What the future holds in the autograph industry

[travrosty]

I Would sell it now before the COA's from TPA's become just TP.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by travrosty

I Would sell it now before the COA's from TPA's become just TP.

[T206Collector]

One of the nice things about collecting signed T206s is that most of what is out there was signed by non-HOFers, and can be traced through provenance to two major collections that were amassed in the 1960s and 70s. Like I said on the Babe Ruth train wreck thread (version 1), if the forgers were winning, you'd see at least one authenticated Matty signed T206, and way more Cobbs than are out there.

Collect what you like, and be prepared to defend the signature in the event you or your heirs try to sell in the post-Spence/DNA era, which will eventually come -- sooner or later.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

if the forgers were winning, you'd see at least one authenticated Matty signed T206, and way more Cobbs than are out there.

Yet there are plenty of bad postcards, balls, and photos. I'm pretty sure the potential profit margin, as well as overall demand and saleability, on a generic Christmas card exceeds that of a signed T206. Especially if there are few (or no) known examples, making it harder to slip through the cracks. That being said, don't count out the prospect of one showing up. If there is a money to be made, they will build it.

I started a thread about a week ago of a cache of autographs I had run across. The number of bad 'common' players was unnerving. Ask yourself this: Who would forge Terry Francona, John Kruk, or Larry Bowa? How about John Daly or Eric Lindros? If they are fair game, all bets are off on anyone.

While I don't accept the lack of accountability of the TPA's, at this point they definitely serve as a much needed filter. Despite the protestations of some to the contrary, they get it right most of the time. At least in baseball.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Deertick

Despite the protestations of some to the contrary, they get it right most of the time. At least in baseball.

I haven't heard anyone say that the TPA's get it wrong most of the time. The complaint is that getting it right "most of the time" is not good enough. If "most of the time" is good enough for you, you are definitely in the majority, so I'm not knocking you. Just saying - I'd like to see them do better, and I'm sure they could.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Runscott

I haven't heard anyone say that the TPA's get it wrong most of the time. The complaint is that getting it right "most of the time" is not good enough. If "most of the time" is good enough for you, you are definitely in the majority, so I'm not knocking you. Just saying - I'd like to see them do better, and I'm sure they could.

+1

[barrysloate]

I've never collected autographs, and never had much of an interest in them. But I do read most of the autograph threads on this board. I imagine people will continue collecting autographs, and would guess that those collectors will enjoy what they are doing. That said, I've never seen a more depressing hobby or state of affairs than what transpires on Net54.

The amount of infighting among collectors and dealers is a little hard to believe. It seems like you guys really don't like each other. And the number of collectors who get ripped off buying bad stuff is truly alarming. This end of the hobby has a simply dreadful image. It looks like the place all the scammers and con men go to make a living.

If you want to see a healthy future, something has to be done. If it reaches the point where nobody can agree on whether or not a Babe Ruth signature is good or bad, then I would say the future does not look all that bright. The number of new collectors entering will grow smaller.

[sylbry]

Originally Posted by travrosty

I Would sell it now before the COA's from TPA's become just TP.

Genuine autographs will always be genuine, no matter what happens to the TPA that attached a letter to it.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

A lot of good points. But a post really got me thinking from the Gary Cooper thread:

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I said it before and I believe it to be true...they make a lot of money off of the forgers. If there were no forgery there would be no need for TPA's.

And I can see this being true, and it's disgusting...

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

A lot of good points. But a post really got me thinking from the Gary Cooper thread:

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide
I said it before and I believe it to be true...they make a lot of money off of the forgers. If there were no forgery there would be no need for TPA's.

And I can see this being true, and it's disgusting...

Brent, I'm missing you and Dan's point. If there were no forgers, everything would be authentic, so of course you wouldn't need anyone (TPA) to identify something as being a forgery. And since TPA's are businesses, they have to make money. To me it's all about how they run their business. Even if you assume they are completely honest, they aren't doing the job we are paying them to do.

