Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rick Meyer on October 1, 2014 at 1:51pm

Signatures on these two may be good. I didn't mean to imply that they were bad. I was just pointing out the insane price on them and laughing.

Permalink Reply by James McCay on October 3, 2014 at 6:12am

JSA (PSA/DNA too) is nothing more than a joke! James Spence doesn't "authenticate" autographs anymore unless it's for a BIG SHOT or a really expensive/rare item that is being followed by the media.

Just like PSA/DNA, Spence hired a bunch of people right off the street with no hobby experience (or maybe very little), then taught them how to authenticate for a week (40-hours: MAYBE), and poof: they magically are authenticators. Perhaps Spence does a final once-over on everything these brand new "experts" authenticate, but Spence only spends a few seconds authenticating commonly seen items he authenticates himself, so a once-over couldn't last more than what? ONE SECOND! So that's how JSA is passing them, not to mention all the money he's getting for doing it which is the biggest driving force for people like Spence and PSA/DNA. I never thought like that and never will and I guarantee I've lived more life than Spence- and my normal life ended in late 2001 at age 34. 

Unless there is an independent third-party keeping stats on what Spence and PSA/DNA gets right/gets wrong and publishes a monthly report that everyone can see FOR FREE, then you should automatically have no trust in any authenticator. There's simply no reason to. I'm not picking on Spence and PSA/DNA, they just happen to be the two biggest authenticators BY FAR and I personally and so have MANY others busted both of them for authenticating poor examples of autographs that a novice could have caught if they were familiar with the autograph in question.

For instance, I did a TON of charity work with Gary Carter donating my own cards to hospitalized children every year for 25-years this year. I did charity work for Carter's charity (The Leukemia Society of America) from 1989-1994, then we stayed friends afterward and I kept him up to date of my card donations and he let me know how he was doing as well. He'd sign for me anytime I wanted and I have close to (100) autographed Gary Carter items signed over a 15-year time span, plus I own about (10) Certified Autograph Insert of Carter signed more recently than my autographs he signed for me. So I feel very safe saying that I know his autograph extremely well, and better than any other player.

I've seen several examples of PSA/DNA or Spence authenticated Gary Carter items over the years that Gary Carter DEFINITELY DID NOT SIGN: ABSOLUTLEY NO WAY! 

It is insane what Probstein's eBay "in-person" autographs sell for, ABSOLUTELY INSANE! But you have to take into account that a good amount of the people bidding on his autograph stuff have money to burn (or are kids of parents with money to burn who spoil their kids). They are mainly "The 1%'ers" and we are the other 99%. We'll never understand their ignorance or stupidity because to them, they are being smart in their minds because while their "friends" are bragging about the Nolan Ryan autograph baseball they bought from Steiner for $200.00, they then come back and brag about the $75.00 Nolan Ryan autograph they bought with a JSA or PSA/DNA Authentication. Now in general autograph circles: these authenticators are as good as gold. Because those types of people with money to burn don't read our posts, nor do they want to know about all the bad stuff going on in the autograph collecting hobby. They just want to think they got a better deal on the same autograph as their friend. To them, it doesn't matter if one is 100% obviously fake to all of us because they'll never hear a word anyone of us writes or says because THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW! To them ignorance is truly bliss.

I know that sounds sick, stupid, or impossible to some. But sadly that's the way it is. Even more sad is all the novice autograph collectors who believe the same exact things that people with money to burn WANT TO THINK. But unlike the 1% 'ers, if a novice collector finds out they wasted $75.00 on a worthless piece of junk that novice collector will very likely never buy an autograph from anyone ever again. However the 1% 'er will just: throw the item in the garbage and never think about it again, or may keep the item and have a laughable story to tell at parties if they decide to. Yet they'll still buy autographs from the same authenticator!!!

How did they get the sticker from Nolan's company? Maybe there's a disgruntled employee in one of Nolan Ryan's banks in TX who has access to Ryan's office where he was signing autographs with a roll of Ryan's Foundation stickers laying on his desk. The disgruntled employee walks in the office to do whatever business he had to do in there and puts the roll of stickers in his pocket. Then he goes to a card show and sells the roll to a shady seller he finds selling autographs. Now there's 100's of fake Ryan autographs on the market with Ryan Foundation stickers. That's just one possibility of many.

Here's another one, someone pulled the sticker off a REAL Nolan Ryan signed ball and put it on a ball he just signed himself. Then he sends the Ryan ball he KNOWS is real to PSA/DNA or Spence and he now has TWO Ryan autographed balls with authentication stickers on each of them.  

THANKS TO EBAY'S GREED AND STUPIDITY: Since there's no way to contact these people buying (or selling) fake authenticated items or even non-authenticated items on eBay: ignorant buyers got more and more confident that eBay autographs are more authentic because no one is contacting anyone anymore that autographs are fake on eBay! This is the trickle down effect eBay's STUPIDEST IDEA EVER (hiding the ID's of all bidders and winners) caused. Then add in eBay punishing or suspending forever (like they did to me) anyone who directly contacts any seller to tell them what they are selling is fake and you have a perfect storm of fraud.

