Did I buy a Fake Marquard Signed T206?

[SetBuilder]

Originally Posted by Marslife

Well…. All I can say off the bat is WOW! What a crazy story…

First of all I would like to apologize to the SGC authenticators. This thread went from what I thought would be an SGC bashing thread to a praise for their services! Thank you to SGC! Awesome job. I called them to personally leave a message of thanks.

Secondly…. What an awesome response to my “CALL FOR HELP!” I would like to thank all the members that spent time and energy in researching this card and signature, I cannot thank you enough! We may balk and chatter at one another from time to time, but when we put our collective minds together for a common cause, we cannot be stopped…. You guys are awesome and I am proud to be a member of this community!

That being said, I was heartbroken at the outcome, spending my nearly annual card budget on a forgery. Sickening…. My only hope is that this episode will help shine some light on the seedy dark corners of this hobby, and perhaps keep someone else from getting burned.

PS – Good news is that I just received and email with an apology, also advising that an error was made and restitution will be provided. I am to return the card and the LOA and the authenticators will offer me a full refund. I will update the post when restitution is made.

Thank you to Clean Sweep Auctions and JSA for offering to step up!

Mostly, thank you to the members that contributed, and this Forum for providing me the opportunity to share my story...

Much appreciated!

Cliff

Cliff,

Great to see that you were made whole.

Unfortunately, buying a forgery has become a rite of passage in the autograph hobby. After you buy a few, your eyes will be much more calibrated and able to detect fakes.

The lesson to be learned here is to be a little more skeptical.

[CuriousGeorge]

The lesson I’ve learned here is to treat anything authenticated by Jim Spence about the same as I would by Homer Simpson. Why in the world would anyone trust any authenticatication he does when in mere minutes a member of this board was able to determine it a forgery? Are they really that lazy? I think I know the answer to my own question. While it’s wonderful the purchaser is made whole and presumably the bad guy is going to easily be able to be tracked down and hopefully prosecuted, that still leaves us with the shoddy work of Jim Spence. Should each of his authentication letters now come with a caveat that he is about 80% sure the autograph is for real?

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

Unfortunately, buying a forgery has become a rite of passage in the autograph hobby. After you buy a few, your eyes will be much more calibrated and able to detect fakes.

The lesson to be learned here is to be a little more skeptical.

This is great advice. I have been burned a few times on signed T206s that I wanted to believe were real -- and then learned were not and why. A JSA LOA is usually as solid as it gets, but as I said above, on the higher value ones, I try to have more than one authenticator review the item. I usually get LOAs from JSA and then encapsulation by SGC, which is basically what you tried to do here. I haven't been burned yet by an SGC rejection of a JSA-approved item, but I do know that when I offer to include JSA LOAs with items to SGC that they don't want them. It seems they do, in fact, make an independent assessment, which I agree they deserve credit for here.

[MichelaiTorres83]

I recall a story from a national goer where someone buying an autographed t206 from them with just the letter also had an identical problem. It was submitted to PSA for grading and they rejected it.

This person was essentially told tough crap because it came with the letter. Find it funny how when standing at a table in front of them their answer was vastly different for the exact same issue then when called out on here.

[oldjudge]

Let me ask my question in this thread also--did Steve Verkman say where the card came from? If he can identify the consignor them perhaps the ownership chain can be constructed and the forger can be found.