Authenticity is Everything
Grad Collections vs PSA and JSA
Do letters of authenticity from Grad Collections bring in the same value as letters of authenticity from PSA and JSA ?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin
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Steve does it all by himself. He's probably authenticated more autographs than anyone, many times over.
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Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67
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I think the process that ACOA uses in which multiple experts are involved is much better. If one makes a mistake, there’s at least a chance that another will catch it. Doing it all by yourself and covering so many different signers with a high degree of accuracy doesn’t seem feasible. If you have to limit your time as well because of the small fee, that’s another problem.
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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF
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I agree ballroom, in fact, I just mentioned them in my post prior to reading your comment
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Permalink Reply by Manta Ray
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And what credentials do these authenticators actually have? I mean, are they qualified handwriting experts with formal certification? I don't think so. I believe these authentication companies simply offer opinions based on the reputation and status they’ve built up over time, yet I’ve seen huge errors made by every one of them. So, I rely primarily on my own knowledge and instincts; at most, if I wanted a more reliable opinion, I would turn to a certified handwriting expert.
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Permalink Reply by DR Dougherty
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There's only one way to be positive about your autographs and that's to have your items signed in front of you
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And since you brought it up. No colleges offer degrees in autograph verification. But experience goes a long way in the autograph hobby and this is Steve Grads experience.
- Industry Experience: Collecting autographs since age 8 or 10, Grad has worked professionally as an autograph authenticator for over two decades. [1, 2, 3]
- PSA/DNA: Joined Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) in March 2002 and served as its lead autograph authenticator from 2005 until September 2016. [1]
- Beckett Authentication Services (BAS): Co-founded Beckett Authentication Services in 2016, serving as its principal authenticator. In February/March 2026, he transitioned into a strategic consulting and mentoring role for Beckett's authentication team. I think most people would agree with me in saying Steve is one of the best authenticators out there. If he wasn't qualified PSA and BECKETT never would have made Steve lead authenticator and that my friend is good enough for me. It's definitely better than that group Out or Safe on Facebook that claims all their authenticators are listened authenticators with years of training and expertise. I'm pretty sure that you can't get a license to grade autographs. But I still agree all your doing when you send your autographs to get verified is your paying for someone's opinion and we all know what they say about opinions. I make my decisions based on experience and Steve must be doing something right because the competition is using his own library of autographs that Steve collected over decades. But Steve is only human and as humans we are programmed to question ourselves and that causes mistakes and Steve will tell you that even he makes mistakes. And when choosing an authenticator I'll pick the person with the least amount of errors. And if you take the number of autographs Steve has verified then take into consideration how many errors Steve has made to the number of autographs he got right, I would guess his error rate compared to the number of autographs Steve has looked at is very low. I would say his error rate is less than. 01 percent. Also like alot of fellow members pointed out. Autographs that Steve verified personally demand a premium price over autographs verified by certain other authenticators. It's my opinion that only Jimmy Spences autographs that he personally verified have the same resale values that match those of Steve Grad. But this is just my opinion and remember what I said about opinions earlier. Also we are blessed that we have our own experts here at Autograph Live that are extremely knowledgeable and personally they have helped me tremendously and I thank each and every single person who's opinions have helped me from making some serious bad mistakes and also have helped me make alot of good decisions. Thank you to all members because without you I would have lost a small fortune on bad investments.
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Are you estimating that his error rate is less than .01 percent, or do you mean less than 1%? You have the number as “. 01 percent.” .01 percent would be one mistake per 10,000 autographs.
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I'm sorry for any confusion. My estimate was 1% or 1 in 100
- There isn't any published numbers about accuracy but I did find an article that the BIG 3 strive to be 95% accurate. I also figured in the fact that even though Steve signed the LOA'S those LOA'S included other authenticators that certified the autographs and Steve's only involvement was to sign the LOA'S. Based on that and the 95% self proclaimed accuracy I concluded using Steve's experience I gave him the benefit that with his experience that alone was worth adding 4% points to his accuracy. Remember this is only my opinion and my experience with Steve verifying my own autographs. Now let's say the accuracy rate is 95%, that's still very impressive. I apologize for any confusion as that was not my intention. Again I'm basing my numbers on my own personal experience and I'm also sure alot of people will disagree with my numbers based on their own personal experience being different from mine. Also I must give credit to the members of Autograph Live. I only sent my autographs to Steve after I got several opinions from fellow members . If their opinions were the autograph was a forgery or they weren't 90% certain the autograph was real, I would never have sent the autograph in for Steve to autheicate and never would've purchased it. So based on these factors it's been my experience that Steve is so extremely accurate. Plus of the 30 plus autographs that I sent to Steve's new service, every single autograph passed verification. So once again I apologize for not paying attention when I said Steve was 0.1% accurate I definitely didn't mean he was perfect. Again thanks to everyone that has helped me with judging these autographs. Best regards Don
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A TPA who’s truly interested in achieving a 95% accuracy rate would be open to addressing possible mistakes. I had a grand total of one item removed from the PSA cert database, and it was like pulling teeth. Another member here recently tried unsuccessfully to have a very obvious printed signature removed from their cert database. The original signature appears in their own AutographFacts database! Authenticated forgeries sit on eBay for extended periods of time. I know that when Grad was at Beckett, reports of items that were authenticated in error were met with crickets.
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Grad would agree with that error rate!
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