More additions at PSA Autograph Authentication
 

Rich Albersheim has now joined the PSA autograph authentication team.
That makes three vintage dealers who are now out of the buy/sell business in the last couple of months.

Auctions are the dealers now.

Are they actually out of the business, or will they continue to sell?

I've enjoyed Albersheim's recent auctions, I'd be sorry to see them go.

I believe it is the policy of PSA that they have to give up their business.
I am not 100% certain but I think that is true.

I assume this policy started after Spence left?

Hi Richard,
So I'm thinking that's Rich Albersheim, Phil Marks, but who is the 3rd vintage dealer?
Just curious...

Bill corcoran and kevin keating

Im not sure where Phil Marks went

The first 2 are
Kevin Keating and Bill Corcoran.
My understanding was Bill had to give up his business but Keating kept his.
No Phil Marks.
But the authentication process is still basically unchanged. They seem to be there only for the older and rarer items . Your ordinary players , including the Ruth's , Cy Young's , Mantle's, Jackie Robinson's etc still follow the same pattern.

But the authentication process is still basically unchanged. They seem to be there only for the older and rarer items . Your ordinary players , including the Ruth's , Cy Young's , Mantle's, Jackie Robinson's etc still follow the same pattern.


can you expand on this

Kevin Keating (Quality Autographs) is alive and well and I just e-mailed Kevin last month about an item. I feel there is an independence issue here.

Albersheim's website is still active. He appears to still have listings on ebay under the listing name extremelyrare.

Kirk
The way I heard it is working is like this . Send in an obscure or super rare autograph, for example Ed Delahanty , for a LOA and Keating , Corcoran and now I guess Albershiem will look at it and render an opinion but send in a regular one like I mentioned earlier and their regular authenticators who are still there will evaluate those as in the past .
It is inconceivable that K, C and A will look at each and every autograph submitted since relocation was not required for them , and the sheer number of submissions make it impossible to individually inspect and cert each and every submission .
So things are basically unchanged in their process just different names, albeit very respected names , on the pre- printed LOA.
Those 3 have a vast trove of knowledge and years of experience with many loyal customers,and I have bought from all 3 for over 20 years and have nothing against them for going to PSA but unless it is a rare one or a PSA LOA is required to sell an item I trust this site as well as Jim Stinson and Richard Simon as much as those 3 at this point since you don't really know who will be looking at your item and issuing the LOA at PSA now.

Phil Marks has told me that he only is selling PSA slabbed cards since the National last year.

Phil sold\is selling everything off.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

What is the status of John Reznikoff per PSA? Appraiser, authenticator, dealer and accused shill bidder?

According to his website:

Currently authenticates and consults for:
UACC, the largest trade organization in the field, since 2006. First approved authenticator/appraiser, and sole person designated to opine on “Famous Figures”.
PSA/DNA, the #1 authenticating service, since 2004, for American & historical autographs. PSA/DNA is the largest and most respected service of its kind, and the last word in authentication.
James Spence Authentication (JSA), the #2 authentication service, since 2006.
R&R Auctions, the largest monthly autograph auction in the world, since 2003.

I had gotten reliable information that Bill Corcoran had to give up his business and I had not heard about Kevin and Rich having to do so but it seemed logical to me that if Bill had to do that then the others would also.
It seems strange to me that Bill has to give up his business and Kevin and Rich do not.
And are you sure about the authentication process? I would think that Ruth, Robinson, Young, etc. would be the ones that would require their opinions rather than a very occasional Ed Delahanty or Joe Kelley.
If these three are not looking at Ruth, Robinson, etc. then who is? I am sure the submissions of Ruth, Robinson,etc far outnumber the very, very occasional Ed Delahanty.
And if they are only looking at the occasional very rare signature would Bill actually give up his business for that??

These are good points. I would guess the amount of income given to each would play a roll in these answers. It would make sense that one of them would look at Ruth, cu young, gehrig etc.

If you go to the PSA website and look at the list of their experts it states this about Kevin Keating: "He has been an autograph consultant for PSA/DNA Authentication Services since 2009, where he is now a full-time authenticator."
Though the site does not use those exact words in their descriptions of Rich Albersheim or Bill Corcoran. Though like I said before Bill Corcoran gave up his business and I would assume he is a full time authenticator. Nobody else in their listing of experts is claiming the qualifications to inspect vintage sports autographs.
I just noticed that the site also lists titles for their people. Consultant/authenticators and authenticators are their descriptions. Kevin, Bill, Rich and Zack Rullo are all listed as authenticators. A couple of others are listed as consultant/authenticators.
http://www.psacard.com/experts/

I guess the point of the matter is that as usual with PSA no one actually knows who is authenticating what and by what means they are doing it. I mean how do Bill in FL , Kevin in VA , and Rich in NV actually physically see and inspect and authenticate each item submitted to PSA because of their geographical distribution ?
That is what my friend told me about their "authenticating" process and certing the rare ones versus the more common ones , lest we forget that PSA authenticates more than just baseball autographs and with varying turn around times.

