PSA will authenticate anything

[Shoeless Moe]

...they authenticated it as Authentic......no grade....maybe it was trimmed?

unfortunately this one does me no good, as I'm in the market for a PSA 5 or better Chico and the Man ticket. I'm gonna put it next to my PSA authenticated Bus Pass.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

...they authenticated it as Authentic......no grade....maybe it was trimmed?

unfortunately this one does me no good, as I'm in the market for a PSA 5 or better Chico and the Man ticket. I'm gonna put it next to my PSA authenticated Bus Pass.

LOL

[sports-rings]

Scott,

sorry I failed to see the humor in your post.

But, hey, if PSA could let a Wagner get through that turned out to be trimmed, is it a big deal if the Chico and The Man ticket was trimmed too?

By the way, has PSA said anything about the Bill Mastro admission that the Wagner card was trimmed and PSA slabbed it with a high grade?

[glynparson]

It's not an autograph. Stick to ripping them on their atrocious job of boxing authentication, whereyou are right. as I think in this case your dead wrong on needing an exemplar to authenticate a ticket or card. You need knowledge of said item yes an exempkar in hand no.

[toybulldog]

Originally Posted by glynparson

It's not an autograph. Stick to ripping them on their atrocious job of boxing authentication, whereyou are right. as I think in this case your dead wrong on needing an exemplar to authenticate a ticket or card. You need knowledge of said item yes an exempkar in hand no.

I appreciate your comments and look forward to exposing other non-authentic PSA/DNA boxing autographs for you in the future.

Yours in signatures,
Mark O.

[sports-rings]

exact replicas of the tickets were printed as insert "extras" in an Elvis LP. These reprints are routinely sold on ebay as genuine to unsuspecting buyers. If memory serves, some of these have been slabbed.

Rick - thanks for an excellent post. I'm not surprised replicas were slabbed fake. Yet some on this post don't think PSA needs examplars to authenticate.

And while PSA does claim to offer opinions in their fine print, they market their services as authentication services, not opinion makers.

[Republicaninmass]

didnt they also slab Anna-Nicole Smiths Driver license?

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

didnt they also slab Anna-Nicole Smiths Driver license?

I think that was GAI

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by republicaninmass

didnt they also slab anna-nicole smiths driver license?

How can they do that???? Did they have an exemplar????

[drc]

I'm not a ticket expert and the idea of potentially faking unique and obscure tickets is a worthy discussion topic, but with many vintage printed or photographic items you don't require an exemplar to determine it's genuine. If you give me a unique 1880s litho trade card or photo, I can usually tell you that it's authentic without another to compare-- in part by taking out the microscope and examining the printing.

[sports-rings]

you don't require an exemplar to determine it's genuine.

Yes, you do require an exemplar. if a fake was made during the time period, using the same paper or card stock, with similar printing equipment, would that make the copy authentic?

Did PSA sit there and examine this ticket with a magnifying glass or loop and then do a paper analysis to determine it was real?

[sports-rings]

You need knowledge of said item

I'm not trying to start a fight with anyone so please don't get upset.

If they authenticate hundreds of sporting tickets I can believe they have a good knowledge of these kind of items.

But tickets to a television show? Does PSA have a database or notes or references on this subject matter?

It's like the post from several weeks ago: People at this site were asking if anyone could remember PSA sending an autograph back with an incomplete conclusion because of lack of exemplars, even on the most obscure autographs.

[drc]

I assume no one here knows how PSA goes about authenticating a ticket like this-- what are the methods, exemplars (if any), knowledge--, so I don't know how anyone here can knowledgeably criticize their methods.

The assumption here has been PSA didn't have an exemplar for this ticket, but that's nothing more than a guess. Tell me why the expert who examined this ticket couldn't have a large collection of sit com tickets for comparison? Presumably one becomes an expert in tickets by having accumulating a huge collection of tickets.

Did the examiner have an exemplar for this ticket? I don't know. How did he go about judging this ticket as authentic? I don't know.

Perhaps there was compelling provenance, such as it coming from a scrapbook which included snapshots of the submitter and vacationing family at the studio and set. Perhaps it came from the estate auction of a producer. I once got a small collection of 1970s-80s 'everyday fan' baseball game tickets from the estate auction of a former MLB GM. The collection also included his personalized executive's passes, so it wasn't hard to demonstrate the executive provenance.

[toybulldog]

Originally Posted by drc

I assume no one here knows how PSA goes about authenticating a ticket like this-- what are the methods, exemplars (if any), knowledge--, so I don't know how anyone here can knowledgeably criticize their methods.

The assumption here has been PSA didn't have an exemplar for this ticket, but that's nothing more than a guess. Tell me why the expert who examined this ticket couldn't have a large collection of sit com tickets for comparison? Presumably one becomes an expert in tickets by having accumulating a huge collection of tickets.

Did the examiner have an exemplar for this ticket? I don't know. How did he go about judging this ticket as authentic? I don't know.

Perhaps there was compelling provenance, such as it coming from a scrapbook which included snapshots of the submitter and vacationing family at the studio and set. Perhaps it came from the estate auction of a producer. I once got a small collection of 1970s-80s 'everyday fan' baseball game tickets from the estate auction of a former MLB GM. The collection also included his personalized executive's passes, so it wasn't hard to demonstrate the executive provenance.

I'm not knowledgeably criticizing their methods, I'm knowledgeably criticizing the fact that that call themselves "authenticators". PSA doesn't prove or serve to prove anything, they do not authenticate. I'm primarily an autograph collector, can anyone here show an autograph that they submitted and supply any proof of a "method" that was used by PSA to determine if their autograph is in fact authentic?



Proof exists that many of their "slabbed" boxing autographs are not authentic, the notion of a "method" could be a fairytale for all we know?

[Oldtix]

Like many of you, I get a thrill in holding an old ticket stub that allowed the original owner to witness a Babe Ruth home run or a Walter Johnson shutout. I get the same thrill from owning tickets to other events - big band concerts, Worlds Fairs, political speeches, and (you guessed it) radio and TV shows. I now own over 5,000 broadcast tickets. I refer to this as "my collection"; my family and friends refer to is as "my cry for help." But I digress...

There are many dealers who follow "If you slab it, they will come" business model. From time to time, sellers have used PSA to try to enhance the importance and worth of an item. PSA is apparently more than willing to support their wish. In general, because the value of old TV tickets is pretty low, there's not much downside to the practice.

But believe it or not, there are a few TV tickets that have been reprinted or counterfeited. Authentic tickets to the Beatles Ed Sullivan Show appearances have sold for over $10,000, and tickets for early Elvis Presley appearances aren't far behind. Tickets to I Love Lucy routinely sell for over $1,000 and as high as $5,000. There is a case to be made for a company to reliably authenticate such tickets. Case in point - the famous Elvis 1968 comeback TV special was cut from four different taping sessions, each will less than 200 audience members. A few years later, exact replicas of the tickets were printed as insert "extras" in an Elvis LP. These reprints are routinely sold on ebay as genuine to unsuspecting buyers. If memory serves, some of these have been slabbed. If you've bought one of these tickets, you're probably in for disappointment.

So the point is that the questions raised in previous posts are not hypothetical. In some cases, the false sense of security given by authentication isn't worth the plastic it's packed in unless the grading company does their homework.

For those who have made the effort to read this far, I reward you with a peek at my rare 1974 rookie season "Chico and the Man" ticket...and the ticket for the 1977 taping cancelled by the suicide of Freddie Prinze a few days earlier. Ain't Net54 grand?