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Antiquities

Hi Steve,

Here is the thing that is important to know. When I must purchase something rather than being given the opportunity to get it from a private collector and have it authenticated, I send it out for secondary. I do not like using names, since my husband is a lawyer and hopelessly helpful but quite independent from my business. So referring to who you mentioned I bought some items from, when they went out for certification and were rejected, I was not allowed to return them, so they got trashed. If you look at some of the items, some of the signatures look good. I want to point out that I am the one, or at least one of the ones, that started the alarm since I told the owner of that company that a musician who died in the 1970s cannot sign a guitar from China 2004. An avid collector and friend of mine who is now dying actually purchased an incredible amount of items and I told him who to call in one of America's top investigative companies to try to make things right. After 25 years in this business, I literally have thousands of autographs, many thousands. If I made 175 mistakes out of those thousands, and caught them and trashed them, it's a very good reference for my business, not a bad one. The best of the people you mentioned have made some widely public mistakes themselves. But I don't think that number is accurate by my business records. Do they mention returns to that company without getting refunds? This is the first time I have ever responded to this kind of thing; I'm not as familiar getting around a computer as my adult children, but I am so glad you have given me this opportunity. Another thing is, as far as items, I have an Emmy award/Saturn Award/Peabody award winning son, another son with Hollywood agreements for signatures, and a teacher daughter with a professorial husband who do research. I'm very proud of them and of the work we do to be ethical.

I was sickened by the story you told me of the letter that became public from A.A. Again, this is a beautiful industry, a wondrous opportunity to own pieces of history in all categories, and we must do what we can to keep it honorable.

Best regards,

Toby Stoffa, President

Antquities

1 member likes this

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 18, 2010 at 4:48pm: Toby,

I think I know the gentleman you're talking about. It's sad to hear that his health has gotten even worse. He bought something like 115 signed guitars from Autographs America for $100,000. Thanks for sending him to an investigation company--were they able to help him?

From the records we have, your stores purchased regularly from Autographs America from January 2008 through when the records we received ended in July 2009. Whether you purchased after that, I don't know, but that's over a year and a half of buying from them. Pardon me for being pointed, but that being the case, your claim that you bought from them, found out they were bad and destroyed them doesn't add up.

You seem very nice, so I'm sorry to have to call you on these things, but we feel that it is our job to try to protect collectors, and since you started blogging they deserve to hear all sides.

I agree that getting a second opinion on autographs is a good idea. But the authenticators you said you use are Don Frangipani, Christopher Morales and AAU/Drew Max. You also mentioned Heroes, which may be Heroes and Legends/Myron Ross, but I didn't know he offered authentication services.

Here's the thing: Authentication letters from first three authenticators you listed are ones that are known in the autograph industry as a sign of forgery--not authenticity. They are known as authenticators that sellers use in order to get forgeries authenticated as genuine. I'm most familiar with Frangipani and Morales, and I would be surprised if one-percent of the autographs they authenticate as genuine actually are. Whether they do it knowingly or not (I have my opinion), I can't recall ever finding real autographs from any of them, but I'm sure a few exist.

As for Heroes and Legends, we kicked them out of the magazine not long after I bought it because of overwhelming authenticity concerns; as we did Autograph Central shortly thereafter.

The inventories in your stores are filled with extremely rare or otherwise unknown autographs, usually at prices well below what you could get by consigning them to reputable auctions. Besides the Led Zeppelin albums, which you could wholesale all day long at $8,000 plus and would likely go for well over $10,000 at auction, you have 4-5 Beatles albums in the $15,000 or so range that would likely sell for $80,000-$150,000 today. And you virtually always have them in stock, whereas most rock dealers and auctions are lucky to handle one or two in their lifetimes.

You have Morrison-signed Doors guitars, but no recognized genuine ones are known to exist. Same for Jimi Hendrix. Same for things like your Jackie Kennedy- and JFK and Sinatra-signed hats. These are unheard of items that I don't believe have ever been seen outside of galleries in Las Vegas and tourist spots.

