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Authenticity is Everything
Roger Epperson.... Good Authenticator?
Hello everyone,
Please dont be misleaded by the title of this thread, as i am a huge fan of Roger's. I have bought numerous items from him and have had him look at numerous items. I will continue to buy form him with the utmost confidence. He has earned the reputation of being the best in the world for a good reason, and that is something to be very proud of.
I am a member over at startiger, and recently in a post entitled NE Autographs, located under the general discussion category, someone posted a commnet that i just cant live with. Someone had asked who was a good trusted authenticator and i mentioned epperson. A member their (screenname: hastemail), who i believe is form germany, posted in reply this comment:
"OUCH, I hope you haven't wasted too much money on pieces sold by Epperson. He has a LONG history of purchasing fake items from forgers. He even fooled RR Auction several times in the past by passing through obvicious forgeries which RR Auction had to take back then and fully refund the winning bidders. Roadhouse, stay FAR, FAR away from anything that is sold, reviewed or "authenticated" by Roger Epperson. That will save you a lot of money and trouble!"
I then posted a reply basically asking him if he was off his rocker for saying this, as ive never heard even rogers competition, or haters, say that he is a bad authenticator of forgeries. Even the guys at anl or alert. And thats saying something, even they know that hes the best, even though obviously mistakes are occasionally made.
Here is the reply that was given:
csink, you want me to name an example for Epperson's misjudgements... how about item 791 of the June 2009 auction at RR - a LP cover supposedly signed by all members of The Clash. When informing RR auction about this item, Trish replied with the following e-mail on June 6, 2009:
"Thanks so much for your patience as I researched your concern further. The Clash LP, item 791, in our current June 346 (2009) auction came with good provenance and was approved by our authenticators. It was originally sold by Sotheby’s Amazon in the UK.
This item was also reviewed and accepted as genuine by noted music autograph specialist Roger Epperson. As such, we stand behind this item with our lifetime money-back guarantee of authenticity.
We appreciate your sharing your concerns with us. Please feel free to contact me anytime if I may be of further assistance."
Best Regards,
Tricia
Tricia Eaton
Auction Processing Manager
RR Auction Company, LLC
BUT... a few weeks later another e-mail from Trish arrived and in it she explained they had pulled the item because the autographs were indeed NOT authentic. Read for yourself:
"I am writing in response to the recent post regarding The Clash album we offered for sale in our June 2009 auction. Thanks to one of our astute and experienced customer's concerns, we researched the signatures further.
After re-evaluating the item, we finally came to the conclusion that the autographs were indeed not authentic. As such, RRAuction honored our lifetime money-back guarantee to the winning bidder by refunding his purchase price in full.
Just wanted to let everyone here know RRAuction takes authenticity very seriously. During the rare occurrence that an authentication mistake is made, our company is known for doing the right thing and owning up to our initial oversight.
If you ever have any concerns in the future, please feel free to contact me anytime.
Best Regards,
Tricia
Tricia Eaton
Auction Processing Manager
RRAuction Company, LLC
It's extremely disconcerting that Roger Epperson would authenticate this item in the first place. If a simple collector can call fake on the album why not him, he's allegedly the "expert". That thing was so fake it stank. There's a lesson here for everyone. Educate yourself and trust no expert but one's self.
If you need further examples of Epperson's misjudgements, let me know
A further post went on to say this:
One of the most hilarious misjudgement made by Roger Epperson was when he "authenticated" Metallica's 2008 remastered vinyl re-issue of "Master Of Puppets" supposedly signed by Cliff Burton. The only problem here is that Cliff Burton died on September 27, 1986 which is 22 years before the remastered vinyl re-issue was even released to the public. Nevertheless, Roger Eppeson once again issued his report and certified the signature as authentic. 
I can't say it often enough: Educate yourself and trust no expert but one's self.
Now i kindly asked this individual to please post as a topic here on Live about eppersons mistakes and what his issue was with him, that way roger could reply to him, because not everyone is a member at startiger. The member however didnt do this and posted the messages pictured above. I do not think its fair to say these things about roger, they may be his mistakes, but we need to get his opinion on this and the issue can be debated. I have invited this member to this site to debate the issue, although i doubt we will ever hear from him.
