How strong do you think our hobby will stay?

[thenavarro]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

It is sad that the autograph hobby if filled with so many fakes (I read online that an estimated 75% of all autographs in our hobby are fake) how can I enjoy what I collect when all it takes is one bad scandal and everything touched by PSA or Beckett would be worthless? And now from what I’m reading we can’t even trust companies like Topps or Upper Deck in regards to autographs being real. Either players having their friends and girlfriends signing their autographs, to companies not actually witnessing players signing (sending players stacks of cards or sticker sheets to sign) to now crooks using high speed printers to print out autographed cards with factory authentication stamps on them. Is anyone else worried about the direction autograph authentication is going in our hobby?

If PSA or JSA or Beckett or ABC or whomever get rocked by scandal all you have to do to stuff they've "touched" is crack the slabs. It's not hard and takes less than a minute generally. If it's stickered just remove that if you choose, some are harder than others but they all come off.

You don't really seem like you are gung ho on collecting autographs, so don't. It's not everyone's cup of tea and that's perfectly fine.

Find something you enjoy and that doesn't worry you. Collecting is much more fun that way.

Good luck,

Mike