Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 31, 2012 at 11:29am

Randy,

I am really impressed with the way you and the person you bought the Babe Ruth from handled this. It turns out that your customer is a good friend of mine—he called me this morning to tell me the story and didn't know it was being discussed on Live. You offered him a refund BEFORE the person you bought it from offered one to you. Thank you...I wish more people were like the both of you.

Why did you take the photos down? I think it's important for people to reading this to see them. And to be fair to PSA/DNA and the auction house, please tell how the story ended.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on June 1, 2012 at 3:44pm

I am currently on vacation and will return next Wednesday and at that time will post the entire story.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on June 5, 2012 at 8:04pm

Here is the complete story on the Babe Ruth autograph photo. It kept changing after I started this discussion but here are the complete details.

1. I purchased this photo with a full LOA from Richard Simon on Ebay in January of this year for resale. I did not ask for additional certification as I trusted the LOA and my own opinion. It was not purchased directly from Richard Simon.

2. I sold the item on Ebay to Dr. Richard Saffro with same LOA in February of this year. Dr. Saffro was also satisfied with the LOA and did not request any additional certification.

3. Dr. Saffro consigned this item to R & R Auctions in May of this year but they would not certify the autograph and also told Dr. Saffro that PSA/DNA  rejected it. Dr. Saffro at that time contacted Richard Simon and asked him to take another look at his file copy of this item and Richard told Dr. Saffro he agreed with his original certification of this item even though Dr. Saffro told him both R & R and PSA/DNA had rejected the item. He told Dr. Saffro to contact the seller for a refund if he was not comfortable with the item at this point in time due to differing opinions on authenticity.

4. In mid May, Dr. Saffro contacted me and related the information from R & R and PSA/DNA and requested a refund. I did not agree with their opinions but agreed to a refund as long as the item and original LOA was returned. I expected that I could at the least consign the item to Richard Simon and recoup some of my money in that manner.

5. Before I received the item back, I started this thread to find out what collectors thought of reselling this item with competing opinions and who was more trusted of the three 3rd party authenticators involved.

6. A few days after starting this thread, I contacted Richard Simon to consign the item to him. At that time, he told me he had seen this thread and could not sell the item for me. I questioned why if he stood behind his opinion would he not sell the item since I know there are differing opinions from time to time. At that time, he said he had studied the autograph a third time and had concluded that he possibly had made a mistake and could not stand behind his original and second opinions of an authentic inscription and autograph.

7. At this point in time, I contacted the original seller on Ebay with all of the new authenticity opinions and he agreed to a full refund to me and told me to destroy the item so it could not get back in the hobby. He is probably as honest a seller as I have ever encountered. I tried to get him to take the item back and try and get his money back but he declined. As it turned out, he was the real loser in this instance. It is true that I agreed to a refund to Dr. Saffro before I even contacted the original seller but in the end I did not lose anything on this item other than my Ebay and Paypal fees which could not be refunded due to the amount of time that passed after the sale. Dr. Saffro received a full refund.

8. I have a high opinion of Richard Simon and the fact that when he concluded he had made a mistake, he admitted to it. I know all authenticators make mistakes but he is the only one I know who actually admitted it. For this reason, I saw absolutely no reason to post anything negative about him in this forum and since both Dr. Saffro and I received full refunds, I expected interest in the thread to drop so I did not include the fact that he changed his opinion in the earlier posts. It is obvious from the interest and questions that everyone wanted to know whether it was authentic or not. The picture has been reposted by someone while I was on vacation but the consensus is that it is indeed a forgery. There are no competing opinions at this time. I defer my opinion to the more established experts.

9. Obviously, the thread did not make sense to this astute group of collectors with this major fact missing and I apologize for that. However, I do believe Richard Simon is both an honest and reliable autograph dealer and authenticator and one mistake does not change that. I actually have a high regard for his honesty in this situation. I know of mistakes some other authenticators have made and never have they admitted to them.

10. That is the complete convoluted story of this Babe Ruth autograph photo. There should be no other questions.

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 6, 2012 at 1:20pm

Excellent - case closed.   It is what people do when the mistake is uncovered is what counts.  Luckily in this case the $$ trail has also worked out for everyone (& the original seller as well) as that is not always the case with EBAY transactions.

What surprises me though is all the verbiage that someone pointed out earlier being unusual when a "forgery" is the end result.  I wonder what Richard spotted the 3rd time around or perhaps what RR/PSA spotted?

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Permalink Reply by Travis Christenberry on May 22, 2012 at 8:35pm

Boy, that looks real to me. But, Babe is always a tough one for me. After looking at it again, the "B" does look a little funny, but again I'm no expert on the Babe.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Waterhouse on May 22, 2012 at 10:13pm

I find it hard to believe that if this was a forgery, the signer would risk all the other writing.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Richard Saffro on May 31, 2012 at 1:05pm

 I have just discovered this discussion, and I desperately need to add to it.  In addition to Randy and others, I also implicitly trusted a COA from Richard Simon.  It was for that reason that I purchased the Ruth ISP from Randy on eBay. 

I had subsequently submitted the Ruth ISP to R&R and was told that it was the opinion of their experts as well as the experts at PSA/DNA, that the Ruth ISP was not genuinely signed by Ruth.  This fact was brought up to Richard Simon, and Richard still stood behind his authenticity.  

After a series of interesting emails between Randy and myself, it was decided by Randy to accept the item in return.  Our transaction was beyond the time limits for eBay, yet Randy graciously took the item back in return.  

In  25 years of collecting autographs,  I have never communicated with a fellow hobbyist, who so sincerely and honestly respects the hobby of autograph collecting.  Randy deserves my, and yours, highest praise for his integrity.  

The original seller, whom I never had any communications with, was equally stellar and remarkable in this transaction. 

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Permalink Reply by DB on May 31, 2012 at 5:03pm

Well all the hand holding and kumbyYas are really great to hear but is it Real or IS IT NOT Real? Since this now has R&R involvement then I'd like to hear the take from Livingston and whom at PSA opined on it and what was their exact reasoning as well as JSA.

Simon has in the past corrected wrong calls on Mantle so it would appear to me if he thinks there is a problem then he would take the initiative.  It would be nice to get to the real issue if there are any.

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Permalink Reply by Tnarg Nevohrednav on June 1, 2012 at 8:39pm

Photo

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