Interesting... full time indicates that they are well.. full time rather than consultants on ultra rare stuff to me.

That is a good question. I would guess the viable answer is scans??
Just speculating but personally I never would sign a COA based on just a scan.
It does seem though that the team is appearing at many card shows.

To add answers to some of the open questions in this thread, the three new additions to PSA, Rich Albersheim, Bill Corcoran and Kevin Keating are winding down their autograph businesses and will no longer be buying and selling once they have wound down their inventory.
The team will be traveling extensively and will be spending time in California regularly to examine autographs.
Rich Albersheim will be relocating to California. Kevin and Bill will be staying in Virginia and Florida.
The logistics of all this still seem to me to be possibly difficult.
IMO this might result in slower authentication times but that is my opinion only. I don't know if that will happen.

Hi Richard,
Just curious, I guess the obvious questions are:
1) Whether the autograph business is no longer lucrative or popular enough for the dealer
2) The PSA grading opportunity was much more lucrative for all three
3) A combination of both

I've been a customer of all three of these guys as well as Phil Marks in the past (as well as you and Jim Stinson :))

I really did not get into asking those types of questions and answers. I would assume they will make more money with PSA than they did in their own business but obviously they are also giving up their independence.

I hope their well-earned respect and reputations do not get lowered or damaged by going to work for a "corporation " that is a business first and as such must turn a profit to be viable.
Giving up your independence for this is a big gamble unless you are looking to slow down and get out of the day to day "rat race' of buying and selling and having customers constantly ask you when making a purchase from you "if their purchase from you will pass PSA ".

Derek Jeter Forged Signature Rookies Card
 

Before the change-over at PSA, I never observed the below-style Derek Jeter forgery authenticated by PSA....Ever.

I'd sure like to know who at PSA certed it.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEREK-JETER-...vip=true&rt=nc





Attachment 258676



Below is a recent thread I did on Derek Jeter "Signature Rookies" forgeries.




http://live.autographmagazine.com/fo...ource=activity

Why is that signature not real? Its a auto promo, would his rookie signature not look different from now?

It's a common forgery.

Jeter's autograph changed multiple times between 1992 and 2000.

Now check this out. The dopey forger used the same number (477/1000) on the below Jeter forgery on a Signature Rookies card.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEREK-JETER-...p2047675.l2557





Attachment 258686




The forger was attempting to emulate the below authentic Jeter autograph.





Attachment 258687

Thats pretty funny....they are some sneaky bastards those forgers....:):)

I am sure that PSA transparency will not change.

+1

Well, it will now ;)

Upon reflection doesn't this leave Richard and Jim Stinson as the last 2 large independent and not PSA / JSA dependent dealers out there ?

Seems so.
Unfortunately.

I would rather have two people that I can trust. Versus all the bs that has been out there for years.
Look at all the people that have trusted Psa Jsa they are up a creek without a paddle.
I hope people will now realize that the good guys finally won.:):):):):):):):)

I agree shelly. I meant it's unfortunate that the others are leaving as they were also among the trustworthy sellers who didn't need a cert to sell and back up their goods.

I also agree and it makes you wonder why not 1 but 3 of the most trustworthy and best dealers in the hobby would get out like this in such a rapid fashion and simultaneously . Maybe money really does talk ...unfortunately it never says much to me !

Perhaps you don't speak money?

I think it could very well be a strategy on PSA's part. If they hire 3 of the most prominent auto dealers and make them PSA advocates it ads to the cache os PSA and therefore reinforces the idea that a cert is needed.

What the TPAs are obviously good at is marketing. After all PSA's website lists Premium price and liquidity, Confidence, Certified for Life, Verification, PSA's covert DNA strand, and recertification as the reasons for using their service. I wonder why accuracy is not there and why confidence is second? One would think the accurate eval of the auto in questions is reason number one to get something authenticated. No?

This move could easily be just more marketing or righting the ship, so to speak, to make up for Grad leaving with some controversy.

They made them a deal they couldn't refuse.

