Warning: Disturbing Autograph "Authentication" Material!
 

Disturbing autograph "authentication" material after the click:

http://haulsofshame.com/blog/?p=11043

What a f*cking fiasco!

Wow, what a gread read.. thanks for posting it...

This is something else, brings it to the next level. WOW!

They need to find out who consigned it the first time around, who bought it, and who consigned it the second time around, and the relationships between these consignors, buyers and all of the people involved in this transaction from the auction house, the authenticators, everybody. It's time they got to the bottom of this because it's not just someone's "opinion" anymore", it's gone today, here tomorrow.

First red flag is how a Wagner signature could be so light ont he original consignment when all the other signatures are a bold 9 or 10, and the first day cover doesn't show signs of duress or sun fading. Then how all the signatures could be deemed a 10 just two years later without the same authenticators remembering such a remarkable item, especially with the Ty Cobb signed letter of provenance.

The first thing an authenticator would remember in my opinion is "I remember that", "didn't it have a faded Wagner signature though?" It was just 2 years prior.

And he had to issue a new cert for it since it was now James Spence-PSA, while the first time around it was just James Spence. So there can't be an excuse that it already had a coa, no need to look at it again and issue another one, just use the first cert.

It was PSA backing spence the second time around so when he said all of the signatures were now a 10, that fancy spectral comparator machine must have not been plugged in?

As I ask each time something eye opening like this shows up - Is THIS enough now to realize there is a serious problem here with these same recurring companies?

Disturbing
 

Disturbing to say the least! Why I always say this is why I stopped collecting autographed anything many years ago. To see all these FRANKENSTEIN pieces pop up years later to be questioned really makes you wonder if many of these items were real in the first place.Sad fact of life my friends is if there is money to be made someone will always find a way to expliot it for all it is worth. Sad part to me is all this " increditable material" sitting in great collections can it all be real? We are suppose to believe that a person with such vast knowledge of autographs issues a COA,LOA, Piece of garbage A, what ever you want to call it ,then a person puts down 10,20,30,40 thousand on an item,only to find out years later that it is fake,junk,garbage. Who is held accountable? Laughable fact is all these "experts" laugh at all the other "experts" when their items are called into question and deemed fake.
Fact: no one can tell even an "expert" that an autograph is 100% good or 100% bad. Its a GUESS. Eduacated as you think you are sorry its still a guess. Until someone puts money in an account to reimburse the poor guy who got stuck with your A$$ wipe LOA,COA then my friend you have no right calling yourself an expert.

What is the opinion of board members on fakes/forgeries in other areas of baseball collectibles? How about gloves, bats, uniforms, pennants, trophies, etc.? I find fantasies and reproductions in pinbacks, but they are not really all that common.

I'm not pointing any fingers here, just theorizing...what's to keep any of these so called hobby experts from pocketing huge sums of money on forgeries themselves? With what some of these items sell for their word on one or two items can be worth what I make in an entire year.

Postal Stamping
 

I have not read the article yet, so maybe I should not comment...? But the first thing I notice is the Cooperstown Postal Date Stamp. Is it my eyes or does the top pic have a date of 1929 and the bottom one 1939???

Sorry if I have just stated the obvious...

I just realized its probably just a blurred image... Sorry about that.

disturbing
 

Dan,
I agree 100% Jeez let me get my expert (of which Im one myself) to give me a COA on this worthless piece of crap for my next auction,make myself a quick 30 thousand and by the time anyone finds out I will be long gone! As Eddie Murphy would say "hay its christmas time I need to buy that GI Joe with the kung foo grip. I feel it out there there PANICKIN ,PANICKIN I tell ya"

This whole thing makes me sick. Although autographs are not really my thing it is just bad for the hobby in general, whether it's memorabilia or cards. We just had some recent posts as why some people feel the hobby is in decline and when you constantly see articles like this it is not helping to add people to the hobby..

warning
 

Shawn,
I think its just the blur all the cards in the article seem to be dated June 12 1939.

I was just looking at the Huggins & Scott auction going on with all those JSA LOAs.... certainly makes me wonder...

I just looked through Huggins and noticed this. Is this Gehrig good? Have never seen a auto like this.

http://hugginsandscott.com/cgi-bin/s...l?itemid=41451

Boy do I wish I was related to Robert Ballard. I'd be suing the pants off of Mr. Spence and Mastro for ruining my grandfather's name.

Wow. what a story. Maybe the second cover had the reverse invisible ink. This is getting wayyy out of hand...wow.

