Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on January 4, 2022 at 10:19pm

There's enough variables here that I'd actually advise against it.

If you were to get it graded/authenticated by CGC right now, it wouldn't be listed as authentic -- anything a CGC rep hasn't personally witnessed would get marked as a "qualified grade", as there's no way to verify the COA can be linked to the item in question.

There are other signed McFarlane issues floating around on buy-and-sell sites that have similar COAs -- a few from a Canadian site I frequent tie a bunch of them into a similar pre-printed certificate from a comic store in Canada where he allegedly did several days/boxes worth of signings, which are priced far lower ($200-300) and are still sitting unsold months and years after the fact.

Secondly, depending on your budget, it may be worth paying the premium ($1.5-2k budget) to get an authenticated copy signed by Stan Lee and McFarlane. There are quite a few copies that can be tied in to the McFarlane private signing he did with CGC.

Hope this helps.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Eduardo Olvera on January 4, 2022 at 10:59pm

Thanks for the advice!

I sent the pictures to Beckett Collectibles and they said it is unlikely to pass verification, but I also found this one with a CBCS verified signature on eBay that looks very similar to the one I posted, only smaller and done with a thin maeker. What do you think? Also I googled "northeast comic exchange McFarlane sign" and found a Spawn #1 with a signature like this, from 1993 too. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on January 4, 2022 at 11:10pm

Did the CBCS book show in its authentication info when the item was signed? I thought CBCS was a fairly recent addition to the grading world -- they might not know when it was signed, as this looks more in line with how his signature used to be.

All told, there's a reason why I'm not in the comic book collecting world right now (I shrunk my collection down to a longbox and sold the rest) -- the difficulty of the market in terms of "get graded or die trying" and the difficulty trying to authenticate signed items is far too much for me to focus my attention on.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Eduardo Olvera on January 4, 2022 at 11:41pm

It doesn't have that information. It only says "Verified signature: Todd McFarlane". And yeah, they work together with Beckett so the only way to know if it's legit would be to send it for full authentication, though I've been told there's a good amount of legitimate signatures that doesn't pass the verification process, so it's all a gamble. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on January 5, 2022 at 7:19am

Yeah, I'd be careful with that too. I don't know a whole lot about CBCS, but I do know that CGC dates all signatures, regardless on whether they were signed on different days/months/years. I have seen a couple of CBCS examples with dates attached to them, which doesn't necessarily speak highly of the issue you referenced.

The only way I'd ever buy anything signed comic-related this days is if it was graded/authenticated -- there are just too many problems with faked sigs and misrepresented listings to deal with.

I have a few signed comics - Uncanny X-Men #137 (end of Dark Phoenix Saga) and #201 signed by Claremont, issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four signed by Adam Kubert, a couple other comics with Dynamic Forces COAs -- that I have no way to authenticate, even though I was present and witnessed several of those signatures in person at a convention, because of the hypervigilant nature of the industry (and the fact that I didn't pay to have them authenticated when I bought them 15+ years ago).

• ▶ Reply