Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bruuuce ! on June 19, 2015 at 11:29pm

Hi ! I understand a Caiazzo authentication can add a significant value on a Beatles autograph but this is where i stop. I'd rather ask the members opinion here than giving beer money or a fortune to the so called experts. And yes it does include PSA/DNA !

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Permalink Reply by Pete Bendu on June 20, 2015 at 5:07am

Those of us with extensive in-person collections, and those of us with obviously real, yet not stickered collections will be left in a position to sell or trade with only the most knowledgeable buyers and collectors. The people that dabble or see something cool to hang on their wall will only be interested in what the COA says. These "part-time collectors" don't have any interest in the history of the autograph or the time frame it was signed in, they just want that warm fuzzy feeling only a sticker can give them.

For some reason they equate autograph collecting with being in first grade .... getting a sticker of approval on your quiz/test/homework shows the world that you did a "GOOD JOB!"

The sad part for all of us, is that the marketplace of autograph buyers is probably 80-90% made up of these weekend warriors who don't want to learn about the habits & styles of their chosen celeb, they want someone to do it for them.

I probably have 10's of thousands of autographs, maybe a dozen or two have 3rd party stickers. Yet on the opposite side of the spectrum, I work in a shop that handles some sports and political memorabilia. The owners have decided that they will not sell an item unless it is authenticated by PSA or JSA.  More than a decade ago, they would make pieces available for sale with their own COA, and as the years went on, more and more of that stuff was coming back to the store, with this story or that ....JSA didn't like it, PSA failed this, etc. etc.

It is the nature of the beast these days, if you sell an item without the 3rd party COA, you are just in a waiting pattern for someone to return that item ...because it didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling of being stickered.     

 

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on June 20, 2015 at 6:16am

Sad but true, I walk around all types of shows (card, monster ,sci fi etc.) and love to eavesdrop when I hear some dealer bellowing out to some poor novice or as CW says wannabe collector " Its PSA 100 percent authentic". They really haven't a clue about signatures.

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on June 20, 2015 at 6:20am

If you have a high dollar autograph, a TPA LOA certainly gives the signature extra credibility and widens your potential buyer market. But, if you have a good reputation among knowledgeable collectors you should still get a fair price for your item. When a person evolves from a full time collector to a part or full time seller take the time to market yourself and gain the name recognition needed to thrive without the third party confirmation. It takes thick skin to survive in this business. Nobody gets too big not to get attacked from time to time.

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on June 20, 2015 at 10:57am

Call me naive but I don't place any weight at all on authentication or authenticators. I have many, many autographs and absolutely none have stickers. I only have a handful with any type of certification and I never even considered the certification in deciding whether to buy. At the end of the day what comeback do you have against an authenticator if he/she isn't the seller? Even if he/she is the seller you have to rely on their professionalism, fairness or fear of being discredited to get a refund.  

No doubt I have got a few duds in my time but I am pretty sure the vast majority of the items I have in my collection are "real". My approach is to buy from people I have dealt with before as much as possible, read the item description with scepticism and validate as much of the Information as possible and compare the autograph on offer to as many other reliable examples as I can. Before the internet the latter was not so easy and I know that one or two of my more expensive pre-internet buys are questionable to say the least.

I agree that it may be more difficult to sell-on unauthenticated items but I have the feeling that most of the green-horns referred to in earlier posts would be happy to buy from a reputable auction house even if the item doesn't have a sticker (as Paul H did with that Beatles programme at the last Heritage sale). Private sales (through ebay or otherwise) are obviously another matter but I don't know how much of a premium a sticker would bring on an item that is clearly legit.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Kasmar-AutographPros.com on June 20, 2015 at 11:37am

My 2 cents:  As a seller, adding PSA to an item can sometimes double/triple the value.  Why, simple..because PSA has spent $1000s on promotion and appearances both in person at shows and online at auction houses.  Their name has spread and as such people have recognized the sticker.  Very rarely do any autograph dealers invest close to that amount of time and money into promotion so as such, very few can stand alone with a reputation that's so widely known.  I like the TPA business but I feel there's a lot of room for improvement.  Most buyers don't want to bother researching similar signatures, sit down signing as opposed to mob street autograph examples, and ask the necessary questions it takes to get a solid answer on 'is it real' so they look for the sticker.  It's gotten to the point now where even if I have exact video proof, I have to contemplate paying a company to put a sticker on the item because adding "PSA" to the title will certainly increase the views.  In my case, I often get multiples so i'll send one or two to PSA and then leave a few non-stickered.  This gives my customers the chance at a less expensive item as there's not that added cost.  Recently a friend of mine had a couple Anthony Hopkins in-person autographed items returned to him because PSA wouldn't sticker them.  At least one other reputable in-person dealer was there to see the 2 items signed.  It's pretty sad that a reputable seller is going to lose $ because a buyer would take the word of an opinion from someone who may have never even seen Hopkins in person over not one but 2 reputable autograph dealers but that's just the way it is.  Seems kinda silly if you ask me.

