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Authenticity is Everything
Another Brick in the Wall..........The idiots at PSA have done it again!
I recently sent a Roger Waters and Nick Mason signed Pink Floyd "The Wall" album in for authentication. I added the comment to please put the authentication sticker on the back. I also added a post it note to remind them. Of course, it comes back yesterday with the authentication sticker not only on the front, but they turned the album sideways and put the sticker vertical. Morons! I called right away and was told that the person who put the sticker on chooses which way they think the album looks best depending on the the angle of the signatures. What! Both signatures are signed at an angle, but look good either way. Problem is that the album looks stupid when displayed sideways with the bricks going up and down instead of across.
They claim they didn't see where I wrote the directions, and the post it note must have fallen off, of course it did! Here is their solution. Send it back with the shipping expense being on me both ways and they will remove the sticker, but it will leave a residue mark and may take off part of the album cover.
How can they be such idiots when it comes to something like this! I told the girl on the phone, if there was any question at all, they should have given me a call. Then I asked her, what if I had sent in an Eagles Hotel California album and the two signatures on there were at a sideways angle, would they turn the album sideways and put on the sticker? The genius tells me, yes, they would. It doesn't matter what the face of the album looks like, it matters how the signatures look, she says.
I cannot believe I even had that conversation with this person. I felt like I was explaining physics to the elementary school kids I teach!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Kasmar-AutographPros.com on
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When you pay the fee and do a full LETTER OF AUTHENTICATION with an item, you can request the sticker NOT be applied to the item at all. Instead simply stuck onto the LOA. With their standard authentication however where it's just the small card and no photo of the item, they obviously have to apply a sticker.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Mike,
You sell a lot of PSA/DNA, and I see their stickers on your pieces all the time. What are your thoughts on the stickers and placements, and what do your customers say?
Steve
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Steve, it's a mixed response. My experience has been more people want it shown than not. Ultimately you can always remove the sticker if you don't like it. I've even heard of a way to completely remove a sticker without damage to it although I've never tried this, never seen it done, and prefer not to promote such an option due to possible abuse.
I recently did a pole on FB about this and some wanted it on the front, some on the back, some wanted our hologram on the front and PSA on the back. These sort of things literally drive me crazy. I can say I've never once had someone ask "Why did you have PSA put a sticker on that B.B. King Lucille Guitar?" but I have had customers ask "How come this doesn't have the PSA sticker on it?" when listed as a PSA item. People like to see the sticker to tie that directly to the PSA/DNA certification the same as they like to see our hologram tied to our COA. I've always specified where I want the stickers put, or if at all when dealing with the higher level Letter Of Authentication, and to date with1000s of PSA/DNA authentications later, I can't report of one instance where I ran into an issue.
Oh yeah, and as for my own preference I prefer the #1 authentication company's sticker on the item to match to their COA along with the #1 autograph dealers' hologram to match to their COA and display both COAs along side the item.
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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on
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And the COA/sticker mindset has been the major destroying force of this hobby. The average autograph buyer has been dumbed down thanks to the absolute insistence by authentication companies and sellers pushing these coas and related products. It's quite sad and I promise that it's effect on the hobby will be far reaching. We have obviously allowed an environment where the "sticker" or "coa" is more important than the actual autograph. Shame on all of us! Because as this topic exposes, these "all knowing" companies make decisions for people instead of welcoming the rights or opinions of the customer.
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If you think this hobby is going downhill and anything is being destroyed other than the free reign that forgers once had, I'd say you were mistaken.
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That's not what I said, not at all. However, the mindset of the new members of the hobby is more geared toward a coa rather than the actual signature. That's dangerous.
There are plenty of cases of buyers simply buying autographs ( both good and bad ) strictly based off the fact that the item had a COA...even those absurd home-made coas.
That's why sites like this are so important. We have to focus on the signatures and not the authentication. Especially since the opinions can be wrong from time to time. The Heston situation is the clearest example of the positives that can come from focusing on the actual signatures.
How many of those Certified Hestons were sold because they had some sort of COA? How many authentic examples were passed over or even called fake because they didn't have the same?
Authentication and authenticator opinions can't remain stagnant. Customers are demanding and requiring more. That's a good thing.
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I could not agree with you more, Mike. The real reason the blogs out there go after PSA/DNA and JSA is because those companies have made it a lot harder for the forgery industry to ply their trade. So they point out mistakes they may or may not have actually made to try to discredit them. That's why they don't go after the authenticators known to be in the business of authenticating forgeries as genuine.
Ask anyone around in the 90s and early 2000s what the percentage of forgeries there were in the market. PSA and JSA have turned eBay from a thieves' market into a much safer marketplace.
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Permalink Reply by Steve on
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Actually, I didn't ask for the LOA, I was expecting just the little card. Thought that's what I was paying for.
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I called PSA back today to speak with Joe Orlando and was connected to his secretary. She said I needed to speak with someone named Scott first, but he was out of town for a few days. I'm anxiously awaiting his call.
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They're good people and try hard to treat their customers right...but they are a bureaucracy of sorts. Since Scott's away for a few days, I'd file a claim if you can so they have documentation of what the problem is.
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Are you serious? As a paying customer, YOU have to follow a chain of command? Wow!
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