It's gotta be good, it has a JSA LOA, doesn't it??? :D

The video spectral comparator they claim to have that detects erasures must have been loaned out to Batman at the time.

Yikes!! Another black eye for the hobby....... :(

+1:(

This story is incomplete and also may be misleading. This item was sold at auction, so I am assuming it most likely had an "auction letter of authenticity", rather than a full letter. It is pretty common knowledge that their "auction letters" are pretty much quick opinions. And are far from the same thing as fully authenticating the item. They do not give detailed results everytime on auction letters. Since they are just looking at the items briefly and moving on to the next, I am sure they are not getting caught up on things like: removals, enhancements, etc. Those are things that the buyer may not find out until later when they are sent in to be fully authenticated. Some people say, "why should I send it in to be fully authenticated when it already has an auction LOA? Well that is why, your "auction letter" is really just a quick opinion (which is better than nothing, but far from fully certified). Also you may be saying, "well they why would I buy an expensive item that has only an auction letter?" The answer is, it is risky. The item usually does not sell for as much because of the reasons stated above. Or if you do buy it, make sure to get it upgraded to a Full LOA immediately, just like it says to on the auction letter. So you still have the option to return it.

In the article, my assumption is further backed up when Nash mentions that Spence noted in the so called "LOA" the autographs were all 9's and 10's. This is the tall tail sign that this item carried an "auction" letter of authenticity rather than a full letter. Because Spence does not grade autographs. This most likely happened because in an auction letter, the actual "lot description" from the auction house is entered into the auction LOA as the description. So when Nash says, "Spence noted they were 9's and 10's". That was most likely the auction house noting in that in their own description and used in the auction LOA which is still common practice to this day.

Also, this "incident" occurred 11 and 13 years ago. That was literally the first few years this type of authentication was introduced. I am sure they have learned a lot since and moved on. Good Luck trying to get something like that by them now, especially if it was being fully authenticated. I am sorry, if this is the best the criticizers have, this is not good enough. In my opinion, the good they do far outweighs the few instances such as these.

Well, as a non user of TPA who proudly sells his own material without TPA, and you Casey as one who does use TPA, we have to agree to disagree. And I would vehemently disagree with your use of the words "few instances."
Travis can outline way more than a few as can Peter Nash and others. I have already given details of three instances that happened to me where PSA was DEAD WRONG. Two of the three were Babe Ruth autographs.
And Casey since you opened the door in your post to auction certs. well you yourself know what a scam that is.
And though this is OT don't get me started on the autograph registries. Why don't they just start a registry for the size of your penis? Oh damn, I just gave them an idea.
ps. If that p word is anathema to a mod then please go ahead and change it.

I had won a lot of signed football cards around 400 from an auction house that was a mix of years with over 200 signed cards from 1985. It had a JSA Auction LOA with it. When I got the lot in, it literally took me less than three minutes to realize that a large number of the 1985's were blatant forgeries. Three minutes!
But for some reason JSA wasn't able to pick them out at all.
There were forgeries of people who have been signing in the mail since their playing days. people like Harry Carson and Charlie Joiner. People who's signature literally hasn't changed at all or very little since the 70's. I am familiar with many players sigs that were in this lot but there were some I was not familiar with and there would be duplicates of several players and many with different style sigs. Knowing that players change the way they sign, I looked for many of these "variations" and a large % I never found. In this day with the internet, you can usually find examples of players variations in the way they sign.

Anyway, here is an example of what I got from that auction house.

Richard,

Would this penis registry idea of yours include a hologram sticker on the actual unit? This could get ugly.... :p

Casey, as the saying goes: In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

Are you the "honest man" or just playing stupid here?

Pathetic attempt at an excuse and to say they don't make mistakes like that today is not paying attention. If an auction LOA isn't worth a darn, then they bamboozled collectors for years. If a 1939 induction hof signed piece by all living members of the inaugural class only warrants a quick glance, then that incompetence is just as bad as if they took a hard look at it and passed it.

If anything is worth a good inspection, it is something like that. there is no such thing as quick opinions for such important pieces like this.

This piece getting by them is one thing, but you seem to miss the crux of the story, that it got by them twice, with the wagner signature darkened the second time. quick opinion auction loa or not, they would remember such an important piece as only 2 years went by. for them not to remember it, especially with a cool ty cobb provenance letter that would stick out in your mind, is too hard for me to swallow. i would remember it easily.

