By Steve Cyrkin
Publisher & Community Manager
February 19, 2020

Within an hour of the news of the tragic passing of Kobe Bryant on January 26, eBay was barraged with Kobe forgeries. Now more than three weeks later, the flood of forgeries has barely slowed.

The good news is that now there are a good number of genuine Kobe autographs on eBay. You just need to learn what to look for, and how to make sure you're buying the real deal.

And while prices are still many times what they were before Kobe died, they're often much more reasonable than they were during the first two weeks after his passing.

I consider Steve Grad, chief authenticator of Beckett Authentication Services, to be the number-one expert on Kobe Bryant autograph authentication in the world. And I'm not alone. Steve has professionally authenticated tens of thousands of Bryant autographs over the last 20 years—15,000 from one private signing in 2002 alone. No one has more experience.

Beginning today, Steve and I will be posting links to genuine examples of Kobe Bryant autographs on eBay, and other websites. And Steve will be calling out some that he thinks are forgeries, too.

I'll start by posting photos and links to 100 Kobe signed jerseys from licensed private signings by Pannini Authentic and Upper Deck Authentic (UDA), 100 or so total.

It's important to realize that forgers don't only forge autographs. They create fake certificates of authenticity and other documentation, and they take legitimate COAs and pair them with forgeries.

Every Kobe autograph in the photo section links below has been verified to be genuine Pannini and UDA: genuine autographs and genuine paperwork:

Genuine Pannini Authentic Kobe Bryant Signed Jerseys

Genuine Upper Deck Authentic Kobe Bryant Signed Jerseys

Beckett's Steve Grad picks 40 Kobe Bryant signed eBay listings that are likely not genuine.