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Posted By: davidcycleback

My opinion is an auction house stands or falls on whether the items they auction are authentic and the quality of their other performance (shipping, financial, grading, etc). If they sell quality stuff and otherwise do well, they will gain good reputations in the hobby. If they sell fake or misdescribed items, they will get a bad reputation in the long run. Same applies to eBay sellers. Lelands authenticates their jerseys, autographs and memorabilia and they have good reputations. I can think of one or two auction houses that use independent authenticators and have much lesser reputations. In the extreme example, Coachs Corner has all of their lots okayed by outside examiners.

Lastly, for non-gameused/autographed memorabilia, it is the auction house that examines and judges the authenticity of the items offered. For a Babe Ruth clock, it is the seller (REA, Mastro, Heritage) that has judged the authenticity and grade of the item. So all of us regularly buy memorabilia that has been 'self-authenticated' by the auction house. How do we judge the auction houses in these sales? By the accuracy of their description and the quality of their service.

Now an auction house like REA does get outside LOAs for certain types of items (game used, autographs), but, as the other non-LOA items illustrate, we do not judge an auction house solely by the sanctity of the authenticator/client relationship. We mostly judge REA, Mastro, REA or an eBay seller by the overall accuracy of the descriptions and quality of the service. As already noted, Lelands self-authenticates their autographs and game used jerseys, and autograph and game used collectors in general say Lelands has a strong reputation in these areas. Whether deserved or undeserved, Mastro has gotten multiple more complaints from the game used community than Lelands-- and Mastro is the one that has independent LOAs on all their gu lots.