They wouldn't do anything like that today? Did you see them recently cert a Thomas Sayers 1860's boxing autograph and issue a FULL LOA, only for both psa and jsa to take the letters back because they admitted there are no exemplars for Sayers autograph? If they are guilty of that craziness, there is nothing, and I mean nothing I am surprised about these days. And they only retracted the Sayers certs because collectors pointed it out and embarrassed the auction house and the authenticators, prompting them to turn tail and bail on the piece.

To foist the auction LOA excuse is pretty weak. They put their name on it. spence/guttierez, they need to be held accountable. Otherwise anyone can claim "auction loa" amnesia and get away scott free? You put your name to something, you take ownership of it. Otherwise it is the best gig in the world. cert something without any responsibility for your cert? We certed it, just kidding. try again, another cert, aw, just kidding. Don't hold it against us!!!! Some of these piece are 20k, 50k, 90k. C'mon. A quick little mistake we should sweep under the rug? I think not.

I have at least 50 instances of them being DEAD WRONG, just on boxing, not just on something that could go either way, but obvious, obvious mistakes that only incompetance or not paying attention, or authenticating too fast, with people authenticating out of their expertise could bring. Not just on small names, but Sullivan, Jack Johnson, fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Dempsey, Louis, Schmeling, Ali, Liston. Were these all "quick opinion auction loa's? No! Does it matter if it is a quick opinion or not. No, not in my book. They want to opine, whether auction loa, ebay quick opinion, or full loa, they better get it right, they are affecting other peoples time and money.

Defending the indefensible like this just really winds me up. Like I said, is THIS enough now? Evidently not for some, well there's more, a lot more, just wait.

Yes agreed the auction letters are horrible. Especially for the reason I mentioned to you the other day. When dealing with auction letters for high end items, proceed with extreme caution. If the auction house really cared about the buyer and has nothing to hide, then they should use all Full LOA's when dealing with valuable items. I believe Huggins started using all full LOA's for this reason. Buyers don't pay as much for an auction letter. very risky

Also I understand your frustration with the disagreement over the 3 instances you experienced. I have been through similar experiences myself. But I feel those situations are a little different because they rejected the items, rather than passed them and found out they were wrong later. Even they might tell you the autographs may very well be authentic they are failing, they just did not feel confident enough in them to pass them at that particular point in time. When dealing with high end autographs that are going to be eye balled by everybody, I think that makes sense. If they have any doubt at all, they probably just fail it. Especially if they are at a "show" and are on a time-clock. They are not going to sit there at a show and think about any one item when they have all of that stuff to get through in that one day.

Rick,

What exactly are you referring to when you say that? That I am playing stupid? It is obvious, the story that is being talked about here is about an "auction letter of authenticity". That means the item was only briefly looked at. Maybe even possibly through an image on the computer rather than in person. And images in 1999 were far from what they are today. That means no machinery was used for this "quick opinion" such as that crazy machine he has available when items are fully authenticated. In fact, since this item was sold by the same auction house twice, this item probably never was fully authenticated. Rather, auction LOA's both times. Which would mean Spence did not take pictures of the item for his exemplars or to put in the letter. So in that case, he would not have pictures on hand from the first time he authenticated that item in 99.

What is stupid is buying an item for 20K based solely on an auction letter. An auction letter is in now way a guarantee it will pass a full authentication process. More like the 7 dollar PSA quick opinion offered on ebay, in a fancier form. So tell me Rick, what exactly is your argument here? I am not playing the "honest guy", rather I am pointing out things from this article that do not add up and people may not be aware of.

Travis, Yes I believe auction letters are not worth a darn. if you print out a quick opinion offered on ebay I believe it is worth the same as an auction letter. And it is not Spences fault the auction house decided not to fully authenticate the item. If someone is to blame here, I would blame the auction house. Such a valuable item should be fully authenticated to eliminate any doubt for the buyer and reduce their own responsibility. I am sure Spence would have rather fully authenticated the item and take pics for his registry, but that is up to the auction house. Is it possible they wanted auction letters for a reason? In this case, it is self explanatory why they would.

And yes I keep hearing about the same story over and over again about the Sayers autograph. Everybody knows it happened, at least they made good for it and took it off the market. That is one instance. And the 50 instances you mentioned, should not include items they turned down. Only should include the ones they did infact pass when they should not have. Which does not happen very often, but of course it does happen. Why? because if they have any doubt they usually don't pass it. Hence why so many people hate them. And I would rather keep it that way. If they start passing items they have doubt on, at what point does it stop? Next thing you know they would be passing everything and end up like the rest of terrible authenticators out there. I would rather them keep their standards strict and not forgiving.