Actually, no. The first thing mentioned by just about everyone who speaks up here in favor of TPAs is resale value. Right or wrong, if PSA says it's real, it's worth more. Hell, half the time they post a pic here to be assured it's real. Then they submit. No point wasting your authentication budget on a forgery.

With the advent of the TPAs, one aspect of the expertise by which these guys made a living--being able to judge whether an autograph is good or not--became less and less valuable to them as dealers and more and more valuable to the TPAs. As a result, in the last 15 years, as the marketplace came to embrace, then require, TPAs, those lines have crossed for one dealer after another, and this latest flood of dealers becoming authenticators feels like some kind of demarcation. With everything slabbed at shows now, after all, dealers need only the ability to find and buy autographs at less than a price guide tells them they can sell it for, no other talent required, they could be vendors of anything. Auctions and eBay bypass the dealer altogether. For a guy like Keating, being a dinosaur in this new age got to be more and more frustrating until they finally made him an offer he couldn't turn down, and he went with the flow.

Hank,
I appreciate you checking in and explaining this to us.
The fact that you are close friends with Kevin is helpful.

I don't think this bodes well for the hobby.

Sure, PSA NOW has a team of real experts for authenticating but as we know, not everyone is a fan of slabbing and paying for a TPA.

Damn there were only 5 dealers I really trusted, now I'm down to 2?
Guess all I have now are Rich & Jim's next listings :D By the way, some Vintage Football autographs please:rolleyes:

Does anyone see the possibility of someone filling the void? Hate to sound cynical (which I often am :D) but I don't see too much professionalism or integrity in the hobby these days.

What is the average collector to do? We all know the amount of bad stuff out there and it's not limited to just the high $$$ items anymore. We want to bring new blood into the hobby but how can they learn if all the teachers are gone?

Thank Heavens for Net54.

+100

I agree 100 %

I have known those three guys for a long time and do trust them. All three have bought from me often.
However, my lack of trust for the PSA corporation is still there.
I do find it ironic that three dealers who would not use PSA have now been brought into their corporate structure. The corporation now endorses three people who would not endorse the corporation previously.
Talk amongst yourselves :).
And I can understand the frustration that Kevin was feeling as Hank has described. Hi Hank, long time no see. I miss chatting with you. The Philly show was fun way back when.

PM sent with a vintage football item I just got in.

Same here, Richard, that's one thing about shows that nothing else will ever replace, the human element. I never did a show that wasn't fun, and that's why. As for Kevin and PSA, he was OK with them, in fact his name was on every one of their letters. He just didn't like the fact that the predominance of the TPAs came to diminish the respect for his own expertise as a dealer. It would drive him crazy to have to respond to the increasingly common question: "It's not slabbed, how do I know it's good?" He fought it as long as he could, but I knew what was coming and who would show him the respect he deserved for his knowledge. For several years, I told him he was next, it was just a matter of time, and he would laugh. Now I'll say the same thing to you, Richard. You're next!

Richard I sure hope not !

I will never join a TPA company, you have my word.
And I am fairly certain that my good friend Jim Stinson would say the same thing.

He told me as much today.
I for one am happy that both of you feel that way!

C'mon it's not like they took a pile of cash from coach's corner, it is still PSA and that does carry some cache in many corners in the hobby. Jim is kind of a freebird out there in Utah who likes to do his own thing but I do hope some TPA is gonna throw some money at Richard during his retirement years.

After all the posts I make here about TPA I do not think that will happen.
And hopefully I am a long way from retirement :).
And from what I understand Kevin and Bill are traveling an awful lot.
There is no way I would do that for a corporation.
Yes I do love to travel on my vacations but ,,, no way for a corporation.
My time and my freedom mean more to me than money. Really.
You have my personal guarantee right now. Me with a TPA will never happen.

Jim and I have too much fun chatting about TPA to let an actual TPA get in the way.

I hope Jim & Rich follow that view.
Heck, if they go I need to find a new hobby, and I'm too damn old to start over :D

I really doubt any of these people actually give up their business when hired by TPAs, they just arent in their name anymore. Thats my gripe with these companies is all the conflict of intrest that comes up. The job is too subjective and lucrative for me to have any faith in them.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

IMO you are wrong.
I do not endorse the corporation at all but I trust the three people to do the job right. What happens outside of their authenticating is another story and that is why I do not endorse the corporation but I have known those three guys for a long time and I do trust them.

Well, I guess it is official now . . .
 

.
.
... found the following notice posted to Kevin Keating's
Quality Autographs and Memorabilia of Virginia website this morning:

Can I throw a hypothetical situation at the TPA detractors?

