Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dion Hawes on February 3, 2014 at 1:47pm

Also looking for opinions on estimated value.

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 3, 2014 at 1:54pm

I think the comic and its condition would be integral to the overall value. What comics are these on and what condition are they? It's possible the signature may only be a small portion of the value.

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 3, 2014 at 1:50pm

I would need to study these in detail before being definitive, but they appear good after a cursory review.

I have a Shuster in my collection I believe to be authentic. Sorry the image is not bigger, but you can see it compares favorably with yours.

Permalink Reply by Dion Hawes on February 3, 2014 at 2:01pm

That's a nice one! These are two that were in my late fathers collection. The super #14 had been restored so didn't get much for that, and the Daredevil was signed but at auction I realized they didn't give much value consideration for the auto. So that's why I pulled my Supers from the auction.

Permalink Reply by Dion Hawes on February 3, 2014 at 2:05pm

The #147 looks to be a 7-8 and the #150 looks to be a 6-7.

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 3, 2014 at 2:12pm

Two classic books. Your dad must have had a heck of a collection. The Superman 14, while restored, it is slight restoration and I'd think it would still fetch a hefty price. It is a classic cover. daredevil Battles Hitler is also a key book and I would tend to think the Biro signature (if authentic) would not add a tremendous premium. The value is all in the book.

In my experience, comic book collectors do not place high premiums on signatures... especially on high value books. Some comic collectors actually consider the signature to be damage and think it lessens that value. For instance, a Stan Lee signature on a high grade copy of Spider-Man #1 is going to hurt value, not add to it.

However, if you have a lower or mid-value book, the signature may add a premium. For example... if you have a common $50 Spider-man book from the mid-60s in decent shape, a Stan Lee signature may add $75 of value.

IMO, the same principle applies to Joe Shuster. What you have going for the Shuster is he died before the era of mass signings, so his signature is less common.

Permalink Reply by Dion Hawes on February 3, 2014 at 2:22pm

Yeah the collection was pretty extensive 30K+ comics and 100K's sports cards. In fact when my sister and I 1st started going through it, it was 500S.F 4' high. The #14 sold in 7/12 for $1,200. and the DD#1 sold for $3,500. Yeah, the auto's are the same with sports cards, you'll kill a 10 with an auto, no matter who's it is.

Permalink Reply by James McCay on February 3, 2014 at 7:13pm

Whenever you have a question on an autograph, the very first thing you need to do is Google the name of the person with the word "autograph". Then go down the list and copy to your desktop (or make a new desktop folder) of all pictures of legitimate autographs being sold by well-known & trusted autograph sellers of the signer in question (weed out all that are priced too cheap to seem true). Then if your eyesight is good and you have decent pattern recognition skills, compare yours to the real examples (aka exemplars). It's best to have 100+ exemplars to make the best overall judgment.

If you can't find a couple of dozen examples, & REALLY want to know if yours is authentic- then you should get the opinion of a court qualified Forensic Document Examiner (ask them if they are court qualified, and/or their other accreditations) specializing in the field that your autograph falls under (i.e.- sports, celebrities, comics, astronauts, etc.). Then you'll get a Letter of Authenticity that no "Authenticator" has the right to question.

All true Forensic Document Examiners who charge a fee for their hypothesis are well trained in Forensics and the scientific process of giving an educated opinion. This is something "Authenticators"- like the mostly useless ones in the sports (PSA/DNA & James Spence) autograph hobby do not have. These Authenticators are giving you nothing more than a super quick guess for a similar price that a FDE charges.

If one person has an in-person signature & says "it looks just like yours, so yours is most likely authentic" that is the blind leading the blind. I don't mean to offend anyone, but you need to know the FACTS here. I trained for over 200-hours in-person (plus many more hours at home) for almost a full year with one of this country's best FDE's. As soon as he told me I was qualified to give professional opinions on autographs, I went ahead and started busting as many autograph forgery sellers as I could find. I NEVER ONCE charged anyone a fee for my services and NEVER WILL. I investigated PSA/DNA & James Spence over several issues of authenticated forgeries that you never hear about anymore from anyone in this hobby that is dying quickly due to way to many years of corporate & seller fraud which I worked tirelessly to try to control from 1997-present. But since I was the only one doing this, it became an impossible task by the early to mid-2000's.  