Casey, it looks like your business (http://theautographexchange.com) is heavily invested in Spence "authenticated" items. You're free to defend him.

Btw, how old were you back in 1999? :)

Scott, I wonder if you would get an un-authentic rating if it was found to be trimmed? :D

Rick, thanks for understanding my defense. Yes that is one of my websites. But I do not "rely" on TPA's. I "self-authenticate" any item I buy beforehand. I don't buy items unless I am 100% confident in them. And then before I sell them, I issue them my own COA with a personal life-long guarantee. And then I also provide a major TPA full letter to go along with it for a variety of different reasons.

Also does it really matter how old I was in 1999? What matters is I am heavily invested in this hobby and deal with these types of autographs for a living. My life is autographs all day, everyday. Constantly researching and learning 7 days a week. When you are using your own money to put up for these types of autographs, believe me you take a pretty high level interest in learning what you are you doing. If a detective solves a crime from 30 years ago, does the judge say "actually detective, how old were you 30 years ago when the crime happened?" Or would the judge just take into account the detective is a professional and it is his job to know and solve the case.

Did you "self-authenticate" that Walter Johnson ball you're offering? It looks like the usual forgery that can be authenticated by JSA and the likes.

Oh, and trust me... your age DOES matter.

For me personally, I think there is something wrong when an authenticator is charging for his quick opinion, then charging someone again for their "real" opinion. Step back for a minute, doesn't that just not seem right?

I mean an authenticator gets paid by the auction house to authenticate something with an auction LOA, and basically they are saying this piece of paper means nothing until whoever buys it from the auction house gets it "upgraded" to a "real" LOA. Meanwhile the auction house is marketing the item as real because it has the "approval" of the alphabet boys and the alphabet boys get paid twice!

Doesn't this almost seem like a conflict of interest? The authenticator takes money out of his pocket and the auction house's pocket if he doesn't pass stuff. If you ask me, the auction houses and the authenticators are greedy because I don't believe most auction houses are holding these authenticators responsible for this garbage. Why? because they are getting paid by people who eat this garbage up in their auctions. Meanwhile, the alphabet boys get paid twice and smile all the way to the bank!

It is my belief that if you are paid by someone to authenticate something, you take your time and do it right the first time and charge what you are going to charge. I have seen to many cases where something got an auction LOA when it was obvious it wasn't even looked at by anyone who was knowledgeable about autographs

Ouch!
 

Yes, Mike and I would also imagine that the immediate necessary removal of said alphabet sticker would be bitch....;)

I just love the fact that every one of casey's posts end with the phrase, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right!"

Does that include issuing loa's for very high priced sports memorabilia?

Rick, what exactly is the reason you are "attacking" me? It seems it is my age for some reason? or possibly because I did not agree with everybody else about this issue. Either way, not quite sure what your problem is. I am just expressing my opinion after looking at all the evidence that was given in the story. And I gave reasoning behind it, so you either agree or you don't. We are all entitled to our own opinion. In my opinion, auction letters mean close to nothing. they can not be taken seriously. I believe TPA's only charge about 10-20 dollars to do these auction letters, so obviously they are not going to spend much time with each item. Just look at briefly for things that stick out to them, and then they move on. As compared to when they fully authenticate, they typically do a much more thorough examination (especially for higher end items). For instance, here is a yankee team ball on ebay with an auction LOA, http://www.ebay.com/itm/1957-NY-Yank...item1e6a6a3961. In my opinion, that Mantle is a "clubhouse" autograph. But it does not say that in the auction letter description. I am not surprised to see this, it is an auction letter. These are the types of things to be careful of when buying items with auction letters.

And no, I will not "trust you". Why would I do that? That is what scam artists say to me as they are a offering a bogus Babe Ruth autograph for me to buy. I would trust somebody a lot more like Richard who has been in this hobby since the beginning and I know he has lots of experience, which is everything in this hobby.

Travis, I did just get a nice chuckle from that last post. I got the quote from Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own". Love that movie.

But to answer your question, I only use TPA's because the places I sell pretty much force sellers to. And since I like doing business there, I comply with their rules and don't risk not using them. I sell higher end items, and everybody just feels more comfortable with the TPA. That includes the places I sell them, my buyers themselves, and also makes me feel better about it as well when selling them. In the end, there are much more reasons for me to continue to use them, rather than the cons not to use them.