I spoke with Ben yesterday and gave him a detailed example from my personal experience, where I am absolutely positive that a TPA authenticated forgeries, and when I asked them to take a second look they said they did, but they absolutely did not. Why? Because the time it would take to actually examine the autographs would kill their profit. That's what I find disgusting, and that's why their LOA's are absolutely worthless to me.

[Runscott]

Barry - good post. I apologize for my part in the mess you describe - I'm quite upset at myself for some of the stuff I've written in the various Ruth threads. If the autograph forum were not part of Net54 I would not be a participant at all;still, I promise in the future to try my best to fight my natural inclinations to react to it, which only compounds the problem.

The other problem is that I have never been able to resist reading it - it's really quite fun. And I have met some very good and interesting people there.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Brent, I'm missing you and Dan's point. If there were no forgers, everything would be authentic, so of course you wouldn't need anyone (TPA) to identify something as being a forgery. And since TPA's are businesses, they have to make money. To me it's all about how they run their business. Even if you assume they are completely honest, they aren't doing the job we are paying them to do.

I spoke with Ben yesterday and gave him a detailed example from my personal experience, where I am absolutely positive that a TPA authenticated forgeries, and when I asked them to take a second look they said they did, but they absolutely did not. Why? Because the time it would take to actually examine the autographs would kill their profit. That's what I find disgusting, and that's why their LOA's are absolutely worthless to me.

I think what Dan was stating that sometimes there comes an item that the TPA knows it's a forgery, and certify it because of the rarity of the specific item and potential historical significance. Like the PSA 8 Wagner, everyone knew it was trimmed, and that was the very first card I believe PSA certified, so it was huge in regards to marketing PSA.

I hope that helped explain our stance a little.

[mschwade]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

I think what Dan was stating that sometimes there comes an item that the TPA knows it's a forgery, and certify it because of the rarity of the specific item and potential historical significance. Like the PSA 8 Wagner, everyone knew it was trimmed, and that was the very first card I believe PSA certified, so it was huge in regards to marketing PSA.

I hope that helped explain our stance a little.

Fitting because it sounds like the Steroid Era of baseball to me... Not thinking about the long term hit to their character when the truth comes out, only that they were the big thing when they played.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

I think what Dan was stating that sometimes there comes an item that the TPA knows it's a forgery, and certify it because of the rarity of the specific item and potential historical significance. Like the PSA 8 Wagner, everyone knew it was trimmed, and that was the very first card I believe PSA certified, so it was huge in regards to marketing PSA.

I hope that helped explain our stance a little.

Gotcha - thanks. I know TPA's holder trimmed cards, and based on what others (with better eyeballs than me) have said, if accidental it's through employee ineptitude, and if an experienced employee did it, it's criminal. But I don't agree with you that the TPA's intentionally holder high-$ forged autographs. I believe it's simply ineptitude.

edited to add - the above is in regard to PSA and JSA - certainly many of the other TPA's are fraudulent.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Gotcha - thanks. I know TPA's holder trimmed cards, and based on what others (with better eyeballs than me) have said, if accidental it's through employee ineptitude, and if an experienced employee did it, it's criminal. But I don't agree with you that the TPA's intentionally holder high-$ forged autographs. I believe it's simply ineptitude.

edited to add - the above is in regard to PSA and JSA - certainly many of the other TPA's are fraudulent.

I agree, it's certainly not as common, and ISA and all the other crap slab reprints. I guess I miss-spoke saying intentionally certify, but it just seems like it with how many Ruth's have been withdrawn for HA

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

I agree, it's certainly not as common, and ISA and all the other crap slab reprints. I guess I miss-spoke saying intentionally certify, but it just seems like it with how many Ruth's have been withdrawn for HA

A lot of people do believe that the slabbing is malicious, and with the TPA's refusing to address their image problem (although I doubt they see it as a problem), believing it is intentional is reasonable. All the TPA's have to do is state that it's ineptitude and that they will try to hire better authenticators.

