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What do you do when the Third Party Authenticator gets it wrong?

This discussion is buried treasure from early 2017 and deserves to be revived.

The purpose of this discussion is not to bash Third Party Authenticators (TPAs)...although that might happen. Lol. But that is not the intent because I truly believe TPAs like PSA/DNA, JSA, and Beckett are very important to the hobby. But they do, of course, make mistakes.

I thought this could be perhaps an insightful discussion about people's experiences when they get a rejection letter, regarding their sent-in autographed item, that states that the item is not genuine...when, in fact, they (the TPA's client) know without a doubt their item is truly the real deal.

Has this happened to you? Perhaps you were lucky enough to get an in-person autograph from a celebrity, and you sent it in to one of the major TPAs only to be told it's not real even though it was signed right in front of you!

Or perhaps you sent in an item that you got from an extremely reliable source, and you know beyond a reasonable doubt that the autograph is authentic, yet it still gets rejected. And maybe this is an autograph of a celebrity with whom you have a very strong knowledge of the celebrity's signature, as does your source...and the TPA still rejects it.

So you know the TPA got it wrong, but what do you do about it? I mean after all...the TPA's mess-up may cost you loads of money...perhaps thousands of dollars, pounds, euros, or pesos.

Does anyone have any stories he or she would like tell? I think it would interesting and enlightening to hear people's stories in regard to things like this. And it might increase our knowledge. Please let us know which TPA got it wrong, and why you are certain the TPA made an error.

Plus, are there certain authenticators that are good in one area, but even though it's not their area of expertise, they authenticate autographs of celebrities where their knowledge is limited.

This site is about increasing our knowledge about how to survive in the rough and tumble of the autograph world. So let's do that.

Tags: BAS, Beckett, JSA, PSA, TPA, authenticators, mistakes, psa-dna, third party authenticators

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jason Charnick on July 7, 2017 at 8:28pm

Glad to see someone has been able to get somewhere with questioning their results in the past. I'm working on blog post that will go in to further detail, but I was always worried about questioning their results that I still have a crisis of conscience when I sold a PSA/DNA slabbed autograph that I felt strongly was fake, and then later upset when they failed a similar item that I felt was real. I didn't see either signed personally but I have many reasons why I came to my opinion, I just never thought they would give me the time of day if I ever wanted to discuss their findings with them.

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Permalink Reply by KARL on November 19, 2018 at 6:33am

I basically ignore TPAs. Sometimes they are correct and other times way off. Another issue, TPAs make a great excuse for "buyers remorse". TPAs docket otherwise great items with those annoying little decals advertising themselves.

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Permalink Reply by just some dude on December 21, 2018 at 11:51am

As long as a quick opinion exists, I never have or never will pay for a COA.

If it passes my eye test thats +1

If it passes a quick opinion thats +1

Beyond that, I stick to what I know, and if anybody questions my stuff, I say “dont buy it, thanks!”

Real is real and real collectors will recognize real without a TPA cert, IMHO.

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Permalink Reply by Cory Clarkson on January 18, 2019 at 7:06am

it's sad that they can't even recognize a pre printed signature. jsa passed this george bush signature (first pic) and then psa/dna pre certified the second pic for an RR auction. notice the signatures match exactly

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Permalink Reply by James on January 18, 2019 at 3:41pm

Yes, and usually photos like this, with the machine-preprinted and personalized calligraphy, are done with autopenned autographs. In the mid-80s, my mother got one like this with her name preprinted along with an autopenned Ronald Reagan autograph. I’m really surprised that PSA and JSA would make mistakes this glaring.. or maybe I’m not.