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Antiquities Owner Toby Stoffa

Hi Steve,

I very much liked your letter. Thank you for being passionate about your vocation, as am I.

By the way, just as a note, I'm Ms. not Mr., that's why I said the grandma in this business...:) My mentors were Cordelia and Tom Platt who were one of the grandparents of this business, and George Sanders before he died, even spending time at his home going through his amazing collection. I wish you could rewrite that lovely letter and put Ms. instead of Mr. Paul McCartney got a Beatles signed White album at Antiquities for his land mines auction, which he authenticated, bought for $10,000 and he sold it for $80,000. I've been jogging in the mall with Michael Jackson who was a client for 12 years and I gave the dedication speech for him at the posthumous installation of his star of fame here. I correspond with Richard Dreyfus by email from time to time, and have worked extensively with the Osmond family as both friends and clients. That is the tip of the iceberg. Historical collections from Antiquities are in major American museums and famous law offices. I've been collecting since I was 12 and ran into Fred McMurray at the Brown Derby. I am now 63, so it has been 51 years. I'm telling you something important here, Steve; my 3 children, my 6 grandchildren and anyone else who knows me and has worked with me will stand proudly at my grave. My items are excellent and even members of PSA have been in my store and bought signed books and other things. You and I are on the same side, whether you know it or not, we really are.

Kind regards,

Toby Stoffa

President

Antiquities

Tags: album, antiquities, authenticity, autographs, beatles, caesar's, forgeries, las, mccartney, palace, More…paul, stoffa, toby, vegas, white

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Comment by S. Maxwell on May 2, 2010 at 5:01pm: Thanks to Steve and Roger for your replies. Good points were made, and I do apologize if I got a little harsh in my initial comments. I would never imply that Roger should know the day, month, where they are staying etc. but rather that the article was on specific year comparisons, therefore should have respective accuracy to within a year. Plus the '78 Plant signature on the Presence album looks almost exactly like the '69 example you showed in the article, especially with the "L" in Plant. This to me, seems like a pretty rare version of his signature. At least the ones I've seen.

That sucks that Roger had to sell his signed Zep album. I wasn't really accusing you of lying about having had that album, but it did seem odd that it wouldn't be a featured picture in the article. So that, coupled with several incorrect dates, plus I guess with the heighthened shady actions of so many 3rd party authenticators these days, it just all seem to add up to a big red flag to me upon reading the article, and surely you can understand my concern within this kind of context.

Hey just out of curiosity, what album did you get signed, and were you able to get all 4 on it that day? Hope you at least got a decent amount for it.

Also, Steve since you mentioned PSA/DNA, I have been horrified by the stickering of autographed items that this company has been doing. Right smack on the front of signed photographs and everything. The little oval one is one thing, but that big square one is just terrible. There can be little doubt that this practice significantly devalues the item. Why would people that are 'experts' in autographs have such down right destructively poor tact in this pratice. Why in the world would they not put this on the back of the item?! I can't imagine that there is anyone outside the company who thinks this is okay.

Comment by S. Maxwell on May 2, 2010 at 5:06pm: I think what Antiquities should do is stop with the "autographs" they sell and instead offer a service where they will do the custom framing presentations for your autograph items. Like a high end framing shop that is just for signed memorabillia. Clearly they are the best at that part of it anyways.

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 3, 2010 at 1:22am: Toby,

I listened to your 2006 interview Travis told us about below,
http://www.smartmoneytalks.com/smt/2006%20GL%20guestarchive.htm

You said in this blog post that Paul McCartney bought a Beatles-signed "White Album" from you for $10,000 and then sold it at his and his then-wife's land mine charity auction for $80,000. But in the interview you said that a customer bought it from you for $10,000 who donated it to the McCartney's charity, which auctioned it for $80,000. Which story is right?

One of the more interesting things you said in the interview was that you have a number of collectors who go to shows and other events to get autographs for you. You said that your two favorite groups are the Eagles and Rolling Stones, and that your collectors often catch them at concerts and go backstage to get their autographs. I don't know anyone who has gotten backstage to get any hot band's autographs in the last 10 years or more, except for meet and greets--and certainly not the Eagles or Stones. How do you do it?