If you do your due diligence before you buy and offer for sale, why wouldn't you question items like these before you buy them and offer them for sale. An authentic Jackie Kennedy hat would sell for many times what you're offering it for unsigned. I could go on and on.

My point is that if these items were authentic, you wouldn't need the expenses of a store to sell them. You could buy as much as you could from your sources and sell them at auction or to dealers all day long for much more than you sell them for.

Again, I'm sorry to call you on all of this, but you opened the door.

Steve

Comment by David Stedman on April 22, 2010 at 5:19pm: Steve,
Your alluding to Toby that she doesn't need a storefront to sell her items doesn't take into account that she started her business years and years ago. Long before the internet and the large amount of resources that are available today to purchase autographs. Long before the plethora of auction houses that are so prevailing today and long before PSA/DNA and JSA became in fact "the defacto" professionals and pallbearers of all that can be "real".
What would you do if you started before it became fashionable? If you had the best retail location in the US? Yes, you too might just stay and call yourself blessed to be in the best possible , can't be duplicated, location.
It might behoove you to know that I was privy years ago to that very same question. Someone had offered Antiquities an obscene amount of money to vacate their lease. Our conversation ended at the simple realization that a retailer strives to secure that age old step to success-location, location, location and when its found and you've reached your dream and the pinnacle of success, why give it up.
So you see, it's not fair to judge her on not selling out but rather to congratulate her for reaching her dream and selling at fair realistic prices.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 22, 2010 at 8:42pm: Hi David,

My point is that genuine examples of the rare autographs she sells can be easily sold at auction or to dealers for much more than she typically charges—often 5-10x more, or even higher. I'm not even talking about the many items Antiquities and other tourist mecca autograph galleries offer that examples known as authentic have never been seen before.

The best retail location in the US doesn't come cheap, so if what she is selling is genuine, why doesn't she just sell it to dealers or at auction? She'd get much more than her retail prices in the shop and wouldn't have those insane expenses.

I asked you about this on another blog, so pardon me asking here again:

A 2010 Mercedes S-Class (S550) stickers for about $92,000. Dealer invoice is about $85,000. If I were to offer to sell them to you for $15,000 what would you think?

Let me give you an autograph example:

You could sell a Beatles-signed Abby Road album for $80,000—to a dealer. I can think of several who'd fight for it. It would sell to a collector for over $100,000...probably $125,000 even in this economy.

What would you think if I offered you one for $16,900?

Even better, what if I offered it for $10,500???

I'm asking because Toby has an Abby Road album—one Antiquities was offering for $16,900, that they're now offering at the very special price of $10,500.

Between Antiquities two stores they probably sell at least 10 Beatles albums a year. Every one I've seen was well under $20,000. I don't recall one she couldn't have sold for at least $80,000, and most would bring over $100,000.

That's $800,000 to $1,000,000 or more for 10 albums.

That's a lot of generosity.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 22, 2010 at 10:51pm: Travis, you're spot-on. The Kennedy ball is in June's Auction Action. Do they have a ball right now for $5K?

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 23, 2010 at 12:00am: I'll take all the JFK-signed baseballs they can deliver at $6,000...that's $1,000 over what Antiquities sells them for...as long as any of the these auction houses will accept them for consignment:

Sotheby's
Christie's
Heritage
Legendary
Memory Lane
RRAuction
Alexander Autographs
Profiles in History
Memory Lane, Inc.
Hunts Auctions
Robert Edwards
Swann Auction Galleries
EAC Gallery
Hakes Americana
Early American History Auctions
Huggins & Scott
Goldberg Coin & Collectibles
Bonham & Butterfield
Julien's Auctions
Gotta Have It
Regency Superior
Leland's
Gray Flannel

That's 23 US auction houses off the top of my head. As long as the balls are in similarly undamaged condition they'll be fine.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 23, 2010 at 8:18am: Antiquities Web sites are:

Las Vegas, NV: www.antiquitieslv.com
San Francisco, CA: www.antiquitiesca.com