LOL sorry to have started such a storm. I wasn't intending to call out Richard Simon specifically..my comments were geared towards the hobby in general.

If asking a simple yes or no question is pigeonholing then fine. Call it what you will. Either way the question wasn't out of line, it wasn't a "set-up" and it was hardly an inquisition.

I just think if you are going to use a public forum as your soap box then you should be open to some discussion. If he didn't want to answer publicly he could have done so privately. Instead he chose to respond with a sarcastic non-answer thereby prompting my response of, "Predictable". That's not "pissy" thats a proportionate response to sarcasm. Rather than leave it at that Richard decided to engage me further, with more sarcasm and rudeness. That's when I got pissy. Again a proportionate response. So really, who is baiting who? I commend the man for his passion to clean things up. His social skills are clearly another story. It's certainly his prerogative not to answer the question but no matter how many times Chris wants to tell me he did, I will be happy to point out that he did not.

I may have missed something in all these years but except for Ted Williams' son, nobody has questioned authenticity when a player forms his own company to authenticate his autographs as Favre did and nobody has questioned UD about authenticity.
If I am wrong here, please post it.

If I remember correctly, the same book that called into question Upper Deck's multlple press runs of earlier year cards (IE Ken Griffey Jr.'s rookie card), also called into question Upper Deck Authenticated. I don't know if it's just rumor or not, but I have also heard that Upper Deck had rolls of their UDA authentication holograms stolen in the 90's. Additionally, it wouldn't be hard at all to take a real UDA jersey such as that Kobe, remove the real signed "number" from the back to use on a different jersey or to use in a "sting" (I'm not implying that was what happened here but it definitely at least needs to be considered), and have a replacement bogus signed number put in it's place. Just because jerseys are purported to be UDA pieces, they might in fact not be, at least the signature portions. Additionally, at least a couple if not more of UD's custom cuts have been called into question for good reason,

Willie Mays' Say Hey foundation comes to mind as a player who's hologrammed autograph has often been called into question. Brett Bro's, who had legit George Brett signings for years, have now been called into question because of a batch of autographs, that look nothing like previous George Brett autos , that they purportedly sent back to fill customers paid requests in late 2011

Those are the ones that seem to quickly come to memory. I'm sure I have more in my memory bank but it's not coming to me right now. Trying to recover from playing in my first 5 on 5 basketball league in over 10 years tonight. My body is not what it used to be, although there is more of it, LOL

The creator of that pdf file has no clue regarding the Reagan autopen, or is ignoring the obvious. JSA is correct. It IS an autopen. Here's another one to show it:

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/a...anautopen2.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/a...anautopen1.jpg

The author makes some totally erroneous statements regarding the Reagan such as:

Erroneous statement : "An autopen signature is like a printed signature and is the same as printed text"

Fact: That is 100% incorrect. An autopen machine of that era holds a writing implement, IE, pen, marker, pencil, etc. and replicates the signature by using a matrix. The writing implement is held up and actually writes on the item that is receiving the autopen signature, it is NOT like printed text.

Erroneous statement "Autopens don't bleed through the paper"

Fact: Autopens quite frequently bleed through the paper because their is "ink", "marker", etc, being applied to an item. If the paper is porous enough for a human signature to bleed through, then an autopen signature done in the same type of ink, will bleed through as well.

Erroneous statement "Try printing with your printer, which is like the autopen process"

Fact: Printing with a printer is NOTHING like the autopen process

Erroneous statement "Things don't bleed through"

Fact: As indicated above, yes, autopens can bleed through, and frequently do.

Basically, the author's total analysis of the Reagan is wrong. I find it entertaining that he/she takes exception with the JSA rejection letter (which in a spirit of full disclosure does have several errors with it, but their conclusion is correct) when his/her analysis is full of similar type of inconsistencies . He/she let their bias against JSA, cloud their judgement on that item. Additionally, what proof does any of us have that every item that the writer claims was a copy, was in fact a copy?? I could take any item in my collection that I've had authenticated, post a story up on the web and say it was a copy and people would quote it as gospel. Autograph Alert has a very big axe to grind with PSA/DNA and JSA. You need to take EVERYTHING they say with a grain of salt.

I have no doubt that PSA/DNA and JSA frequently make mistakes. I've seen it with my own eyes and personally witnessed a lot of the politics of the autograph business, and it all involves around $$$, and Autograph Alert and it's contributors are not immune to their own questionable tactics when $$$ is involved.

If the author of the pdf can't even tell the difference between an autopen applied signature and a printed signature and/or believes they are the same as indicated with their erroneous statements, then how the heck are we to believe the rest of their analysis?? As mentioned in my post above, it's also possible the jersey number was switched out, but yet many believe the author. Does the author even know the difference between a laser copy and the originals. How do we know he/she actually didn't send the originals to get the certs? They would do themselves a big service if they would simply eliminate the portions of that pdf that apply to Reagan.

If someone blindly believes that story, then I can easily see how on the other hand there are those that blindly believe that PSA/DNA and JSA get it right every time (they don't and in my dealings with them, they've never claimed too).

Mike Navarro






Mike

This incident took place several years ago and the story was told to me by the person who did buy these items, someone well known in the hobby. I asked him for permission to use the story and his name but he did not want me to use his name here but told me to go ahead and tell the story.
Grey Flannel was auctioning in two separate lots signed typed letters of George W. Bush. They both had PSA COA's.
The letters were bought by my source. When he received them he did think something looked a bit strange. When he laid one letter on top of the other he could clearly and easily see that an autopen had been used to sign both letters. The authenticator at PSA who examined these could have easily done the same thing.
The letters were returned to Grey Flannel who immediately refunded the purchase price.
Mistakes can be made, of course. But to make this type of mistake just shows how hastily the work was done.

Here are some more athletes that have some issues in hologram distribution.

Stan Musial's Stan the Man - Have received an autographed rookie card back from them with the hologram not stuck to the card, but simply cut off their "roll" where you could basically peel it off and stick on anything and you could sign it "Mickey Mouse", and it would appear like an authenticated Stan the Man graph.

Larry Bird - Same issue as above

Bobby Orr's Great White North - Same issue as above

An athlete's hologram basically means nothing as far as rock solid authenticity.


Mike

I started a blog about my autograph experiences this past weekend and my first relevant blog entry was today and pertains to the above quote:

http://autographnation.blogspot.com/...rspective.html

I remember seeing a few Roy Campanella rubber stamped items that had been psa/dna slabbed. I'll tell ya, the ebay seller flipped out on me royally when I pointed it out to him. He insisted that it was signed..