Wow, I am getting lots of heat on this topic, I may have to back off a little bit. Its like trying to stop marbles from rolling off a slanted table.

So basically an "auction letter" is just a money grab by the authenticators that enables auction houses to better sell merchandise. Informed buyers should give them little to no creedence. Why would an authenticating house that desires to be taken seriously even participate in such a program?

Oh, there's a dime to be made. Nevermind.

So who is on the hook for an auction house letter? Is it the auction house or the ABC? And if it's ABC and I have an obvious forgery that has an auction house letter from said ABC what kind of pressure does that put on them to fully authenticate an obvious forgery?

Casey, I'm not attacking you. As long as you're the "honest man", I will not.

Since you keep bumping this thread to the top with your replies more people will learn about this fiasco, so I should rather thank you for that.

I don't collect or sell autographs, in fact, I don't know shit about them, but one thing I do know is how crooks have trashed and KEEP trashing this hobby.

The only scam artist here is the one that issued a certificate for the signed envelope that is being discussed in this thread. Trust me.

I disagree...there is more than one scam artist at work here.

Touché

People that inspect potential Rembrandt painting don't just look at it quick for a minute then decide whether or not it is a Rembrandt. Sometimes it take years. The companies have fallen into the trap of taking a process and adapting it to a business model that stresses squeezing every last penny as quick as they can make it instead of respecting the process and trying to maximize profits only within the confines of what allows for a thorough and complete inspection with safeguards in place.

It is the memorabilia version of killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs. The goose isn't dead yet, but it's bleeding profusely.


These TPA's should slow down at least some and make sure they look for erasures on every piece, and really do a good thorough job, even if it takes awhile and the profit on that piece isn't as much as they would like. Integrity of the process to protect the collector should trump profit at ANY cost.

Just slapping a sticker on it and moving on to the next piece may have worked for the last dozen years, but that is changing. GAI is no longer around, and the other companies haven't seemed to learn anything from that story.

Of course these companies have to make money in order to stay in business, but they also have to stay in business in order to make money!

I agree that a company charging a fee to judge the accuracy of their own LOAs-- and, not only that, but saying this should be done on the LOA-- is, well, a curious concept.

I give quick opinions often (as many of us do)-- people email me photos of their items asking for my quick 2 cents--, but I'm hardly going to allow that opinion be printed out as a LOA for an item I've never seen in person. One, I can't authenticate something from digital photos and, two, I value my reputation.

agreed, many times i give my opinion, but i say that only seeing it in person could i be sure. not going to issue an loa because some scan looked okay.

auction loa was a pig in a poke from the beginning, pay me more to upgrade then i will say it is really real. It is all about revenue streams first and foremost with them.

So if I pay $20,000 for a signed FDC that was given an auction letter by Spence am I pretty much guaranteed I can get a full letter from Spence even if on second look it's an obvious forgery?

The basic responsibility and work for choosing authentic autographs for the auctions should be the auction houses themselves. If, in addition, they wish to have outside people give quick opinions, that's perfectly fine if not commendable.

well, they said at the time that auction loa was a "preliminary review" and if the inspection for the full loa differed with the auction loa, then you would get some type of credit for another authentication in the future. i guess you would have to take it up with the auction house then, but of course the auction house employs the TPA to avoid that type of liability.

now psa has a pre-certification, which is an auction loa only under another name. but the pre-certification does guarantee that it WILL pass for the full loa, but i dont know that the process they use to issue the pre-certification is any different than what they used for the auction loa's, which in many instances was looking at scans of the items via the computer. probably why jsa issued an auction loa for a mike tyson preprint that sold at heritage auction a couple of months ago with a coveted 'JSA AUCTION LOA'

its all very confusing and i think the companies dont mind it being that way, they are impossible to pin down just as to what an auction loa and precertification really mean.

and we have tried to ask those questions multiple times with a certain auction house, and all we got was circular logic that didn't lead anywhere. we kept asking and asking just what an auction loa was and what is the difference now that they have pre-certification instead of auction loa, and what the deal was, and we got doublespeak, doubletalk and babbling that we couldn't understand.

Can't pin them down on how exactly they inspect each item for an auction loa, pre-certification or full certification for that matter. They don't seem to want to care to explain it either. They all want to push liability onto the other party, with the ultimate excuse is that it is just "their opinion".