This is why I ONLY collect (mainly pre-2006) Certified ON CARD Autograph Inserts! I don't own one PSA/DNA or Spence authenticated autograph. I had bought a few examples of forgeries that they both authenticated years ago to circulate in the hobby as forgeries when their autographs were cheap on eBay. But right now, you wouldn't find ONE in my collection because they are worth less to me than raw in-person obtained autographs.

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL AND THIS HOBBY CAN STILL BE THE BEST HOBBY THERE IS!

James

Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on October 3, 2014 at 7:16am

You just said it best. Ebay, which sells over a million forgeries a year is the huge problem right now. They are THE online auction company with no competition. Ebay knows this. They also know that their site is flooded with forgeries. Forgeries that make them TONS of money. When someone like us would see someone bought a forgery, it was easy to click on their user ID and send them a message detailing what happened. Those 'collectors' usually would right away raise hell and open up disputes, mother f ebay & the seller and leave negative feedback. Well, ebay didn't want to deal with those headaches anymore, plus it was costing them money and making them look bad as a company. So, they got it their big boardroom in and decided to put a stop to all of that is to just make Ebay a closed forum. By hiding everyones ID's and making it impossible for any good citizen to help out another member from having fraud committed against them. Ebay made the decision to allow their members to be scammed out of money. They know it and enable the forgers to set up shop on their website with free reign. THAT'S what type of business Ebay is running over there!!

Permalink Reply by Guadalupe Chavez on October 1, 2014 at 12:56pm

Both of those signatures are slow written signatures and yes they were not written by those two players. My Ivan looks different than the one listed. I didn't know that both those autograph could go for such a high price.

Permalink Reply by Dom Vito Castiglione on October 1, 2014 at 2:01pm

I'm not a Nolan Ryan expert but that did fool me if it is a forgery

Permalink Reply by James McCay on October 3, 2014 at 6:30am

I just wanted to reply to the comments on my estimates on authenticators being 95% correct and Forensic Document Examiners being 99% correct.

I agree, I was too generous with authenticators, I feel more comfortable saying they are correct 90% of the time. Now keep in mind, I'm going by the amount of times I know of that they were busted by much more qualified experts for authenticating forgeries and my hypothesis on the many years I fought fraud in this hobby first hand. I'm not guessing wildly at what they possibly authenticate wrong. If I did that, many wouldn't disagree with saying 50%. But that's not a fair estimate- it's a wild guess.

As for Forensic Document Examiners, there are literally thousands of Forensic Document Examiners in this country who do star sports autographs. Yes, the two you mentioned probably said more fakes were real than the other way around. But that's two out of thousands! Nearly all Forensic Document Examiners are respected scientific professionals. They would not risk giving false or poor opinions on collectible autographs that are to be for sale and destroy their reputation for giving opinions on FBI cases, police cases, priceless documents of historical significance for museums, etc.

Comparing authenticators like Spence and PSA/DNA to Forensic Document Examiners is like comparing a 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. RC to a 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco card. Or for those who don't know sports cards, it's also like comparing Nolan Ryan's autograph to Babe Ruth's autograph.  

James

Permalink Reply by James McCay on October 4, 2014 at 5:58am

While doing some research on real Led Zep autographs I came upon a few different authenticators in the UK. One of the bigger ones has this statement (all in bold) on their site:

"Authentication Process

Each item is methodically examined and reviewed by our authenticators. They Sign It uses state of the art technology to evaluate the signature in question using our unique and professional techniques. This intuitive sense has been developed after many years of examining thousands of autographs.  

Our experts are extremely familiar with many different variations and evolution of an individual's signature and can quickly identify irregularities evident in a clubhouse, secretarial, or forged signature.  Our Experts have done work for many well known Auction Houses throughout the UK, Europe and USA."

One thing is obvious, authenticators in the UK are just as bad as ones in the USA! This particular authenticator whose mission statement I pasted also states that they'll authenticate items for 25 pounds/$40 (most can be done by e-mail with a high resolution photo/scan).

THEY ARE AUTHENTICATING AUTOGRAPHS BY E-MAIL FOR $40!!! They do state that some items have to be sent in, but these are probably for items they'll charge far more to authenticate due to several factors. Just another money making venture that has NOTHING to do with increasing the integrity of this hobby. 

I believe that authenticating and Forensic Document Examination both serve one main purpose: as I stated- TO INCREASE THE INTEGRITY OF ITEMS IN OUR HOBBY! If they are not doing this at a rate of 99% or better, then their service is useless (just my educated opinion).

YOU CANNOT GIVE AN ACCURATE OPINION FROM JUST A SCAN OR A HIGH QUALITY PHOTO!Again, I consider accurate 99% or better. You cannot put a scan/photo under a microscope to see things that will increase the accuracy rate if you actually had the item! You cannot see pen pressure UNDER the autograph from a scan/photo, nor can you measure spaces and lengths because a scan/photo is often made a different size than the actual item. This is just a few examples (out of ten or more) of what Forensic Document Examiners do that authenticators DO NOT do. All authenticators do is rely on their memory of what autographs they have seen of the same person that were deemed real (exemplars) looked like and they compare their memory to the item they are looking at. I hope most of you know what the scientific community have proven of human memory: IT IS OFTEN INACCURATE OR OUTRIGHT WRONG! This is one reason why I consider ALL authenticators a joke.

James

Right...

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