Question about PSA/JSA "Guarantees"

[Plinvestments]

How about offering the Ebay buyer the option to get a quick opinion from PSA? It costs only $7.49 no matter how much the full authentication costs. I use the service a lot myself on personal purchases. The beauty is, the turnaround time is usually no more than a day, and you will get the result before the buyer pays and before you ship. It saves a lot of hassle either way. On high dollar items, I would pay for it myself and post the quick opinion in the listing. Its a cheap way to get a PSA cert without the official one.

Some of my best pickups were using PSA quick opinion. The auction prices are depressed for items without an official cert and there are a lot of bargains from individual personal collections.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

How about offering the Ebay buyer the option to get a quick opinion from PSA? It costs only $7.49 no matter how much the full authentication costs. I use the service a lot myself on personal purchases. The beauty is, the turnaround time is usually no more than a day, and you will get the result before the buyer pays and before you ship. It saves a lot of hassle either way. On high dollar items, I would pay for it myself and post the quick opinion in the listing. Its a cheap way to get a PSA cert without the official one.

Some of my best pickups were using PSA quick opinion. The auction prices are depressed for items without an official cert and there are a lot of bargains from individual personal collections.

And your guess is as good as mine as to know who is looking at the quick opinion items.
For $7.49 it is not their most visible authenticators, those authenticators cannot even keep up with the items that need a real cert.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

And your guess is as good as mine as to know who is looking at the quick opinion items.
For $7.49 it is not their most visible authenticators, those authenticators cannot even keep up with the items that need a real cert.

is steve grad looking at QO for 7.95 a shot? like Richard says, I don't think so. so who is giving this 'qualified' opinion if the A team isn't exactly impressing me? the c team, the d team, a guy who wants to make the d team?

ask joe o, he won't say.

A vintage muhammad ali signature with the less common 'A frame" capital A came back not authentic during a quick opinion, because the guy looking at it wasnt familiar with that variation. that's how good they are.

[Plinvestments]

Originally Posted by travrosty

is steve grad looking at QO for 7.95 a shot? like Richard says, I don't think so. so who is giving this 'qualified' opinion if the A team isn't exactly impressing me? the c team, the d team, a guy who wants to make the d team?

ask joe o, he won't say.

A vintage muhammad ali signature with the less common 'A frame" capital A came back not authentic during a quick opinion, because the guy looking at it wasnt familiar with that variation. that's how good they are.

I don't know for sure but I think there is an escalation process. I believe that even their most junior authenticators can pick out the majority of the bad fakes out there. On the tougher ones, they get a second look from a senior guy. I had a Ronald Reagan sig looked at once. I was pretty sure the subject piece was an autopen sig gone awry. Oddly, psa didn't render an opinion for like 3 or 4 days. I was told they needed their specialist to look at it. That at least is reassuring, and sure enough, they reached the same opinion I reached, not likely genuine. But back to the point, the authenticity of an item doesn't matter to most people, the sticker does, since there is a market for stickered items. Unfortunate, but that is reality. A positive quick opinion will almost always get a thumbs up if you were to send it in for the full cert. I have yet to see a quick opinion fail. Same with auction LOAs. I have seen precertified lots of 50+ 8x10s. Do you think they spent more than 15 minutes precertifying the lot? Psa now gurantees all precertified items will get a sticker.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

"I don't know for sure"

That is the key part of your posting. Nobody knows for sure what goes on with a quick opinion.

[Exhibitman]

We've got a mish-mash of issues here:

1. Is it genuine? Unfortunately, it is all subjective and speculative unless you were standing there when the item got signed. In court we call it hearsay evidence; I heard from someone else that something happened.

2. Is it certified and what does that mean? People pay for the cert as a substitute for knowledge because no one can be sure of anything they haven't witnessed. It is an expert [hopefully] opinion but many experts are for sale. In litigation we call the process of finding an expert who will say what your client needs him to say "whore-shopping." It is worthless unless the expert happens to have a cachet in the collecting community. Anyone bought a GAI-certed item lately?? And don't even get me started on the odious "auction LOA" that some auctioneers now use. Talk about a popcorn fart--the small print gives you a set time to pay for the privilege of allowing the TPA to certify the item that you are ostensibly buying certified--if it doesn't pass them the 2nd time you don't pay for the submission, but if it does pass you pay the cost for the upgrade to the full LOA. What a great deal, just fills me with confidence. I know the TPA that already did a cursory review of the item will go over it again with a fine tooth comb to ferret out the truth rather than rubber stamping it so as to collect another fee. Sure, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn too, for sale cheap. When you get one of those worthless slips of paper and it is past the deadline, woe unto you--the TPA will solemnly inform you that the auction LOA has expired and you will have to pay the full recert fee regardless of outcome.

