[homerunhitter]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

To state the obvious, wherever there is money to be made, fraudsters will come in to try to make it. That's a universal principle, so I don't know why it should come as any surprise in this hobby. And I would think that fact might make collectors, especially those who don't have the time or interest to become experts themselves in such a broad collecting universe, to have a fairly profound appreciation for the TPAs, who, at least the big boys, have shown themselves to be pretty darn good over the years. So instead of being in the wild west of several decades ago, an intelligent autograph collector these days has the option, for a relatively small fee compared to the value of these things, of having a serious expert, who has devoted his career to their study, of passing judgement. OK, so anyone with a collection in the thousands, or even hundreds, has stories of TPA error one way or the other--passed bad ones or rejected ones signed in person--but what do you suppose the percentage is of those mistakes compared to the ones they get right. Would you accept that % in one of YOUR employees? I think so. Instead of vilification, maybe they should get a little more love for making this expensive hobby/investment safe to indulge in, knowing there won't be any nasty surprises when it's time for you or your heirs to sell. Just my two cents.

Hank,
very well said and spot on! I agree with you my friend. I was starting to learn toward just collecting signed canceled checks of HOFers. My rational was that signed checks should be as close to an authentic signed piece as one can get then....I started to research it and the more I looked into it, I read somewhere on here that these scammers are now using high dollar laser printers to make/print signed checks that look so real and look so authentic that most people (including TPAs) could not tell the difference. so back to the drawing board! I think now ill just collect factory pack pulled autographs! because as we can see there are forgeries in EVERYTHING we collect but I think a topps certified autograph is likely more authentic than a PSA slabbed autograph. just my 2 cents worth!