So, what's an autograph collector to do? LONG POST AHEAD

[travrosty]

just buy the autograph and not the cert, whether the autograph has an abc cert or is not certed at all. It doesnt matter, as an abc cert doesnt make it good, and no cert doesnt make it bad.

I bought a 325 dollar james jeffries boxing signature that i knew was good, it came in an abc autograph slab. I simply busted it out of the slab, and put it in my collection.

someone else parted with the 150 dollars to get it slabbed. I didn't. I bought it for the going rate, and when I sold it later, i sold it for the going rate. You dont need abc to tell you its real, when they have enough trouble figuring it out for themselves.

as far as no one can know for sure if an autograph is 100% real without seeing it signed themselves, that's not true.

but most people buy autographs of the big names for the big bucks way too fast, and then regret it later when abc company couldnt shoot straight and got it wrong, or they don't know for themselves if the autograph is legit but trust the company and the company fails and the 5000 dollars someone put in getting all their autographs "authenticated" is now chalked up to being essentially flushed down the toilet.

Either the autographs you have in your collection are real, or they are not real. An abc cert will never make a fake one real.

As far as what does a new person do? Well, when I wanted a Muhammad Ali autograph for the first time, and I didn't know Ali's autograph, I didnt just buy the first abc certed one that came along. How do I know that they know Ali (I have since found out they don't know much about Ali's signature), well, i just said to myself that there will always be Ali signatures for sale, so I researched his signature intensely, and 4 months later, I bought my first Muhammad Ali signature, which was on an Islamic pamphlet, it was a textbook signature on a medium (pamphlet) that is very rarely forged because forgers like to forge signatures of Ali on an 8 x 10 or a glove because it is potentially worth so much more than on a pamphlet.) I have only seen 1 fake Ali signature on a pamphlet which coincidentally, (or not) has an abc sticker on it.

So I didn't jump in a Ferrari and go 170 miles per hour right out of the bat. I took a big buick, and rolled out of the driveway slowly. Then I slowly bought another, and another, until I was comfortable looking at his signature and knowing I could find a legitimate one, whether or not it had some cert from abc, or xyz that may or may not an accurate opinion backed with no guarantee. so I know the autographs in my collection are legitimate and I don't have to trust "the world experts" (at what I have no idea!)