Person A is a well respected authority on autographs in the hobby.
Person A is someone people turn to for opinions.
Person A charges a fee for his opinions.
Person A is able to sell his own merchandise to collectors with his name attached as insurance that the item is real.

Now: Person A finds themselves in quite a bit of financial trouble. Let's say Person A is going through a divorce. Person A needs to raise some money.

Couldn't Person A be tempted to use his leverage in the hobby and the grace of his word to defraud collectors in his time of financial need?

More additions at PSA Autograph Authentication
 

I would assume so... :(

That's exactly why I see TPA's as a necessary evil.

It's simple really.
Yes, someone in financial trouble certainly could be tempted to defraud collectors, but these TPA's are in the same position. They want to make money period. What separates an individual from a corporation is that I can look a person in the eye and discuss things with them. I know who to blame if they defraud me. Who is to blame for the errors in the TPA? The fact is no one knows. You trust a corporation to provide you with an expert opinion without the knowledge that they actually are experts.
Sure, if I knew that Kevin saw my item and said it was good or bad, I can trust that, but we don't know who is handling our items. The buyer gets a letter from a company with all the authenticator's names, but that's it.

Paying for an expert opinion, like Kevin, Bill, or Rich's, is one thing. They each have 30ish yrs of autograph experience to draw from not just a group of photos on a hard drive to compare to. Do I really want to pay the exact same amount, or anything at all for that matter, for some guy who's experience is a mystery? No. I don't. It is a good thing for PSA, etc that you and many others like you do. If I am paying for an opinion, I'd like to know who is actually giving it and what their level of expertise is.

One last difference is that if someone defrauds you, you have financial and legal recourse. If the TPAs make a mistake, it's "Whoops. We're sorry, but you are only paying for our opinion." There is NOTHING that should make you feel more secure than a money back guarantee from a dealer. TPAs guarantee nothing.

I disagree. A major corporation is not under the auspices of a single individual. If the head of PSA got into financial trouble it would be extremely difficult for them to use PSA to authentic bogus material for personal sale. There are too many moving parts and you'd be relying on too many people to keep it to themselves. You'll also have your bogus items in your own registry. There's no way that would happen in my opinion.

You mean you cannot believe that a company would bow to financial pressures to do things in a less than above board way? Really? You mean like power companies who dump toxic waste. Have you not heard about the fairly large and well known Oil company(BP) who took shortcuts to save money that resulted in the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

No, you are right. It's silly of me to think a large publicly traded company would ever do anything underhanded. (Hmm. How about the Mastro Wagner? Nah. they didn't give a grade to a card they knew was trimmed. NO way)

Edit: To me, Any authentication company who does not focus and make accuracy their prime directive is not doing their job. At least an individual puts their reputation at stake with each customer encounter. A private dealer has much more to lose by making mistakes than any of the big companies. If a private dealer had made all the mistakes that any of the TPAs have, even if done honestly, they would be out of business.

I'm not talking about cutting corners. I said if the head of PSA, for arguments sake, got himself into trouble, it would be pretty difficult for him to have his own company cert bogus items that would appear in its own registry so that he could sell them to trusting buyers. However, it would be pretty easy for Person A to do that in my example.

I agree 100%. That is why Jim Stinson and Richard Simon have continued to thrive and survive in this business that is seeing individual dealers who stand by their opinions go the way of the dinosaurs.
PSA and to some extent JSA and SGC and Beckett are companies that have to rely on volume to generate the profits needed to stay in business regardless of how many mistakes they make. In fact I would bet money that those companies have a built-in error/tolerances for certing bad autos as genuine. The individual dealer must be correct 100% of the time, they can't afford to "cut corners" in any small way at any time ....the TPAs don't have to be correct 100% of the time nor do I believe they expect to be.

ok. I understand what you mean, but the head of PSA, for example, doesn't authenticate or sell anything to my knowledge. He would not be able to affect the results outside of putting pressure on the workers to give favor to one submitter over another, but an authenticator could. If anyone working in authentication wanted to pass something due to financial gain, they could. I am not saying they have, but they could, just like an individual. Being part of a TPA does not prevent the individuals from acting poorly. In the case of JSA, the owner is the lead authenticator so could absolutely affect the decisions directly and indirectly if he wanted to.

