Posted By:
MarkSome great points made by Nick, Dan et al...
Simply because there is no contradictory evidence, the authentication of this particular piece seems like a huge "Leap of Faith". Especially on something with no available exemplars for comparison. Furthermore, it certainly must bother a lot of people to see this jersey go for $800 on Ebay, and $10,000 in REA.
I know that (emotionally) I felt this way, just as I did about the Ornate Pins recently featured in Heritage. Regarding those Pins, I believe that someone paid a few dollars for each at an Arkansas flea market, and they all eventually sold for 5 figures.
But those Pins were authentic, and I actually think the odds are very good for this jersey to be authentic as well. The photo (while severely flawed) does help to legitimize the piece. For the "all or nothing" nature that a Mears LOA provides the value of the piece, I just think most people want more iron-clad evidence.
Perhaps eventually, we'll see letters deeming such pieces as "Likely Authentic". I know that when it comes to Caps and Warm-up Jackets, Mears uses the terminology "attributed to" a particular player. This is largely because Caps and Jackets typically have uniform numbers written on, instead of standardized tagging. The "attributed to" wording seems to carry a bit less weight than their LOAs for Bats and Uniforms. The LOA for the Federal League Jersey in question seemed very difinitive.