Need some help on an authenticator
 

I've been dealing with Pristine Auction for several months now. Usually they have been pretty good about authenticity. Recently they have listed an individual name Todd Mueller as an authenticator. Can anybody give me a yea or a nay or somewhere I can look to form my own opinion. Thanks

If I remember there have been many comments made about him. Some good mostly bad. My question is? If they use Psa and Jimmy why would you go to other people?:confused:

That's the dumbest thing i have ever heard, if they use psa and jimmy that is the biggest reason to go to someone else, and mueller is a stand up guy who knows his stuff, the mueller haters are just people who love the status quo of psa and jsa trying to control the autograph world.

Pristine states global and jsa as their authenticators.

The mueller coa you see is todd's coa that he includes on everything he sells, the items that are listed as authentication: Todd Mueller are items that are consigned that already had a mueller coa because the consignor bought it from Todd, or bought it from soeone who bought it from Todd.

Todd is not a third party authenticator like jsa or global who certs stuff that he doesn't own. that's what is confusing you. but if he ever did that he would be a top notch guy to go to within his specialties. I can vouch for him, he knows what he is doing. He broke the pawn stars al pacino story when psa and jsa';s guy Reznikoff didnt know the difference between al pacino's signature and al ruddy's signature. Todd knew instantly. Todd is 'da man!

Did they list him as an authenticator, or are they selling items with his LOA? I don't think he does outside authentication, at least not anymore.

He stands behind his items, and you can easily reach him on the phone. While he may not be perfect, I think the above two points give him an advantage over some others.

Ken

earlywynn fan

agreed.

they are listing his coa's that he gives out himself. but they list Authentication: todd mueller and that is confusing people. not a third party authenticator, authenticates his own stuff as a dealer.

Yea Travis you win.

I'm going to go with Travis too. Have dealt with Todd for many years and he is a stand up guy who backs everything he sells with his word, and backs that up with action if needed. He was the largest seller of autographs on eBay for many years until he got tired of their bs. I would have no problem buying anything from him, or with his COA.

wrong thread.

Derek Jeter Forgery Todd Mueller Auction
 

This was sold on Todd "Da Man" Mueller's auction site.

Mueller claimed it was given to the consignor by an employee of the NY Yankees.


Attachment 92474

and this was sold by Todd Mueller on his site a couple of years ago. He argues with me ad nauseum about the "providence"...and I have a bridge for you. The only providence attached to this piece is Tony "don't call me Jorge" Podsada.

I agree with Travis that he has done some good things, but when a guy can argue with me for 5 pages why this Mantle is good, I think they have brain damage and I wouldn't buy a piece of Bazooka Bubble gum from him.

I like his idea with a lifetime guarantee and all but unfortunately, the guy has more stories than HG WELLS. What good would a lifetime guarantee do when the guy won't admit a mistake? Truly a douche who hides behind his religion. Guys like this that evoke God in their arguments are prone to lying. Anyone running a business knows his sect is BAD NEWS. In TODD we don't trust.

The Mantle is a total piece of garbage. There is no one that could defend it except Ted Taylor or Morales.:eek:

Mantle autographs don't get any worse than the one on that picture.
It has a suntan from Florida and I am sure it has Florida beach sand on it too.

