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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on October 29, 2010 at 10:54pm

Hi Joseph,

What are your reasons for wanting to get them authenticated now? Unless you're planning to sell them soon it may be better to wait until you're ready to sell.

If you do want to have them authenticated, I recommend PSA/DNA or JSA. Autographs they authenticate generally bring more than ones certified by other third party authenticators. Go to www.psacard.com and www.spenceloa.com for rates, etc.

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Permalink Reply by joseph scaccio on November 1, 2010 at 9:11pm

i was thinking it would be good to have done in case something were to happen and my wife or kids want to sell them but i think it would be to expensive i have about 500 (give or take) autographs i was hoping to find away locally but i will check out the sites you gave me thank you

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 1, 2010 at 9:31pm

You might end up spending as much or more to get them authenticated than they're worth, probably $15-$20 an item at least. If you have them signed on footballs and other memorabilia that raises the authentication cost even more.

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Permalink Reply by joseph scaccio on November 4, 2010 at 7:27pm

thanks for the info i don't need to have them authenticated i never plan on selling them but it is good to know

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Permalink Reply by Chris on March 28, 2011 at 4:27pm

I have two collectable items that I wish to sell. I know they are legit but I understand the need to get them authenticated. I live in NYC area.

 

First item is a signed letter on Whitehouse stationary signed by Franklin Roosevelt and dated March 27, 1937. It contains a handwritten note and is signed and in very good condition. It is addressed to a judge Sol Bloom. My family works in the courts so that is how it was come upon.

 

The second is a numbered invitation to the 1941 Inaugural Ceremonies for F. Roosevelt and it contains the program and the invitation which included pictures of Roosevelt and the VP Wallace.

 

After checking around I've seen these type of things range in cost from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. The ones asking a few thousand say the others are copies. Mine is not a copy. I know I need to authenticate so that I can get the highest fair market value, but to who do I go? I neither want to be ripped off nor rip anyone else off. Please help.

 

I'm a beginner at all this and feeling a little out of my league. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Chris on March 28, 2011 at 4:59pm

I've been doing research and have learned more which is relevant. The letter is addressed to a Sol Bloom who was a member of the US House of Representatives (NY).

 

In 1903 he moved to New York, where he dabbled in real estate and enlarged his chain of music departments in department stores throughout the country. In New York he sold Victor Talking Machines. He switched his political connections to New York's Tammany Hall, to the extent that when Representative-elect of New York’s 19th Congressional District Samuel Marx died in 1922, he was invited to run, and gained the normally-Republican "Silk Stocking District" by 145 votes. He continued to represent the district until his death in 1949.

In Congress he was in charge of the George Washington Bicentennial (1932) and the U.S. Constitution Sesquicentennial Exposition (1937). He chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1938. A strong supporter of Zionism, he was a delegate to the convention in San Francisco that established the United Nations. The first words of the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, "We, the Peoples of the United Nations .." were due to Bloom.^[2]

He represented the US at the first meeting of the UN General Assembly in London in January 1946. He called his success in persuading a majority to vote, against their instructions, for the new United Nations organization to take over the finances of the earlier United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration "the supreme moment" of his life.^[3]

 

On an ickier note, he was one of the two Jewish advisors of Roosevelts who urged him NOT to get involved in the Holocaust.

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