autographs. At the end of the day, it's pure opinion backed up with what one would hope is some educated experience.

As I argued in the Williams auction thread, this is the world collectors now live in, whether we like it or not. I don't collect for resale, however, at some point in the future, I will sell my collection or pass it on to someone who may sell it. If I have an autograph in that collection that has a COA from one of the two major TPA's it will unquestionably NOT HURT the ability to sell that piece. If I have an autograph that has been rejected or simply doesn't have a COA, common sense dictates it would be more difficult to unload it.

The industry has given PSA and Spence carte blanche, for better or worse. My situation is my situation. I am not a COA shopper, but I also don't like to get in my car everyday and drive to work without car insurance.

I wonder who he bought the ball from?
It is common knowledge he bought the Babe Ruth hat from Mark Jordan and I think he was a good customer of Mr. Jordan.

psa or jsa certs are NOT insurance, because they don't guarantee anything, you can't sue if psa or jsa doesn't like the item you bought from someone else. Why do people think their certs are gold and are backed by something? I don't get it. They will bail on their opinion in two seconds if they want to.

if you keep it for 30 years, they wont even be around anymore, just like people who are stuck with gai certs, the best thing to do is buy something you personally know is authentic, then get a cert for it just before you sell some 5, 10 , 30 years later, so the cert is relevant, that is if certs are important, and you just cant live without one.

they couldnt come for a refund anyway, because neither jsa or psa guarantees their opinion, and no one signed a contract saying that refunds will be paid out if psa or jsa rejects an item. is psa and jsa kings and we are peasants that we are bound to their opinions? Two guys are running the entire show and we are at their mercy?

Travis, you keep missing or ignoring my point. I agree with you wholeheartedly that these certs are only as good as the person putting their faith in them. I make the analogy to insurance in a loose sense in that they MAY help you unload the piece in the future if you so choose to do it. Just like car insurance MAY cover an accident. Not much in life is guaranteed, as we all know.

I have a signed Ted Williams photo that a TPA has decided not to give an opinion on. Fine. No one alive today saw him sign that photo, so at the end of the day its 100% total speculation, whether there's 400 COA stickers attached to the photo or not. My point was simply that in the world we live in today, most people including myself would rather have one than not, based on the hand the industry has been dealt, regardless of how you feel about TPA's in general.

i have ALWAYS said that a third party company is not a bad idea if they would just guarantee their opinions. then it would be a third party guarantee and the certs would then be worth something. we are letting 2 people decide for all of us what is good and what is not, with no warranty on their end? bad idea all around.

Agreed, but you can understand why they can't guarantee signatures they never saw in person right? Which then begs the question what the entire point of a TPA is, and round and round we go.

Guaranteeing an opinion is a total oxymoron. You could argue they use this as their proverbial Get Out of Jail Free Card, but it is what it is. Collectors themselves are to blame for their importance and place in this business. It's supply and demand. The day someone realized they could make a fortune off forging what was once thought relatively worthless signatures, was the day someone hatched the idea to provide something to combat that.

If you are talking about guaranteeing it, as in refunding money for the authentication if the auto can be proven fake (as in PROVEN, not held up against someone else's opinion), then I agree that the companies should step up and do it. It wouldn't make such a huge difference to them, as these cases are not very common. The Cobb that has been much discussed on these boards would fall here.

If you are talking about a TPA guaranteeing against what someone pays for an item at auction, then I think you're crazy. No company would ever do this without control over what an item sells for. That would open up such a huge can of worms (and a whole new level of fraud).

He's talking about coming to SCP for the refund (I believe).

I guess I can stand with Richard and commend them for being honest, but it does raise the question of whose opinion needs to be included. It seems to be almost standard practice for major auction houses to have both JSA and PSA/DNA cents (or pre-certs or whatever else they do/call them now). So when they have one, do they feel the need to at least reference the other now, so as to deflect future problems? Like, if you're gonna flip this on eBay, you're fine because it has JSA, but not if you try Heritage, cuz PSA aint gonna pre-cert it?

Wonder what would happen if this ball hit Leland's?

