With all the ACE talk, I find this interesting.
 

I wonder if their business will suffer. :)

Plus, JSA, PSA, Beckett and SGC there too. Something is out of whack.

http://www.nyshows.org/White_Plains_...ture_Show.html

Maybe ACE can find a new place to market itself - I see that copies of SCD will be given out for free at the show! There must be some sort of "Six Degrees of Coaches Corner" game they can all play amongst themselves...

Anyone else see the irony in the Ace of Spades in their logo?

ACE is the authenticity kiss of death...

Ace goes to the big shows. i dont know how he get submissions. of course he does the Frank and son collectible show all the time, in the city of industry, CA.

you get what you pay for I guess.

Ace website is really something else.

The 'experts' page shows himself and a Joe Mauer expert. that pretty thin on experts. The Joe Mauer guy probably knows his stuff but its like having a Kordell Stewart expert or something. But then again, why would they need lots of consultant experts on staff when Justin Priddy is on the case!

Ace
 

I remember several years ago when I was trying to finish a Perfect Game pitchers baseball. There were a few players I needed to get on the ball who didn't regularly do shows. Justin Priddy was able to get a private signing with a few of these pitchers. I needed one or two of them on my ball. I emailed him to get the details of pricing because his ad was vague. It turned out that he had a pricing tier based on how complete your item was. If you were just buying a single signature on an unsigned item the price was pretty fair. But if your item contained other signatures then the price went up. Since mine was near complete he wanted to charge me several hundred dollars for a single signature to be added! I told him I had never heard of anyone doing this. He said that since he was trying to get a bunch of completed PG items for himself to sell, he didn't want competition. What a douchebag!

That is quite turd-like. He was wanting to "participate" in the perceived secondary value of the item. That is quite the norm in the TPA world, why else would you charge a elevated scale for the same service based on the value of the name/signature you are authenticating.

Wow!! That is a story of a turd if I ever heard one.
Thanks Randy for posting this one, we are learning more and more about Mr Priddy every day.

If you sign up for his yearly subscription, you get a free ACE t-shirt and hobby bag. also you get guaranteed 1 hour turnaround on your autograph at shows.

So is he saying he can authenticate any autograph in one hour? he doesnt think there are autographs out there that might take longer than that?

A t-shirt, ripoffs on pricing, one hour authentications,,,
a new hobby star is born, though it sounds more like a carwash.
Amazing that he has not come on here to defend himself, I would be willing to bet he is well aware of Net54.

Funny shit!
 

Richard,
This is some pretty funny shit. I love it! :p

I always figured it was a risk premium--charged for more valuable items. If something were to go wrong it would be really costly to stand behind it, so you charge a bit more to everyone as sort of an insurance premium. I realize that begs the question of them standing behind their work...

Risk premium??
 

They are offering an OPINION. IMHO they are not offering anything in the way of guarantees if they get their opinion wrong.

Your only guarantee is that you will pay a higher fee if the the item is more valuable. It sounds like a guaranteed winner for the company issuing the opinion and a gouge for the person submitting the autograph.....

This is a good point. If it only cost 20 buck to authenticate a Ruth, then the company would be flooded with fakes.

I have heard that GAI started charging only if the item was found authentic. That is ridiculous, because it not only incentivizes crooks to send in every fake they can find/make, but it leads to the company lowering its standards until they will pass anything (which has happened at GAI).