This is sad because ON CARD Certified Autographs from the card hobby made from 1990-2013 (I stopped collecting this year because of medical issues) are the most authentic autographs you can find in both sports and non-sports, with the Authenticity Statements printed right on the cards and the fact that an autograph is a WHOLE piece of memorabilia, card companies never took the chance of releasing even questionable autographs. But since they are connected so closely to sports cards- they are being mostly ignored by non-card collectors (but their prices continue to drastically rise) as the sports card hobby continues to crash. 

Best Wishes & BE CAREFUL!

James McCay

Permalink Reply by Dion Hawes on February 3, 2014 at 9:48pm

James,

I am SOO happy to hear your reply! As I have a Thurman Munson auto that I and nearly everyone here has opined that it is as legit as can be only to send it off to PSA/DNA and have them deny its authenticity. With the strangle hold that PSA has on the industry, it's almost as "if they don't bless it, then it isn't." Could you steer me towards a FDE that I could have it looked at by?

Permalink Reply by James McCay on February 4, 2014 at 9:34am

Dion,

I am SOOO happy to be amongst true autograph collectors who don't try to bash each other on a regular basis. Especially those who care so much about the truth that they spent thousands of hours researching everything from every angle over a very long time. All I want is to tackle the problems and find solutions that benefit the future of our hobby. Autograph collectors are a much more mature group (than card collectors) from what I've seen, so I'll be glad to help on this board as much as I can.

I personally am not experienced enough with Munson to give an opinion, but I do know his "T" does vary quite a bit which is unusual as the first letter a person signs is thought about much more than any other letter they sign, hence the first letter is usually the most uniform. PSA/DNA probably would not authenticate it just because he put his middle initial and the autograph is VERY clean (very clear letters) compared to most others.

This is the last time I'll mention sports cards, but they are what caused PSA/DNA and Spence to become the evil powers ruling the autograph hobby that they became. The sports card hobby has been degrading so badly since 2003 or so that 99% of the fighting is seller vs. collector or buyer which makes no sense whatsoever. It's supposed to be seller vs. the CAUSE of the problems: crooked Price Guides, crooked card companies and crooked sellers! While this was going on Spence and PSA/DNA snuck in and ruined the reputations of several Forensic Document Examiners who were quietly doing their jobs OFFLINE for 40-years or more meanwhile Spence-PSA/DNA just started in the grand scope of things, but they spent a fortune on advertising online and in all sports card price guides making the uneducated think they were something special when in truth they were/are about as far from that as they could be. 

I can only recommend one person as a Forensic Document Examiner and I'll tell you why. I'll only recommend someone whom I trust 100% for very specific reasons that would make perfect sense to most. I'll explain below.

Donald Frangipani was the biggest FDE that the "authenticators" went after because at the time he was the best known sports autograph Document Examiner in the hobby and most of his reputation was EARNED by word of mouth by autograph collecting experts. Donald was in this business for decades (as of 1999) and never once personally went online as of then. His daughter went online, but he didn't really want to even know what went on there back then. The "authenticators" used this against him and if it weren't for Donald's unquestionable expertise and qualifications, he could have been run out of his business by unqualified greedy jerks looking to take over the industry. We all know who they are...

In fact I investigated Mr. Frangipani for fraud myself in early 1999 based on Tim Flatt (mail order forgery seller after he bankrupted Signature Rookies sports cards) illegally using Frangipani's name as "his" examiner. So I called Donald and he said "if you come and spend the day with me, I'll show you everything you ever wanted to know and I'll pay your cab fare- we were both in NYC)The truth was Frangipani never heard of Flatt & proved it by showing me his client list. I spent the whole year of 1999 with Mr. Frangipani in his Brooklyn, NY office for well over 200-hours at my expense to learn everything he was willing to teach me and it was an awful lot! He has a full scientific lab with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that he uses daily. 

