POST YOUR AUTHENTICATOR SCREW UPS

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Posted By: Robert Plancich

I agree with the post by E but disagree with him with respect to his statement that it was his fault. While I agree that the collector should do as much research as possible, on the other hand, these individuals are holding themselves out to the public as "experts" and charging the auction house for a service. According to the U.S. Supreme court (I will find the exact case and ruling and post it later) an expert's opinion must be based in scientific fact. These so-called "experts" think that they can hide behind statements such as "In my opinion" or "To the best of my knowledge" and that they are free from the errors that they make, which is not the case, legal or otherwise.

Additionally, what really angers me is that they refuse to produce any any documentation whatsoever to substantiate their authenticity claim and/or refuse to answer emails about the item. Lampson had made numerous mistakes on Barry Bonds and Pittsburg Steeler items. He, just like Dave Bushing, Dan Knoll, Troy Kinunen, James Spence, Steve Grad, et al, are nothing but dealers who have been advertised as experts. The mistakes that they have made is mind boggling. In fact, when you look at the mistakes that they collectively have made brings me to two possible conclusions - one is that they don't know what they are doing at all, and two - that these errors are being made intentially, knowingly and maliciously for the sake of the almighty dollar - dead Presidents! Why else do they remain silent when questioned about a specific item. How do Dave Bushing and Dan Knoll miss the date of a DiMaggio glove by twenty-five years, a quarter of a century! There is no excuse for it. How do they incorrectly date a Tom Seaver glove to 1969 when it actually was made in 1978? How do they authenticate a Ty Cobb decal bat worth at most about $1,500 and sell it for over $40,000? Because if they say "it's real, it's real". I would like to see someone that has one of those decal bats of Cobb submit it to SCDA for authentication and see what it comes back as. Do you want to know why Dave Bushing & Troy Kinunen issued a LOA on that bat? It is my understanding that the person who consigned that bat in American Memorabilia's recent auction initially purchased that game-used gem from Dave Bushing and he had to cover his tracks on it.

I once got an email from Dave Bushing wherein he states that in all the years that he has been authenticating and for all the hundreds, if not thousands of items that he has authenticated, that he has made only one mistake. Well I can name four mistakes alone that he has made on one item - the Joe DiMaggio glove.