I was digging around, looking for an example of a particular Babe Ruth style signature, and found this site. Others have probably already discussed it:

http://www.angelfire.com/biz5/puru777/ruthpiece.htm

[mr2686]

I believe the future of the hobby depends on what you're in it for. If you're looking for your own personal collection to keep and enjoy, you're probably going to be looking to purchase from the well known dealers (Stinson, Simon, Corcoran, Keating, etc etc) and you'll be happy knowing that you have a high probability of having authentic autographs that you didn't have to see signed. If, however, you're looking to be able to flip an autograph and want the average Joe to feel comfortable buying your "product" at a higher price, then you'll probably look for the alphabet authenticators and you'll be less likely to have an authentic autograph (not all, but more will fall through the cracks due to high volume, lack of knowledge/exemplars and negligence).
For me, the future is going back to the beginning. I started out collecting hof balls and having hof'ers signed my hof book. I branched out to famous teams and famous players and deceased hof'ers, but I'm finishing up a lot of those projects and feel with the state of the hobby that I'll be going back to getting signed balls of living hof'ers. I have a backlog of players to get over the last few years and of course there's always new ones each year, so it will still be fun.
While a lot of these threads have been going on the last several days, I was reminded how much fun this hobby is by two events. The first was that I started working on getting a lot of my stuff matted and framed (about 12 new ones done so far and another 10 or so in que for the next week or so...by the way, get yourself a good frame shop that can do your matting and then wait for some good sales at any chain frame shop and you can get a lot of your stuff up on the walls, looking good, for pretty cheap). The actual process of getting your stuff matted/framed and deciding what would look good together as displayed is so enjoyable, and of course sitting back and looking at the result is priceless.
The second thing was an unsilicited copy of the SCD that showed up in the mail (3 years after discontinuing my subscription, I guess they want me back). Anyway, the magazine is smaller in size but thicker than in recent years which reminded me of the 80's when it was the size of the old Sporting News and about an inch think. Man those days were fun...getting the new issue on a Thursday and spending the next several hours looking for things for your collection. A lot of old hof'ers that would sign at shows that you could mail order (some didn't seem to come out to the West Coast so that was really cool). Fun days indeed.
Anyway, I've blathered long enough, but before I go, I have a Babe Ruth for sale...

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by mr2686

I believe the future of the hobby depends on what you're in it for. If you're looking for your own personal collection to keep and enjoy, you're probably going to be looking to purchase from the well known dealers (Stinson, Simon, Corcoran, Keating, etc etc) and you'll be happy knowing that you have a high probability of having authentic autographs that you didn't have to see signed. If, however, you're looking to be able to flip an autograph and want the average Joe to feel comfortable buying your "product" at a higher price, then you'll probably look for the alphabet authenticators and you'll be less likely to have an authentic autograph (not all, but more will fall through the cracks due to high volume, lack of knowledge/exemplars and negligence).
For me, the future is going back to the beginning. I started out collecting hof balls and having hof'ers signed my hof book. I branched out to famous teams and famous players and deceased hof'ers, but I'm finishing up a lot of those projects and feel with the state of the hobby that I'll be going back to getting signed balls of living hof'ers. I have a backlog of players to get over the last few years and of course there's always new ones each year, so it will still be fun.
While a lot of these threads have been going on the last several days, I was reminded how much fun this hobby is by two events. The first was that I started working on getting a lot of my stuff matted and framed (about 12 new ones done so far and another 10 or so in que for the next week or so...by the way, get yourself a good frame shop that can do your matting and then wait for some good sales at any chain frame shop and you can get a lot of your stuff up on the walls, looking good, for pretty cheap). The actual process of getting your stuff matted/framed and deciding what would look good together as displayed is so enjoyable, and of course sitting back and looking at the result is priceless.
The second thing was an unsilicited copy of the SCD that showed up in the mail (3 years after discontinuing my subscription, I guess they want me back). Anyway, the magazine is smaller in size but thicker than in recent years which reminded me of the 80's when it was the size of the old Sporting News and about an inch think. Man those days were fun...getting the new issue on a Thursday and spending the next several hours looking for things for your collection. A lot of old hof'ers that would sign at shows that you could mail order (some didn't seem to come out to the West Coast so that was really cool). Fun days indeed.
Anyway, I've blathered long enough, but before I go, I have a Babe Ruth for sale...

