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Permalink Reply by DB on June 4, 2012 at 12:36pm

Comment by Christopher Williamson May 5, 2012 at 6:17am

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Ebay removed the Global Authentics certed Derek Jeter autograph items that were listed by Ebay sellers dirty_water_ink and graphingusa.   Great work Ebay!!!

http://live.autographmagazine.com/profiles/blogs/global-authentics-...

 

Does this mean the seller is bad?  Of course not since he has gone to the trouble of having items certified.  There are also a number of opinions (some very strong dislike) on here regarding GA.  You don't buy the cert, but rather the signature.  

and unfortunately the seller has an abundance of erroneously listed in the heading of GAI ones when I believe they are GA items.  Regardless of opinion what has been reported  here on aml has tainted GAI  certifications and while there are authentic ones in the GAI stable one has to really do their homework based on the reports here of over 30,000 certs +/- just being handed out to many fake items.  So if you go by GAI certs alone, how lucky do you feel?

Thus, If I don't know the signature and hear what seems to be reliable comments than I avoid the items all together.

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Permalink Reply by Liam Morrissey on June 4, 2012 at 1:05pm

Interesting, I see what you mean about how he has them listed as GAI but they are actually GA. I agree that GAI certs are definitely tainted, but can you comment on the opinion of GA certifications? They are after all a different company (despite the similarities). Your comments above refer to GAI not GA, are you using the two interchangeably and is it fair to say that GA has a better rep than GAI?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 4, 2012 at 1:54pm

From what I've seen, I would avoid dirty_water_ink, and certainly anything they had that was GA or GAI authenticated. GA's only reliable category is NASCAR, and that's because they have a strong independent NASCAR consultant.

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 4, 2012 at 2:45pm

I tend to disagree with Steve's advice but he is entitled to his opinion but it is simply overkill.  It's obvious that the seller doesn't know signatures which is why he simply believes, as many do, it doesn't have to be authentic just certified.  And if it's certified by someone who supposedly knows what they are doing then who are they to argue against the certification "experts".  

As I said if you don't know the signature then you are on your own.  e.g. this WS ball signed by Foulke & Varitek;

on the left is the Ebay one and on the right my steiner varitek.  I'd have to go find a scan of Foulke but that does look like his scribble signature.   So on the surface I'd say this one ought to be good to go but as I said abit more analysis might be in order.

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 4, 2012 at 2:56pm

Having said that, I'd have problems with this mutli-signed item; 140702183068.

Bledsoe and I have several of him including in-person along with Bruschi.  Drew's looks good but I'd have agita on Tedy's as it doesn't seem right.

 Didn't bother looking at the others as when I have issues with one, it's not worth pursuing unless I'm interested in the item.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 4, 2012 at 3:46pm

My conclusions are based on having seen hundreds if not thousands of their eBay listings over time, DB. I have a hard time believing that any seller who regularly uses authenticators like GA, GAI, ACE, etc., doesn't know what they're selling.

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Permalink Reply by Liam Morrissey on June 4, 2012 at 4:16pm

I too feel it may be a bit harsh to discredit GA completely due to a terrible reputation of GAI. GA has made mistakes, but I don't think an alarming number compared to the other major ones.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on June 4, 2012 at 4:23pm

Looked at the Packers stuff.  I'd immediately pass on this seller, no question.  Many close calls, but far too many red flags.  

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 4, 2012 at 5:02pm

Many close calls...

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Permalink Reply by Michael T on June 20, 2012 at 8:01pm

Steve, I wish you would rethink the blanket accusations of GA (or any authenticator for that manner). Blanket accusations don't help the autograph collecting hobby and imply that maybe you have an agenda. I don't know you personally so I hope you do not. Savvy collectors will sniff out an agenda real quick.

How about this example of probabilities:

I could go find a blind man and give him some certification stickers and put autographs in front of him randomly (some good and some bad) and sooner or later he will sticker an authentic one. So could we say that all the autographs this man certified are bad? Of course not. We could however state that the likelihood of his certifications being authentic is low.

I could also make a blanket statement that a certain brand of automobiles are junk. Why? Well every time I drive I see this brand broken down on the road and not others. So with faulty logic at work, I will improperly assume that they must be all bad. Are they all bad? Of course not.

Thusly, to make a blanket statement that 'everything' by any authenticator is no good is not only numerically improbable, it is also unfair to honest authenticators, collectors who read this site and is actually disrespectful to all the work many IP collectors have done that happen to utilize GA, JSA or PSA.

I am totally willing to agree that GAI is a problem and I bet most anyone here would agree. We all know about the 'back door' cert selling operation. So yes some GAI certified items, in general' would have a lower likelihood of being authentic. Would they ALL be bad? Of course not.

What I think it really comes down to is simply this- one cannot rely on 3rd party authenticators as the SOLE decision maker in ANY autograph purchase no matter the company. One has to use their own commonsense, their own eyes, the sellers reputation, any friends they trust, sites like this and the 3rd party authenticator(s) of choice to make an informed buying decision.

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Permalink Reply by Michael T on June 20, 2012 at 8:27pm

Hey DB, I did not blanket GAI at all. I just mentioned that they had a known security breach so the odds of getting a bad GAI item could be higher. This is not hearsay. It is a known fact.

I will give it a slight edit if I can to better clarify.

If you visit my site there are GAI certified items for sale and they are authentic.

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 21, 2012 at 2:30am

Mike H, fair enough - But, how do you know it's authentic?  Not based on GAI certifications alone. 

GAI, if the accusations are true, sold out collectors.  Numerous threads here have exposed forgery after forgery.  That of course is not the universe of GAI certed items and there are no complete sampling studies that have ever been done as far as I know.  One of their authenticators opened their own service and the result albeit late in coming made EBAY's banned list.  That being a fact how much non-authentic items hit the marketplace while working at GAI - that is more than a security breach.    Nonetheless, as such, GAI has been forever tainted and anything associated with GAI that is authentic will never command the price it's being offered at initially or for resale except perhaps to the "uninformed buyer".

I know the 2 items I have are authentic as I know the signatures very well however unless I remove the GAI stigma the argument of authentic is just that.   

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