3. As a seller is it worth having a TPA opine? Depends. There is a misperception in the collecting base as to what a seller is purchasing with a TPA cert. As a seller I am not buying an iron-clad guarantee it is authentic--truly, that doesn't matter to me since it is just inventory I am moving. I am buying freedom from having to warrant anything when I purchase a TPA opinion. As long as I have the item in one of their slabs with the cert on it--that is critical for the sales effort--I know I can resell it risk-free to me at auction or on Ebay [if it is one of their "blessed" TPAs]. What will a buyer do, say it isn't a PSA/DNA certified item? Now, that freedom comes at considerable expense. If I am selling a common signed card for $9.99, no way do I waste the money--I will refund the occasional bitchy buyer. If I am selling something a lot higher priced, however, I will hold my nose and use the TPA service.

4. As a seller should you cover the buyer's fee for TPA? Not if you want to stay in business. Those TPA fees are very expensive and will eat you alive. Offer to cover those and your business life expectancy will be about the same as a mosquito.

And last, my buyer's perspective: I try to do my homework and buy based on what I see and learn rather than a TPA opinion. That said, I recently purchased a Marciano signed PC with a guarantee from a local seller [I only buy unslabbed from locals so I can readily sue them to enforce a guarantee if needed]. I sent it to PSA/DNA [cost me $$$] and it got dinged. I got my money back but I also ate the TPA fee. I will never, ever do that again--I cannot afford to eat cert fees like that. What that means, in my way of collecting, is that there is no more middle ground for me as a collector. Assuming it looks good to me to begin with, I will either buy a slabbed/certed item or I will pay a rock-bottom price for a raw item on the assumption that it is worth the gamble and with the understanding that I will have to shell out to get a TPA cert on it so I can sell it. The "middle ground" [decent item, reasonable price] is dead to me. And no, I don't particularly care about the sterling reputation of the seller of the item because if I ever want to resell it that person isn't there, it is just me, and I better have a TPA cert or I will be treated as the lowball seller of dodgy raw items.

FWIW, my advice for the OP is to consign the items to an auctioneer who will do the TPA for free or provide its own COA and let them take all the risks. Without a TPA cert you will be treated as the typical Ebay scam artist and see low prices on your items because that, unfortunately, is where the market has gone for the weekend warrior type.

[MooseDog]

Well stated and great post, Adam!

[mschwade]

Nice post Adam!

[toybulldog]

But isn't the ultimate goal to purchase an authentic autograph? Does the Holyfield look legitimate or does it more resemble the common forged version next to it?


Does it even come close to resembling these examples of Holyfields vintage autograph? Would you rather have the Holyfield signed card above or the one below?



Why guarantee an item will pass a third party authenticator when the TPA doesn't even guarantee there opinion?

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

That is the key part of your posting. Nobody knows for sure what goes on with a quick opinion.

it's a secret, they don't want people to know. if people knew, they would probably be shocked to find out some guy they most likely never heard of that's probably not listed on their website and has ? hobby credentials has power to knock their item off of ebay. I use 'most likely' and 'probably' also because again, like Richard said, no one knows, which is the way they want it.

[Plinvestments]

Originally Posted by travrosty

it's a secret, they don't want people to know. if people knew, they would probably be shocked to find out some guy they most likely never heard of that's probably not listed on their website and has ? hobby credentials has power to knock their item off of ebay. I use 'most likely' and 'probably' also because again, like Richard said, no one knows, which is the way they want it.

To me, all of this is irrelevant because whoever gives the "likely genuine" tag will be backed up when and if the item is submitted for full authentication. I have yet to see a "likely genuine" fail further inspection. I'm not a huge fan of PSA or JSA but the fact remains that they created a market. PSA items sell for a premium and there are more buyers for their items. I wish it wasn't true but since it is, I have to play ball.