How about TPAs giving preference to Auction Houses so that a) get more business from those auction houses b) get more name recognition and validation in the general public's eyes by claiming that they are approved and required by those auction houses? Both of those things end up increasing the bottom line for the company on the whole and, given that many executives have compensation packages that take into account the profit of the company as part of the calculation, it is certainly within the reasonable realm of possibility to happen. You don't think an auction house might consider getting a different authenticator to replace one that rejects everything?

I could see why you doing the actual certification of things you sell would be a conflict of interest. I think having an authenticator giving up their buy/sell business makes sense, but none of what you said proves the point that TPAs are a necessary evil. Bad things can be done by both the company and individual, both of which turn out bad for the consumer. At least it is easier to prove and hold individuals accountable rather than a large corporation.

EDIT: also, you don't think that management at the highest level was not involved in the Wagner fiasco? It is the most visible and well known item of any type in our hobby. Somehow a card that virtually anyone with eyes can see was trimmed was slabbed as an 8. You don't think, in this type of situation, that the management team doesn't have something to gain by giving it that grade despite it's question? Now think about if a private person was grading it. You don't think a private person would not have suffered much more dramatically had they done the same thing?

"How about TPAs giving preference to Auction Houses so that a) get more business from those auction houses b) get more name recognition and validation in the general public's eyes by claiming that they are approved and required by those auction houses? Both of those things end up increasing the bottom line for the company on the whole and, given that many executives have compensation packages that take into account the profit of the company as part of the calculation, it is certainly within the reasonable realm of possibility to happen. You don't think an auction house might consider getting a different authenticator to replace one that rejects everything?"

Thank you Mark for that one. I could not agree more.
+1!!

The conflict of interest is my biggest contention. Yes, I do think that a TPA can be complicit in giving favorable treatment to individuals, like the Wagner situation you brought up. But that end was for publicity, not to sell a fake Wagner that was holdered as real to generate that publicity. The Wagner was still an authentic card and PSA had no ownership of it.

My main contention is that an individual who certs their own items for their own resale could be a dangerous model for the hobby should one of those individuals find themselves in some trouble. I don't think you run that same risk with the TPA.

My philosophy is a collector shouldn't collect anything he can't authenticate himself.

The publicity you refer to was worth millions of dollars to PSA. They would not be anywhere near where they are now if they had not fudged the authentication of that card. So even though it did not result in a dollars profit at point of sale it was worth it to them to authenticate a card that is obviously trimmed. Corporate financial interests over integrity, every time.

I realize that but again that has nothing to do with the conflict of interest we're talking about re: autographs and authentication. PSA did not own the card. It would have been a different situation if a high level employee owned the card and then sold the card with PSA's grade. That didn't happen. But there are people with stellar reputations who do cert their own items for sale in their own stores. That is a conflict of interest to me. That model works for those people because they have great reputations and people trust them, but I don't think that model would work for the hobby as a whole because it would be easy to violate that trust.

I understand what you are trying to say, but you are getting caught up in a matter of semantics. Regardless of what you wish to call it, if a company knowingly authenticates something dubious like the Wagner, then it is a bad thing.

The term Certification of Authenticity is factually incorrect and that is where the real rub is. What does Certification mean? It's only an opinion that the item is real. Same thing for grading. The grade is their opinion based on a set of criteria, but it is still only an opinion. We all know how many times people will see cards the same grade, but are significantly different. NO ONE can certify in the way they the are implying, which is a type of guarantee, that an auto is authentic unless the certifier witnesses the item signed.

The are offering opinions. THAT IS ALL. So why is the opinion of the dealer selling of less value? Shouldn't they want to stand behind their product? It isn't actually good to have a dealer that is willing to put down on paper that they think the item is real and are actually guaranteeing something in that they will give money back should the item be fake. The TPAs aren't guaranteeing anything at all.

The value of any one opinion comes from 2 things. 1) your understanding of their knowledge of the subject and 2) you trusting that they opinion they are giving you is unbiased.
Well based on the number of mistakes, including obvious ones, and the fact that you do not know who is reviewing your submission, I think it is reasonable to question their expertise. Second, considering them knowingly doing things like slabbing and grading the Wagner card for their own corporate and personal benefit I think it is also reasonable to have some questions regarding their trustworthiness.
Obviously you feel differently. If you choose to trust the TPAs with items in your collections and items you buy it is certainly your right to do so.

What David said is the key,
"My philosophy is a collector shouldn't collect anything he can't authenticate himself."

If more people actually put in the time to educate themselves this whole discussion would be mute.

I agree with your last statement. I remember not too long ago one of the TPG's started grading and auctioning their own materials and that rubbed some people the wrong way. That's the kind of issue I'm angling at when it comes to autos and dealers.