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This morning an email hit my "promotions" folder in my Gmail account that has me wondering. It was from third party authenticator PSA:
PSA Auction News PSANewsandOffers@collectors.com
and was announcing:
Final Week to Bid in Heritage's Platinum Night Sports Auction! Ends February 27-28
Tags:
Standard stuff. Many auctions use a TPA service to add bidder confidence. It also protects the auction house and is used as a marketing tool.
Sure Joe, I totally understand an auction house using a tpa to add to bidder confidence an item and then using the tpa's opinion as a marketing tool by the auction house. But should the tpa (as a business that was contracted with for a specific service... rendering an impartial judgement) then be directly involved in the marketing of the item? Money talks. Doesn't it seem like there's a huge incentive to "pass" an item if I am not only going to be paid for my authentication service by a client but also then advertise the item for that client?
Maybe I'm not understanding something here.
Yes, money does indeed talk. I personally do not think a TPA will knowingly pass an autograph that they believe is not authentic. It's simply marketing and the big players have an advantage.
The issue I have with TPA services is that they render an opinion for a fee but have no actual liability if the autograph is not authentic.
One of the things that I don't like about submitting a quick opinion to PSA is that they want to have the auctioneer or dealer's identity information as part of the data entry for the item to be examined.
Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but it would seem like there might possibly be some favoritism shown toward an auction house or seller that they have a business alliance or at least a history with. Money is money. They might not want to irk a seller or auctioneer that they are in a high volume alliance with by saying one of their items is questionable or down right not real. Especially if there's the possibility that the potential buyer might challenge the seller with the opinion of the TPA.
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Beckett does not require that on their quick opinion. All they ask for is uploading of images of the item and any notes about it...eg. size. You don't have to disclose to them who the seller source is.
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