Please, will everyone who reads this post your opinion of roger good or bad and your credentials. And responses to the above comments. I dont want some new members at startiger to read the response of one man and get the wrong impression. If your gonna make statements that roger is a bad apple, your gonna have to back them up.
I am very eager to read responses, so that i can share with the community at startiger as to what rogers real reputation is.
Thanks so much
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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You'd have to ask R&R, but I don't think they would have pulled the Hendrix unless they had lost confidence in the piece.
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Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on
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I suspect that the main issue with the Hendrix autograph may have been the "Ji" in "Jimi". It looks very unusual to me. Can anyone post an authentic example with a "Jimi" that looks similar to the one in question? Based on what I've seen, the "Redding" doesn't look right either. The ones I've seen sort of trail off at the end, but the one in question looks neat and precise.
Also, the postcard was printed in June of '68, and the JHE didn't return to San Francisco until October of that year. Considering that and the fact that the JHE never even played the Avalon Ballroom, I thought it somewhat unusual that the signatures are on the back of that particular postcard.
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Permalink Reply by Trapper9990 on
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Hi everybody
I just wanted to clarify why i started the thread. It may have come across wrong on here but i tried to explain it above. Im a member at startiger and someone was asking for help with a good authenticator, i mentioned roger, and a member their posted the above pictures and became head strong on telling how bad roger is and how he authenticates easily known forgeries. So after some arguing back and forth, i no longer felt it was fair that Roger couldnt be their to defend himself. After all, when you post the pics above, and the info about the clash album, a new collector may see all he needs too and cross roger off. Similar events happened to me when i first started collecting, when i saw ANL and the stuff they wrote about this site. I also knew their was probably more to the story than what this guy was letting on with these albums. So i explained to the startiger community, and posted a link to this thread their, that they should come here and read rogers reputation among his peers. i also told them how this site has the most educated collectors from around the world visiting it, and could give accurate non biased opinions. I even at first asked someone their to post a thread asking about roger if they had doubts. But no one did and all i got back was more flack and false accusations from this member. So i decided to post it here myself to let others see and post some replies back to startiger so that roger could defend himself and that new collectors could see he is as good as gold.
I should not have mentioned anything about qualifications, as that may have given the wrong impression. I used that because i wanted the members their too see that it just wasnt me making up names trying to support roger, and that if the members saw where experienced, best of the best dealers and collectors were saying their opinion of Roger, then they could form their own opinions.
Bottom line i guess is that i get pissed off easy when i see someone spreading B.S. that is twisted and manipulated into a tool used to hurt someones reputation who is dramatically helping this buisness. I know that the link over their will bring some people here and hopefully it will show that the user is spreading false propaganda to support some cause. It really is a shame that people do this, and i could have probably just let it slide, but i would hate to be a new collector who was looking for a trustworthy music guy and someone told me roger was horrible and i never looked at his stuff because of that. I would have missed out like crazy.
I hope this help clear things up and i hope that this large body of evidence will silence or at least reeducate Stephan Daniel. I hope he just got some bad information over their in Germany, but from some of his comments i highly doubt that.
Thanks to all who have responded
Chris
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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on
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In other words, you fell for their trap and got suckered into posting this thread.
Ignore crap like that, Trapper!!! You fell right into their hands. This is exactly the attention they look for!!!! This is what they want. Ignore them!!!
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Thanks Chris,
your probably exactly right. I guess in the end his reputation, like others, speak for themselves and dont need defending.
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Permalink Reply by DB on
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Ignoring is not the answer. publishing comments on the history detective or other web sites like rip off reports and the like would go unabated. left unanswered or not clarified does not clear out the white elephant and to the thousands upon thousands of collectors who have no insight it creates a false impression. tha't why it can't be ignored just like the post after post of non-authentic signed merchandise that get's posted.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on
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Some things can be ignored, but the risk of ignoring everything is then you are letting others define you. It is the classic PR conundrum... When to respond and when not to? There is no simple answer.
Roger's antagonists have obviously taken the old approach of, tell a lie or distortion enough times in enough places and it becomes the truth.