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Permalink Reply by Bruuuce ! on June 20, 2015 at 11:57am

Still, more and more often on this forum people are complaining that the little sticker has been glued on a fake ...

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Permalink Reply by Dane on June 20, 2015 at 11:55am

I don't think it's fair or reasonable to denigrate or degrade the TPAs for offering a service that grows the hobby. Yes, PSA & JSA might not hold much value to those who've spent their lives collecting on the streets or studying specific attributes of individual signing habits, but that doesn't mean they're a pariah. If anything, the presence of companies like PSA & JSA have normalized things for the every day buyer, and that's not such a bad thing.

Yes, people should research what they're buying, but sometimes they don't have the time nor desire to do that. The TPAs aren't a security blanket, so much as a life raft. They came into existence, because the marketplace demanded it. When few people collected autographs, knowing the right autograph hound in different countries would allow you to get access to signers you might never see in your lifetime. Your collection was essentially as good as the reputations of the individuals who sold the item.

As autograph collecting grew in popularity, as with all things, the market became rife with counterfeits: most bad, some good, but counterfeits nevertheless. For someone who had never seen a genuine Rat Pack signature, the market offered many confusing alternatives, and, the vast majority of time, people ended up buying outright fakes. The TPAs then entered the marketplace and attempted to establish a standard.

Sure, maybe 8-15% of the time, the TPAs make mistakes, but that's a heck of a lot better than a marketplace where only 6-10% of the items were any good. The members of this community, and the readers of the former Autograph Magazine were fortunate that hobby pioneers took the time out of their collective days to help others, but, quite honestly, not everyone has open access to the wealth of knowledge. With misinformation being touted from sites with owners who have personal vendettas against the TPAs, it's difficult to discern who's right and honest from what's simply someone's act of vengeance.

The TPAs are here to stay, for now, and we should be grateful that they exist: After all, when the TPAs are gone, it's most likely that the hobby is also gone, and we'll be back to chasing down office addresses that may or may not be good, hoping that the assistant receiving mail doesn't do us a "favor" by "signing" that unique item simply because the personality we're hoping to get is too busy. Sorry for the verbose vent, but it gets tiresome to see people posting the same threads bashing TPAs. Yes, they get some wrong, but not everyone can be perfect.

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on June 20, 2015 at 11:59am

I am a retired Postal worker who has been in and out of the hobby for over two decades. I am a very small seller on ebay and do this more for entertainment without trying to make a full time living. I have learned two important lessons about PSA/DNA and JSA services. First, when deciding to purchase an autograph I must consider whether it will pass one of those two services if the item has not already been authenticated. Second, the extra verification they provide increases my chances of selling those items. Not that they will generate me a substantial additional selling price but they will decrease the time it takes me to sell the item. I must also battle, to a certain degree, a PSA/DNA "quick opinion" rejection. Being a small seller seems to harder to get that "likely genuine" opinion which is sought after by a lot of collectors before they buy(at least it's my perception anyway). Big money likes big money and authentication services would like to have all sellers in their back pocket. New collectors get a bad rap. We were all new collectors a one point and most, if not all, have made costly mistakes. Awareness has made everyone a little more cautious which is better for the hobby in the long run.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on June 20, 2015 at 2:59pm

The better companies (P, Jsa) definitely help re-sell and price. I just wish they were a lot tougher when "authenticating" and of course they would tick off a lot more people. Over the years Ive seen too much crap from them.

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Permalink Reply by James on June 20, 2015 at 10:47pm

A question I would like to pose is this: what are the credentials of the people who authenticate at PSA and JSA, people like Steve Grad, John Reznikoff, and James Spence? I am really not trying to be a smart-azz. I am just curious. Do they have formal training? How did they get started? Why are their opinions superior to others? Maybe this would be better discussed as a separate thread.

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Permalink Reply by Bruuuce ! on June 20, 2015 at 11:17pm

Internet training maybe ? Like anybody else who is not familiar with a signature it's not a bad idea to do a research on the net... And then you can come up with the technical bits like : pen pressure, too slow, too fast, same pen used.... See, it's easy! That will be $20, folks ! Thanks a lot !

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