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Is JSA now authenticating forgeries?

I am a new member although I do frequently read articles and forum posts from this site because they populate in Google search when I do research on various autographs.

Let me say first and foremost that this post is not to cause drama or ill feelings. I realize that there are a lot of people who are partial to TPA's and in all truthfulness, I myself prefer items that are certified by major 3rd party authentication companies.

I frequent eBay and make the majority of my purchases from ebay and like many of you, I usually add PSA or JSA to the search bar with whatever I am looking to buy. For instance, If I am looking to buy a Mickey Mantle signed baseball, I might query ( Mickey Mantle baseball PSA ).

While I am very capable of telling whether a Mantle is real or fake, I realize that should I ever want to resell the item that having a TPA on it will certainly help me. So, typically I buy items that are already certified. At the very least, it is a second opinion on what I already feel about the item. I don't buy simply based on the sticker, because I have seen a lot of items that I disagree with TPA's on.

My reason for this post is to call in to question James Spence ( JSA ) on some very questionable items I have been seeing as of late. Most of the items that I have seen have been Music and Entertainment. Has anyone else noticed that JSA is seemingly giving blanket authentication to items as of late. This concerns me as someone who has a large portion of my collection authenticated by JSA. While, I know that my JSA authenticated items are real, if they ruin their reputation, the resell value of these items will tank. This is very concerning. I wanted to get some opinions as to what is going on here? Is JSA going the route of Global? As a long time collector I remember when Global was actually a legitimate authentication company but in no time seemed to turn in to a blanket authentication company.

I am not trying to bash JSA but from what I've been seeing the last few months, I feel about 500% more confident in PSA when it comes to Music and Entertainment autographs. What made me decide to make this post was a conversation I had today with a guy I met at a show a while back. I would occasionally get him to have stuff authenticated if a major TPA was at a show he was going to. Well, he called me tonight out of the blue and said that James Spence and his son were going to be at his house and asked me if I had any items I needed authenticated.

This conversation made me feel that perhaps Spence is a bit to chummy with people he is authenticating for. I don't like that one bit. I don't want the authenticator drinking an ice cold beer with the person selling the autographs. It seems to be a serious conflict of interest and in all honesty, I have felt a serious decline in my level of trust in JSA.

Another interesting thing I want to touch base on is a company called GFA. There is one specific seller who is using about 5 different ebay ids to pump out countless amounts of forgeries from this supposed forensic expert.

This seller has used 5 names to sell well over 75,000 dollars in forgeries all certified by GFA. I have reported his items to eBay but because he is a power seller they seem to never pull the listings. I decided to do a PSA quick opinion on several of his offerings and all 4 of the quick opinions failed. I notified him that the items failed PSA Quick Opinion and this was his response

" It's not even worth dignifying this with a response but if the stuff I've been selling is fake, then I've been ripped off for the past year by my merchandiser. I gave up on those idiots at the "big authentication companies" when I sent them items that I had personally witnessed being signed and they came back as "likely not authentic". Why is it "likely"? Because it's their opinion..

As you can see, GFA is another company that gives blanket authentication and should absolutely be added to eBay's banned COA list.

Here is a few active auctions with GFA certs.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantle-Signed-8x10-Photo-Autographed...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dale-Earnhardt-Richard-Petty-Signed-8x10-Ph...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantle-Signed-8x10-Photo-Autographed...

In closing, I sincerely hope that I haven't offended anyone with my first post. It just bothers me to see JSA authenticating so many questionable entertainment items. It would be horribly sad to see them sell out for the quick buck.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on October 20, 2014 at 7:57pm

I agree.

Knowledgeable collectors don't need 3rd parties but probably 75% of all autograph collectors are novices and couldn't tell Mickey Mantle from Mickey Mouse. PSA/DNA or JSA give them a reasonable shot at getting an authentic autograph even if they have zero knowledge.

Most of the bad autographs exposed here from Ebay ARE NOT authenticated by JSA or PSA/DNA. They are Global, GFA, Christopher Morales, Drew Max, ACE, etc. or have some no name company or no LOA. Those are the ones the novices are buying because of price. If novices would stick to PSA/DNA or JSA, the really bad ones would never sell.

Hopefully, JSA will become more diligent in using Roger on their entertainment autographs. Unfortunately, if they have already authenticated a lot of bad ones, they will continue to exchange hands on the secondary market for years to come.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Meyer on October 20, 2014 at 8:51pm

Roger does not authenticate entertainment stuff. He sticks to music.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Shepherd on October 20, 2014 at 6:15pm

I agree that many of these are concerning Pete, particularly the one that appears to be a Carrie Fisher secretarial signature. Have you found the same concerns with Star Wars autographs authenticated by PSA?

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Permalink Reply by Pete Bendu on October 20, 2014 at 7:02pm

PSA is pretty strong with Star Wars related graphs, at least 2 of the main authenticators are long time Star Wars collectors.

I am not saying that they are perfect with celeb autographs, they have made mistakes too, but they are usually on celebs without a large number of exemplars, or samples that may be questionable. Andre The Giant, John Belushi and Jennifer Lawrence all come to mind as issues in recent months. Then there are the really questionable items that have zero explanation for how they got stickered and slabbed.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Meyer on October 20, 2014 at 8:55pm

They are horrible at Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba among other hard signers in the entertainment area. EBAY full of bad items from these signers with PSA stickers on them. JSA as well.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Shepherd on October 21, 2014 at 2:43am

Thanks Pete.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Shepherd on October 20, 2014 at 6:03pm

I agree with Randy regarding this topic. Thank you Randy. You have spared me a long reply.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on October 20, 2014 at 9:48pm

The Richard Petty & Dale Earnhardt signed 8x10 is a TOTAL fake..Even if it is a copy ( reprint ), It is a copy of a forgery.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Poulos on October 20, 2014 at 11:31pm

Was browsing for a nice Ethan Hawke to add to my collection and look what I found. This is certed by JSA and has not one.......but 2 forgeries on it. What exemplars did they use to authenticate that Ethan Hawke? That Denzel is way off as well. http://www.ebay.com/itm/DENZEL-WASHINGTON-ETHAN-HAWKE-SIGNED-AUTHEN...