It probably wasn't a bad idea to go on the record regarding the Metallica album here.
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I have no problem with anyone criticizing a company or individual for making an honest mistake, but I have a major problem with those who bash honest people for making an honest mistake.
Acknowledging the bashing of an honest person, as this thread has done, is just wrong.
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Permalink Reply by roger epperson on
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What no one here understands is "you have no idea the circumstance of how that Hendrix item ended up in the catalog". There are four people in the world who know what happened and none of them are any of you. It's not for me to say as I am just a consultant for the auction house but when doing a MONTHLY catalog (both print and digital) of 1000+ lots or more, sometimes a snag happens. You guys have no idea what we go through on a daily basis to better serve the collector out there and guard them from the forgers and crooks. They get better and smarter all the time and we have to keep up with them. DB, I see you were fast to jump on the Hendrix mistake bandwagon, I didn't see you flying your flag when last January RR Auction had 723 lots of music and EVERYTHING was clean! Now you also have to remember probably triple that amount were fake and caught. Now if you want to believe that someone blasting emails to people all over the globe had anything to do with catching the mistake my friend you are wrong and you too fell into that trap. Mistakes happen in various different ways when running a business like this. It could have been my mistake, the person who got my email entering the wrong information, a typo or something else but errors do happen. We work on fixing glitches that appear all the time due to the ever changing forgers out there and their scams.
Here's a fresh one most of you have no idea about and we have spent months of work fixing the problem of some very clever forgers. I call them the Philly forgers as that's where it started from. These guys will get things signed by bands and get all the easy guys on it, then add the tough guy or guys on it themselves. They only have to learn one or two autographs and they are very good at it. They have FLOODED the market with this garbage and you won't find it in RR Auction! Not aonly do you have to know the handwriting you need to keep up with the signing habits of celebrities to figure out if it really could have been signed or not.
You seem to think that picking out one mistake in a catalog is keeping people honest, well my friend I am honest and I do a Hell of a job doing what I do. If you want to wave your flag because some clown found a mistake and claims to be the one who got it removed so be it but it shows your true colors and how little time you spent learning about the things you speak.
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Can't wave the flag on anything that's not visible nor kept by only a few. I could care less who finds an error and does the homework to have it removed. At least, that one mistake regardless of how it ended up in the catalog doesn't get sold for the moment. I believe that was also a similar sentiment made by R&R as well.
If there is a new philly source perhaps a thread and some examples would be beneficial to the greater community. While it might not be found on R&R it is sure to be found elsewhere especially if it has "flooded" the market..
incidently, on the hendrix, I was close to the last as R&R was the 1st to acknowledge it.
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Not visible, 723 items in one catalog alone, how much more visible is it? I have probably looked at over 20,000 items for RR Auction alone and one or two get picked on and you say it's not visible!?! Really?!!
Of course it's a great thing that the Hendrix item didn't sell to someone and was removed but pointing a finger at someone when you have absolutely no idea how that mistake happened is just wrong. You assume all the time and listen to the foolish people who have not a clue what goes on in the autograph business world.
Now here's the icing on the cake; you now think I should start a thread about the Philly forgers after you point your finger again and again at some mistake that was made. Really?!? This is what I get paid to do. I help out plenty for gratis, you have read what people say. Maybe KFC should publish their recepie because someone here feels that they should. This isn't a "hobby" for me, it's my job. The work I do is not free. I put in over 23 years of learning and taking grief from creeps on fake blog sites to be giving away my work. Have the other companies hire me if they want to keep the garbage out. If they don't want to then so be it, sooner or later those autographs will cross my desk and then they will know the truth and have to deal with it.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not angry; just surprised that stuff like this comes out of what I consider intellegent peoples keypads.
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DB, why don't you do some research and do an expose' on the Philly forgers that Roger mentioned?
As a matter fact, DB, there's also a person in the Philly/NJ area who has been forging vintage cut autographs (sports) for a long time. Maybe you can expose him, too.
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For the most part, an expert can tell if something is real or not with a high degree of confidence. And anything seen as controversial by specialists should be avoided. It's much more likely they'll be found to be fake later on than genuine.