Both "authenticators" and Forensic Document Examiners make mistakes as this is not an absolute science. These days we all know how many mistakes PSA/DNA and Spence made/makes: LOTS OF THEM! Compared to the mistakes FDE's make: very few of them. Frangipani had a group copying his LOA's and the "authenticators" made it look like Frangipani made those mistakes when it couldn't be farther from the truth. So Frangipani spent whatever he had to in order to make his letters virtually counterfeit-proof in by 1998. Donald worked with law enforcement and all those problems were buried a LONG TIME ago, yet "authenticators" still talk about these things like they happened yesterday...

Watching the 'authenticators' go after Donald became a joke after spending just a few weeks with Donald and the real reason became crystal clear why they were bashing him- they wanted just a small piece of the business Frangipani had and they'd get rich. Frangipani had so much business that he never needed to advertise or go online in the 1990's & before. Donald is an extremely professional, polite (even when I grilled him at first), and gifted man. He has more letters of his qualifications (from courts, Federal courts, politicians, celebrities, and the list goes ON & ON) on his private office walls (ALL OF HIS FOUR WALLS)- more than I've seen anyone in ANY profession have. They are not in his public area for all to see like he's showing off either. I have exceptional instincts and always have, and every part of me was screaming that this guy was completely on the level. As time went on NOTHING changed my feelings about him. It disgusted me when PSA/DNA paid off eBay to exclude Donald Frangipani as a qualified eBay autograph expert. But now knowing everything I know about eBay now, they are worse than all authenticators combined!

I got into online fights with Richard Simon (the self proclaimed "authenticator" expert) over Frangipani and Donald offered Rich the same thing he offered me: come to my office anytime you like at my expense to see for yourself. Simon refused, then Simon refused to let me go to his office and see his set-up. I saw Simon at the Cleveland National and went up to his table to shake his hand and call as truce and he literally got up and ran away from his table leaving all his stuff behind unwatched while Mike Payne (former CEO of Beckett) laughed hysterically! The next time I was near his table he had three HUGE guys sitting around him. So I again went up to him and extended my hand explaining that all I wanted to do IN THE FIRST PLACE was shake his hand because our arguments got out of hand. He refused to shake my hand even though it was he that incited the arguments stating "the FBI will prove to you about Frangipani when he's indicted like everyone else". THAT NEVER HAPPENED OF COURSE! And of course Simon never responded to me again. 

Donald Frangipani has worked for the FBI as an expert witness both before the "authenticators" went after him and AFTER the FBI Operation Bullpen report came out. Yet everyone seems to have forgotten all of this- but I have not since I only remember the truth.

I highly recommend Donald Frangipani as a Forensic Document Examiner. His sports fees are much more reasonable than other FDE's that charge many times what Donald does. Of course the more obscure & expensive the autograph, the higher the price because FDE's spend much more time (sometimes weeks) working on special items. Last time I saw Donald he was working on a 200+ year old hand written/hand made Hebrew Bible that was to be given as a wedding present to a special family in Israel. Do you think PSA/DNA, Simon or Spence gets items like this to examine?

Just type Donald Frangipani Document Examiner in Google and he's the second person listed showing all his contact info. Just call him and talk to him BEFORE you spend a penny. Tell him you spoke with me if you wish. I haven't spoken to him in several years because I'm so sick, but he should remember me. 

Always willing to help,

James McCay

Mr. Zipper- see above. :)

Permalink Reply by Randy on February 4, 2014 at 10:32am

The "L" that you mentioned is pre printed on the card by the manufacturer, not an autograph. So much for your FDE knowledge. The actual autograph in question is the "unclear" one above it.

Donald Frangipani is a joke. He knowingly authenticated thousands of forgeries exposed in Operation Bullpen and authenticated every forged example provided to him through the HBO Sports program.

You have to be kidding me!!!

Next you'll be defending Drew Max, Christopher Morales, etc.

You're a excellent writer but unfortunately the story is all fiction.

Permalink Reply by GraphingMlb on February 4, 2014 at 10:35am

Oh my goodness...Loved the Part of just google Donald Frangiapani. Sure it pulls up his site first thing but articles and articles of his mistakes and ya that HBO special was a hoot as well. Great writing though Mr. McCay.

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