We had a poll here a while ago and the vote was overwhelming that in a question of who should issue a refund in the event an autograph is not authentic, and has been issued a COA. The group voted that the dealer is responsible for refunding the money.
Travis and I have pointed out many things that are wrong with TPA's. But even I don't think they should be held financially responsible for an error, except in the most egregious circumstances. To me a mistake like the Cobb cut and the Delehanty letter are egregious mistakes.
I know I keep pounding on that Delehanty letter, but geez did PSA and JSA actually think the guy misspelled his own name??

So would you call on them to insure the $30,000 selling price? If they both authenticated it, should they split the payment, or each pay that amount? And to whom, exactly? Or should they just refund the authentication price (which is like 200 bucks, plus shipping and all that)? But what, then, if the letter has changed hands a bunch of times since the original submission?

I think we'll agree that, in the end, the dealer/auction house is on the line. It is they who choose to use TPAs or not. The problem from their standpoint is, buyers want them, so they currently add to hammer prices. Hunt doesn't generally use them (from what I've seen), and I've passed on some items that I thought questionable there. Leland's doesn't either, and I've found them to be above reproach (never purchased from them, but have had wishlists in the past).

Not sure how I would handle that $30K letter now that you point that out.
What happened there to me is a horror, should never have happened. I wonder about the motivation of the TPA's when something like that happens.
I have authenticated for auction houses, I know what goes on in authenticating sessions. I am not accusing anyone but as I explained here in an old thread, pressure was applied to me and the members of my authentication team by one particular auction house, American Memorabilia. I did work for several other auction houses and none of them applied any pressure.
And Leland's does not use TPA's because Josh and Mike Hefner are as good or better than the TPA's we are discussing.
Not sure about what Hunt usually does as they were the ones who sold the Delehanty letter for $30K, with COA's from JSA and PSA. I think they use TPA's for certain items or for their major auction, but correct me if I am wrong there.

Ebay made PSA and JSA relevant in regard to autographs. Without eBay, they wouldn't matter at all.

The guarantee would just be spelled out in exact terms, the company would be on the hook for their mistakes. they should have to pay up when they screw up.

i have all the details and specifics that would make for a good guarantee policy but these companies arent going to do it.

auction houses started the craze when mastro would bring dealers and people around at shows and so forth and tell them he wanted them to meet his guy spence. and then grad came through the mastro pipeline too.

it was a way for auction houses to push more and more material through and absolve themselves from the liability of the autographs by pushing these tpa's on people. even though though the tpa's put it in their fine print that they aren't liable either, thats its just their opinion that can change without notice and without and renumeration or warranty to the buyer.

but auction houses still play the game of making it look like there is some type of guarantee, like when heritage will put in its tagline.

"encapsulated by psa/dna for unquestioned authenticity."

that makes it sound like it is guaranteed to be real, you cant even question it.



the auctions started it and the online auctions like ebay just ran with it from there.

And what of Mark Jordan ?
 

.

Having bought afew autographs from Mark Jordan at one of the National Shows at the end of the 1990's, I'm curious to know what other collectors opinions are of his past and current reputation and knowledge ?

I have always kinda leaned towards his reputation as falling into the same category as Mike Guetterez (in his early GAI days). Now that both are with Heritage Auctions, does the big business affiliation influence a different opinion ? More distrust due to preceived big-business greed ?

Can't help but note that most of those individuals identified now for their knowlege, reputation, and integrity still own their own small businesses.

I firmly believe in doing my homework, continuing to further educate myself, and trusting my own opinion/gut feeling, but it's is helpful to have someone far more experienced and knowledgable to trust once in a while, on an item infrequently encountered.

question is, is it legit?

personally I dont like it, but where would the majority of people take the ball if they didnt trust JSA?

These guys are covering themselves.

The more I read from you Travis the more I agree with you. If what you say is true, then the only real logical conclusion to be made is that the entire thing is just an elaborate scam. Nothing more.

Even though it didn't pass PSA, still will sell for alot of money. Haul Of Shame did a article about Mathewson balls today.

The ball just opened at $10,000.

Apparently the opening bid was withdrawn.
The ball no longer has a bid.

interesting. I wonder if the bidder might have read this thread?