Comment by roger epperson on June 6, 2010 at 11:12am: Wow do I have alot to say about this blog.
#1 Paul McCartney is not a handwriting expert. That is why in court cases experts are used for handwriting. A good forgery could easily pass by McCartney without him knowing. Sure he is familliar with thier autographs but not an expert.
#2 Just because a famous person bought stuff from your store does not make them real. They are relying on you the seller to have done the research to find out if things are real or not. I was in your store 2 years ago and you had a framed tamborine signed with a plaque stating it was signed by Bob Dylan when it was actually a very questionable signature of Tom Petty. This is a fact, I saw it myself. If the items you were selling at these very low prices were authentic, I would have bought everyone of them and made a killing. I left the store empty handed.
#3 Charity auctions are being burned left and right and many are now are not selling autographed items anymore because of the liability and the crooks that are suppling fake items. A charity organazation on Canada got burned for buying or $100k worth of fake stuff from IROCKNROLL.COM in Vegas. With my help and a really good attorney they got all of thier money back.
#4 S Maxwell, thanks for your response to Steve and I's reponses to your blog. I don't know if you know it or not but known idiot Stephen Koschal picked it out and used it on his ignorant on line blog page. He of course didn't put anything but your initial letter and not yours or our follow up messages, typical Koschalism journalism. The ticket that had the date in question was the date the person I bought it from told me it was signed. He got it himself, the autographs were real so I had no reason to doubt him. Thank you for correcting the date but next time do it in a kind way. From 1971-1973 thier signatures stayed realitvely the same so it made sense too. I'm glad to hear that you didn't doubt the authenticity of any of the signatures though, that was what my part of the article was all about. As to my album that I got signed I sold it for $1500. At that time that was like a million dollars to me. I don't regret selling it as it saved my life at the time. Now that album would bring $10k+. Yes I did get them all to sign it. They even gave me and my friend tickets to the show as they were $10.50 then and I didn't have $10.50 to my name in the 9th grade. The show was awful as it was in the Silverdome and they were very late. They didn't even land until after 9:00 and the show was supposed to start @ 8:00. It was a great memory though. Hope this helped clear up any concerns you may have had about me or the article. We were just trying to show the readers authentic Zep autographs while throwing in some stories to keep thier interest. If it would have been up to me, I would have just shown the exemplars.

Comment by roger epperson on June 6, 2010 at 11:47am: I should read this blog more often. There are some pretty cool opinions on this site. I would like to respond to Josh's comment on April 23 which I missed. Steve doesn't buy into my BS because it's not BS. Steve used to think I was nuts until I proved to him I was right. I don't think I'm "Mr. know it all" because if I don't know something I don't comment on it. If i do know something about it I will comment about it and make sure I know what I'm talking about. I do know a very lot about music, it's history and music autographs. These all play a crucial part when determining whether something is authentic or not. I was a hard core "in person" collector for 13 years. I was the first one to "board" a pickguard witha matted photo. I thought of it when I needed Jimmy Page to sign one. I mounted it up and sent it to my friend Owen Sweeny in DC. He tripped when he saw it and Jimmy signed the matted pickguard. All of the NY collectors were there and it spread like wildfire and is still used today. Working for many major auction houses and collecting for over 20 years has given me an exemplar file 2nd to none. I not only have files on real autographs but also known forgeries. I take this very seriously. Thank you though for your kind words you did say about me in your comment though.

my best
Roger

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 12, 2010 at 2:21pm: Toby,

Please comment on this. It's an email from Brian from last year about a signed Elvis Presley album a customer was interested in from Antiquities San Francisco. Myron Ross has said on this site that he's not an autograph authenticator. I'll post his message at the end of this comment"

"Hello [customer name removed],

Please accept my apologies for the delay in reply. This piece does come with additional certification from Col. Myron Ross, retired US Army handwriting certifier and I'll attach a copy of that certification to this e-mail.

We do not use Roger Eperson on our items as he does not have the court approvals and certification; his qualifications are good and we have known him for over 20 years, but under current regulations, his company and his certifications are not accepted by too many places. Roger's opinion of it does not meet our standards in order for you to be protected by our certificate or the requirements of the Autograph Society of America who has said the PSA/DNA certifications need not be regarded as confirming authenticity both because of their caveat at the bottom of their certificate and because of the current problems which I won't go into but can be seen on the internet in many places. So, on an upbeat note, this is an excellent piece with great certification and we've got a 20%-40% off sale going on right now!

Best price, $1850.

Let me know, thanks [name].

Brian

www.antiquitiesca.com

Antiquities of California
Pier 39
Beach & Embarcadero Streets
Sp# N-111-3
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-421-8400 Ph
415-421-8403 Fax"

At 1:36pm on December 4, 2009, Myron Ross said…
"Mr. Cyrkin, I am not sure why you seem to think I sell bad autographs. I have never knowingly sold a bad autograph. My main business is Hollywood and Rock & Roll and has been for 40 years. I stand behind my sales and do the best I can. I am NOT an authenticator but I have a large file of exemplars and check everything I buy. Yes, I do sometimes get a bad one and if I cannot get my money back,. I destroy it. Also I make a habit of having things certified by a forensic authenticator to insure that my items are good. What more can a dealer do? I buy from celebrities by making deals with them for autographs in quantities and also buy from the generasl public."

Toby, what's the story?

Comment by CJCollector on April 6, 2011 at 8:14am: I'm usually on the sports side of the autograph hobby and in scanning Ebay for Mantle autographs I caught the below auction on Ebay. What a mess!!! I also noticed that if you go to their website ALL of their sports autographs are distant and blurry.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mickey-Mantle-New-York-Yankees-Hat-Cap-Case-Doc...

Comment by DB on May 16, 2012 at 2:09pm: after all the things we have heard here on Antiquities & Toby Stoffa - How do you pull in customers have a "dethroned" baseball legend appear for a signing;

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7925114

Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 16, 2012 at 2:28pm: He obviously pulls in a lot of customers. Amazing, all the super-rare rock autographs they have on the wall there.