Here’s my take on Todd. First, a little background. I have known Todd since the mid 90’s. I live just South of Dallas, and Todd used to have his business at The Colony, a community North of Dallas. He and I used to frequent a particular autograph business in Richardson, and that’s where I met him. We would both buy/sell/trade etc, with the owner. Once I became friends with Todd, he would send me his autograph auction lists, which at that time was not really a catalog, just Xeroxed type pages. Eventually, it got to where I was buying and selling a lot (a lot by my standards then was a thousand or so a month) with him. Todd paid a nice price for quality pieces. I could buy/sell/trade with other collectors at shows, through magazines, direct mailing, etc., and Todd would pay a very fair price to where we could both make money as he had some clients that he could move the pieces too. I used to love going up to his warehouse, hanging out, bs-ing, talking graphs, and taking a carload full of stuff for him to consider buying. Most of the times, I’d leave with a nice check, which was always good, and most importantly, would clear  His mailing lists went from typed pages to black and white color catalogs, and business seemed to be going well. Then, ebay turned up, and slowly but surely, competition seemed to kick in. It became a bit harder to move pieces at mark ups. Eventually, his catalog auctions stopped completely I believe, and he came to rely on ebay for moving his product. At some point during that time period and the next couple years, he moved to Colorado I believe. I was disappointed to see him go, cause I had fun going to his warehouse and basically chatting with him. We had some joint friends in the business that we all did deals with. Somewhere along the line, some of his items began to disappear from ebay, because like ALL autograph dealers, some of his stuff was not legit. Sometimes, it really was legit, but ebay has certain opinions that it values more than others, so they would remove it anyway, and sometimes, it really was bogus and should be removed. Don’t forget here that ANY dealer that has been around a decent amount of time and tells you that they’ve never sold a fake, is full of BS. This is not an indictment, just a statement of fact that even the best intentioned people make mistakes occasionally. I think ebay suspended his account once or even twice for continuing to post those items, and it made him upset enough that he began his own website and own auction sales at his own site. It’s at this point too, that I believe that he began to go against the third party authentication aspect that was taking a foothold in the hobby because of good marketing and strategy. I don’t know this to be fact, but I think he aligned with Koschal around this time to create the Autograph Alert site that touted itself to be a watchdog, but that actually character assassinated a lot of former friends and associates. I was disappointed to find out that Todd might be a part of that. Again, I don’t know that to be a fact, but I have heard it from other people I trust. I think a lot of this was out of frustration, because the people on that site, thought they were BIG enough to put a dent into third party authentication since it had hurt their business, and they found out they were not as big as the marketing machine of a publicly held corporation. Thus, a lot of the people aligned through that process, have become the “champion” of bashing third party authentication and grading. You have seen the same or very similar dribble cut and pasted ad nauseum on many websites over the years.
As for Todd these days:
1) I still consider him an honest businessman. Meaning that I wouldn’t hesitate to send him an item first, and wouldn’t have any concerns with him stealing it, or that I wouldn’t get paid. I trust him to take care of those business aspects of transactions
2) I still occasionally buy stuff directly from his online auctions. As whenever I purchase anything, I try to do my research first, as again, he does have some items that IMO are bad, just like EVERY dealer has from time to time. He does occasionally have really nice items, and they go relatively cheap because of who is selling them. I was able to pick up a nice Babe Ruth a few months ago from Todd, that I had vetted on Net54, which I subsequently had slabbed by Spence and that I was able to move for a substantial profit rather quickly once slabbed.
3) If I bought an item from him that was later found to be bogus, I have little doubt that he’d take care of it. Todd is not a thief. I believe he is a little too trusting sometimes of “stories” that go along with graphs and relics, but he is not a thief.
4) Like most people in the business, I believe Todd to be a “niche” authenticator. Meaning he has good skills in some specific areas, but not in all, just like anyone else.
I believe when he alledgedly started the crusade against the TPA’s that it was done probably from a combination of spite, as well as a belief he had that it was the right thing for the industry. However, at some point along the line, I think it spiraled out of control for him, and his effort was joined by many that peddle almost nothing but fakes exclusively. I often wonder if he could go back and change the last few years, if he would. I haven’t asked him, but the Todd I knew back in the day, was a good guy.

Can't speak about this Mantle, but I do question your line "What good would a lifetime guarantee do when the guy won't admit a mistake?" because I vehemently disagree with it. I bought a Ted Wms signed bat from him a couple years ago. Maybe a year later, I posted the bat on this forum, and several called it out as bad, and showed me why. I called Todd, told him many told me it was bad, and the first thing he said was "I'm really sorry, send it back immediately."

Is he perfect? No, but as navarro said, nobody is. I find him, in my conversations and transactions with him, to be very honest.

Ken

I would give the man props in that case...nicely done, but shouldn't the self proclaimed best authenticator in the world know a thing about Mickey Mantle & Ted Williams before he puts his name behind it. Just one mans opinion.

sounds like some great experiences...I certainly respect your opinion Mike

Well, I don't know where that quote came from, he's certainly never said anything like that to me, nor has he even showed that kind of attitude. However, I do agree he should be better at these big names.

Ken

Chuck is absolutely correct. No one has more stories than Todd "Da Man" Mueller.

Below is what Mueller wrote about the below wife-signed Willie Mays sig.

Todd wrote "I got Willie Mays in person at the Portland International Airport on Sept 8, 1988 and Willie signed on my shoulder."

Attachment 92518

This is a red herring that has been corrected many times.

Todd Never said he go the mays signed in person, and Chris knows it, he keeps bringing it up, he is lying.

Todd said that the mays LOOKS like one he had gotten in person at the airport when he met Mays and Dimaggio. at the time todd said this he sent me a scan of the airport sig, here it is.

