Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin yesterday

Steve does it all by himself. He's probably authenticated more autographs than anyone, many times over. 

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Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 yesterday

I think the process that ACOA uses in which multiple experts are involved is much better. If one makes a mistake, there’s at least a chance that another will catch it. Doing it all by yourself and covering so many different signers with a high degree of accuracy doesn’t seem feasible. If you have to limit your time as well because of the small fee, that’s another problem.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF yesterday

I agree ballroom, in fact, I just mentioned them in my post prior to reading your comment

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Permalink Reply by Manta Ray 16 hours ago

And what credentials do these authenticators actually have? I mean, are they qualified handwriting experts with formal certification? I don't think so. I believe these authentication companies simply offer opinions based on the reputation and status they’ve built up over time, yet I’ve seen huge errors made by every one of them. So, I rely primarily on my own knowledge and instincts; at most, if I wanted a more reliable opinion, I would turn to a certified handwriting expert.

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Permalink Reply by DR Dougherty 3 hours ago

There's only one way to be positive about your autographs and that's to have your items signed in front of you

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Permalink Reply by DR Dougherty 1 hour ago

And since you brought it up. No colleges offer degrees in autograph verification.  But experience goes a long way in the autograph hobby and this is Steve Grads experience. 

• Industry Experience: Collecting autographs since age 8 or 10, Grad has worked professionally as an autograph authenticator for over two decades. [1, 2, 3]
• PSA/DNA: Joined Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) in March 2002 and served as its lead autograph authenticator from 2005 until September 2016. [1]
• Beckett Authentication Services (BAS): Co-founded Beckett Authentication Services in 2016, serving as its principal authenticator. In February/March 2026, he transitioned into a strategic consulting and mentoring role for Beckett's authentication team. I think most people would agree with me in saying Steve is one of the best authenticators out there. If he wasn't qualified  PSA and BECKETT never would have made Steve lead authenticator and that my friend is good enough for me.  It's definitely better than that group Out or Safe on Facebook that claims all their authenticators are listened authenticators with years of training and expertise.  I'm pretty sure that you can't get a license to grade autographs. But I still agree all your doing when you send your autographs to get verified is your paying for someone's opinion and we all know what they say about opinions. I make my decisions based on experience and Steve must be doing something right because the competition is using his own library of autographs that Steve collected over decades. But Steve is only human and as humans we are programmed to question ourselves and that causes mistakes and Steve will tell you that even he makes mistakes. And when choosing an authenticator I'll pick the person with the least amount of errors. And if you take the number of autographs Steve has verified then take into consideration how many errors Steve has made to the number of autographs he got right,  I would guess his error rate compared to the number of autographs Steve has looked at is very low. I would say his error rate is less than. 01 percent. Also like alot of fellow members pointed out. Autographs that Steve verified personally demand a premium price over autographs verified by certain other authenticators. It's my opinion that only Jimmy Spences autographs that he personally verified have the same resale values that match those of Steve Grad.  But this is just my opinion and remember what I said about opinions earlier. Also we are blessed that we have our own experts here at Autograph Live that are extremely knowledgeable and personally they have helped me tremendously and I thank each and every single person who's opinions have helped me from making some serious bad mistakes and also have helped me make alot of good decisions.  Thank you to all members because without you I would have lost a small fortune on bad investments. 

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Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 52 minutes ago

Are you estimating that his error rate is less than .01 percent, or do you mean less than 1%? You have the number as “. 01 percent.” .01 percent would be one mistake per 10,000 autographs.

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