I do a majority of my purchases on the bay, but I always research first or ask for opinions. I'm not in it for the money, just strictly collecting, and at times I may sell to upgrade etc. I do a lot of trading/buying/selling with collectors here which I highly prefer over over avenues.

I mainly do cards, but have a couple of really cool pieces I have framed. Back in the '80's, Donruss inserted puzzle pieces into packs of cards. I completed all of the puzzles from the players (like Musial, Spahn, Snider, Stargell etc.) and glued them to a mat and got them signed and framed, so they look pretty cool.

[mr2686]

Brent, I too loved those puzzles as well as those HOF Heroes cards from Donruss. Great things to have signed.

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

Back in the '80's, Donruss inserted puzzle pieces into packs of cards. I completed all of the puzzles from the players (like Musial, Spahn, Snider, Stargell etc.) and glued them to a mat and got them signed and framed, so they look pretty cool.

I loved those, but don't think I've seen any signed. Got photos?

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by mr2686

I have a Babe Ruth for sale...

Is it on a card

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

I think what Dan was stating that sometimes there comes an item that the TPA knows it's a forgery, and certify it because of the rarity of the specific item and potential historical significance. Like the PSA 8 Wagner, everyone knew it was trimmed, and that was the very first card I believe PSA certified, so it was huge in regards to marketing PSA.

I hope that helped explain our stance a little.

I was thinking more along the lines of the symbiotic relationship they have...how hard do they really want to rid the hobby of forgery since they basically make their living off of it. It makes me ponder the secretive nature of this business.... I don't believe that JSA or PSA intentionally holder bad autos though. Obviously there are TPA's that are the go to guys for the forgers and these autos usually end up at CC or in your local "estate" auction.

[Runscott]

Please don't yell at me for going off-topic, but all this discussion of bad autographs, blind collectors and unscrupulous TPA's and forgers made me think of this:

[shelly]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I was thinking more along the lines of the symbiotic relationship they have...how hard do they really want to rid the hobby of forgery since they basically make their living off of it. It makes me ponder the secretive nature of this business.... I don't believe that JSA or PSA intentionally holder bad autos though. Obviously there are TPA's that are the go to guys for the forgers and these autos usually end up at CC or in your local "estate" auction.

No on is saying on purpose. I am saying once a forger can get them to authenticate his items they are his for life. There are people on here that no the story of he miniture autograh Rurth balls. That well know authenticator has been chaseing those ball to be the authenticator to protect himself. People like Richard, Jim, Ron and few others laugh when we see it happen. It is hard to go back and admit a mistake. I think the difference between the go to guys is price. Garbage is Garbage.

[packs]

I know I'm having a great time looking for pieces that I like. JSA and PSA don't hinder me from doing that. I couldn't care less about the "future" as I am only interested in the past.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by shelly

No on is saying on purpose. I am saying once a forger can get them to authenticate his items they are his for life. There are people on here that no the story of he miniture autograh Rurth balls. That well know authenticator has been chaseing those ball to be the authenticator to protect himself. People like Richard, Jim, Ron and few others laugh when we see it happen. It is hard to go back and admit a mistake. I think the difference between the go to guys is price. Garbage is Garbage.

I agree Shelly, I was just addressing something that was brought up in this thread that I wrote in another thread. Don't want people to misunderstand my words.