Chris keeps bringing up this lie about Todd, and Todd never said it in the first place. I agree with Mr. Navarro and big Dave and earlywynnfan, Todd is a good guy. You would know that if you ever took 10 minutes to call him or meet him in person and get to know him rather than to demonize him based on what others say about him who don't know him either.

Another poster said something I take offense to and it's the generalization that people who profess their religion publicly are a certain type of people like Todd is castigated to be. I openly talk about Christianity, and have talked to Todd about it on numerous occasions. It's called evangelization and it is what Christians are called to do and Todd has done many wonderful things through his religion and doesn't deserve to be called names or made fun of because of it because he never forces it on anybody.

I have the exact screen shot when Todd "Da Man" Mueller wrote that claim about the Willie Mays wife-signed sig.

And, Travis, you're the one that first called him "Da Man."

Next, Travis, you'll try to defend Mueller's claim about the Derek Jeter forgery he sold.

My one experience with Mueller was both good and bad. I bought a dual-signed first-day cover in one of his auctions, supposedly signed by both Boris Karloff and Dwight Frye. A few months later, a fellow horror collector showed me the page from an RR Auctions catalog from which the signatures--and inscriptions--were copied. I presented the material to Todd, and he issued a refund.

He than cut the signatures apart, and re-sold them.

I just wanted to save this one for the future, when Travis and I are bashing each other's opinions for our respective differences concerning TPA's. I can look back on this thread as a moment of peaceful harmony between us :)

Mike

Nice,,, :o

No, not Todd "Da Man" Mueller?"

Say it ain't so.....

lol David, classic Todd story.......Let's all pray.:p

Sounds like a true horror story...

I'm lying? Really?

Attachment 93001

agreed.

yes, you are . the one i showed is the one at the airport, with dimaggio, not the one you showed, he never claimed that that was the one he got signed at the airport. i showed the one he got signed at the airport. he only claimed that the one he got at the airport looked like the willie mays you didn't like, that is all.

i never claimed you lied by claiming he said he got an airport signature of mays, just that the one you didnt like was that same airport mays signature. that's where the lie comes in, because it's not, the airport mays signature is a different one that mueller only said LOOKED LIKE the mays you were panning.

This is the mays signature he was talking about, at the airport with dimaggio, when he met them in person. he still has this autograph because it is sentimental.

when he said that willie gave him a wife signature, he was talking about his observation that that signature looked like the other one, so if the other one was a wife signature, then the one he got in person must be a wife signature also. (sarcasm to prove a point). where is dimaggio on the other piece? not there because he wasn't talking about that one when he mentioned getting mays AND dimaggio.

Now that "Todd Mueller" is a member of this site, maybe he can respond.

I'll be waiting....

As an outside observer, I don't read this as he's talking about that Willie Mays auto. Did he come out and say he got the actual disputed auto in the airport?

Ken

no he didn't say that, he compared it to one he got in person at the airport, he thought they looked the same so if the disputed one is a wife signed, then he got a "wife" signed willie at the airport as well. chris doesn't understand that comparison.

But I do know when someone is lying, which seems to be the norm for Mueller.

Maybe Todd Mueller, who joined Net54 three days ago, can give us his usual long-winded explanation of that Willie Mays wife-signed signature he sold.

By the way, I thought you had to be eighteen (18) to be on this site.

How was "Toddler Mueller" allowed to sign up?

I hate to say this but that is good. Toddler.:D
Chris why dont you show them what he wrote about you.? I am sure that will make Travis happy.

All in good time.....

YAY! More games!!

Not games!!!!

Seriously stuff!!!!

Then do it already. Why the drama? Why the "Man behind the curtain" act?

Go for it. People will loose interest very quickly.

It will be posted very soon (in a new thread).

I would hope it's not another.....glass houses episode.....that ended up being such a waste of time and effort for anybody that read it.

Oh but Dave, it's not the Autograph Forum without a little drama is it? :)

Has Glass House been unveiled yet?

JimStinson
 

Is DUELING still illegal ? if not maybe Leon can add it as an event to the open bar and NET54 meet and greet at this year's National...:)
_________________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

If they add that to the Agenda you may be able to make the Net54 Dinner a charge event! :D

exactly, a bunch of nothing.

Nope.

My "Glass Houses" thread was only "Part 1 Of A Ten-Part Series."

JimStinson
 

ABSOLUTELY !!! We could make it a PAY PER VIEW event ! However I just checked and sadly dueling is STILL illegal ....Unless its done with BANJOS
Shucks !
____________________
jim@stinsonsports.com