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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 23, 2011 at 11:30am

Rubbish. 

 

All credibility is lost when the idiot keeps claiming 95% of the autographs on ebay are fake.

 

Maybe 95% of certain celebs such as Michael Jackson are fake, but the overall average number of fakes is much lower than 95%.

 

PSA is far from perfect, but I would take this video with a grain of salt.

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on June 23, 2011 at 11:36am

Agreed.  I don't like how he snubs some of the professionals here on the site....Similar to Autograph Alert?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 23, 2011 at 11:40am

I actually did not make it through the whole thing. Besides being wildly inaccurate, it was quite boring as well.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Panagopulos on June 27, 2011 at 8:55pm

The comments on the video, pro and con, say it all. The state of professional authentication in this industry is pathetic: fee-driven, no accountability, no response when proven wrong, no refunds, and experts with no proven CVs. Basically...no nuthin'. I'm going to check the earth over Walter Benjamin's grave and will bet you 5:1 it's spinning at 100 RPM. But then...who among you even know who Walter Benjamin was?

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Permalink Reply by sling on June 27, 2011 at 10:11pm

Yeah, authenticating companies are drivenn by all those vices, and so do the auction houses who could teach these authenticators a thing or two on those vices.

 

As for them Benjamins?  No one cares as anyone can drop names. But I wouldn't go desecrating his grave as that is probably against his religion. Word.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 27, 2011 at 10:26pm

Walter Benjamin...didn't Goldie Hawn play him back in the 80s, Bill?

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Permalink Reply by Bill Panagopulos on June 27, 2011 at 10:41pm

Steve - if you don't know who W.B. was...retire.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Panagopulos on June 27, 2011 at 10:40pm

Pet Boy -

Authenticators don't refund the purchase price of "bad" autographs they sell. Incompetent authenticators have nothing at stake. And I'm not going to argue this case with dopes who think a PDSA cert. is worth more than the paper it's printed on. Ask Christie's or Sotheby's if they use PSA or JSA and they'll laugh you out the door.

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 12, 2011 at 5:25am

I'm not entirely sure of what you're saying in the front half of your comment, since authenticators generally aren't in the business of selling autographs.

 

That said, I had a VERY positive experience with PSA/DNA. I sent in two orders (one of six Miguel Cabrera items and one of some cards). In the cards order, the two that I suspected would fail did, the one that I thought would be returned without opinion was, and the one that I thought would pass, did. I was given a prompt refund on the two that failed from the original seller. He told me to keep the cards since he had no use for fakes. Now, to the Cabrera order. This is the interesting part.

 

Initially, my order came back with four items passing and two failing. As soon as I saw the results posted on the PSAcard.com website, I emailed Joe Orlando that I believe his graders made a mistake. I was absolutely certain that the two items that failed were somehow "screened" out on account of the inscription. Joe wrote back that when the items arrived, if that was the case, send back the two that failed with the original paperwork, and he'd personally take care of it. It was pretty cool to see the paperwork that accompanied the items when they came back to me the second time. There was a note per Joe Orlando to review the items. There was a note per Steve Grad that the items were authentic. It was very interesting to see the "extra mile" that the company went through to satisfy a low-volume customer such as myself. To be honest, I expected much less, and their attentiveness to service created a client out of me.

 

Given that PSA returned my items via FedEx free of charge (they never charged my account and returned the original signature paperwork that I had submitted), I feel that they did refund my money on a pair of autographs that they mistakenly had determined to be fake. Just my opinion, but I think PSA gets negative publicity far more often than is deserved.

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on June 28, 2011 at 10:50am

The problem today is people rely on PSA and JSA's Certificates of Authenticity more than they know of the autograph they are buying.  People usually assume that is PSA authenticated it, then it is real.  Of course PSA and JSA make mistakes, but IMO they do a pretty darn good job.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 28, 2011 at 11:32am

Agreed. To me, they are not the "be all" and "end all," but a good second opinion.

 

First, I need to feel comfortable with the item. If I think it looks good, plus it has PSA or JSA, then I can buy with little doubt.

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