A question about authenticators...

Here's a question bound to stir up some more controversy on this site. I suppose the best way to put my question forth is by way of example:

Dealer Joe Schmoe provides his time to PU Authenticators, a publicly held firm, by viewing historic artists' autographs on their behalf. His job is to determine whether an item is authentic or not. When he "passes" an item, the owner is charged a fee by PU and in turn receives a certificate signed by Schmoe. In exchange for his services, Schome is allowed to authenticate his own material, and sign his own PU authentications on the same form that the company uses for all other authentications.

On a regular basis, Schmoe consigns his own material to B&O Auctions. His lots are sold bearing his own signed PU certificates of authenticity, and bidders are of course unaware of the fact that Schmoe is both the owner and authenticator of these lots. They auction house boasts that the item has been examined by an independent third party authenticator.

I have to ask myself about the propriety of this kind of situation. B&O Auctions claims it is offering "third-party" authentications, when in fact it is the consignor who has authenticated his own material: he's not wearing his "PU Authenticator" hat when he sends the material in for auction. This places an awful lot of power in the hands of the consignor/authenticator, and in my mind, temptaion beckons and any impartiality could easily go out the window.

Some may fault me as a hypocrite, as a small fraction of material in Alexander Autographs auctions is owned by the firm. The distinct difference is that we acknowledge that we alone authenticate 99.5% of the material consigned to our auction, and in any event ownership is never an issue.

What say you?

Tags: Alexander, authentication

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Comment by Michael Kasmar-AutographPros.com on March 7, 2011 at 10:40am: AACS Registered Dealer RD208 - Expelled 02/11 for numerous violations of the UACC Policies and Code of Ethics.

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on December 16, 2010 at 9:51pm: Travis - Why waste your time? Didn't you learn a long time ago that you should...

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!!

Comment by john reznikoff on December 12, 2010 at 5:55pm: Thanks Anthony....I truly appreciate what you have said. What I forgot to say was that if anyone thinks they have the qualifications (and acceptance by the powers that be) and desire to take my spot, they can have have it! Good luck!

Comment by Anthony Bautista on December 12, 2010 at 5:09pm: Look at what Rez wrote , numbers 5 - 10 . It sounds easy to do . But I personally dont think it is .

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on December 12, 2010 at 2:16pm: Frankly, I would insist on knowing the qualifications of whomever I was paying...

Comment by Anthony Bautista on December 11, 2010 at 10:10pm: The authenticators will probably be in the back where you cant talk to them . The people who are usually standing at the booths accepting the autograph merchandise to be authenticated are usually the workers who have no idea about autographs in general at all. Hopefully you do get the answers you are looking for though .

Comment by DB on December 8, 2010 at 7:41am: Good one Rez, and I do believe BL covered that one...

but only the Top 10!

on the PSA/DNA thread one poster noted that he was withdrawing as he had hoped the posts would be helpful and unfortunately, in his opinion, saw how negative some of the posts quickly became. So much so, he choose to delete his posts and 'withdraw". Now maybe that's a good thing but I have to agree that some of these threads are incredibly negative.

Comment by john reznikoff on December 8, 2010 at 6:59am: Yes you are wrong but I appreciate your asking for a clarification, it is gentlemanly. If anything they are harder on me because they want to avoid anything appearing untoward, and nothing is. I once had a high-value item that a client wanted a PSA cert on, in addition to my own. The people at PSA went above and beyond and solicited opinions from other people before issuing a certificate. Similar at RR and Bobby has gone over this on his blog. I will request he reprint what he said on your blog. Here are my top ten perks in signing for JSA and PSA not necessarily in order of importance:

1. I get the satisfaction of knowing I have prevented millions of dollars worth of forgeries from entering the market.
2. My name and cache are promoted on the 3rd party web sites and auction houses. Once in a blue moon I get business out of this.
3. Self Pride
4. Every experienced dealer who authenticates their own material, is put out by Third party and me by extension in that their authority seems questioned. I understand and am sympathetic to this but want to remind my colleagues that it is not me who would question them. I am just a cog on the wheel.
5. I am the potential violent target of forgers world wide. Those who know what I do for fun, know not to worry too much about me. I can take care of myself.....but it is a concern.
6. I get to lose decade long friendships because of disagreements concerning my opinions, which I stand tall on.
7. I get every forger, or seller of forgeries, to scrutinize every step I take so that they can point to the very, very few mistakes I make, seemingly to neutralize the effects of their material failing authentication.
8. I get to answer and defend myself constantly on legitimate blogs like this one.
9. I get a complete kook to write lies about me for the past 5 years.
10. Indigestion

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on December 7, 2010 at 11:45pm: You folks misunderstand me. I suggested that a "perk" from doing work for PSA included their issuing certificates on your material, authenticated by you.

Am I wrong?

Comment by roger epperson on December 7, 2010 at 2:12pm: Bill
I used to work for PSA and in no way did I EVER get to "write my own certificate" for ANY autograph I sold. That is complete BS.