Question of the Century: To Authenticate or Not?
 

Hey guys, you are the experts so I value your opinion and advice.

My question is when it comes to TPA such as PSA, Is it better to get autographs authenticated and slabbed? Below are the Pros and Cons I came up with but would love to hear your opinion/advice on this.(Im talking about PSA as Im not a big fan of JSA or GAI)

Pros

Slabs offer protection for cards

If I was to resale or leave my collection to my kids they will have better resale value and no question about authenticity when they go to sell them


Cons

Heavy to store (try putting 100-200 psa slabs in a box and lift it!)

If PSA has a major scandal, all those authenticated slabs are worthless

Hard to view these in an album, as the pages/albums get heavy when you have too many slabs in an album.

Well. You know where I stand. I would only authenticate right before you are ready to sell. Use the company that is the most in favor at that moment. IF you die right as the TPA you chose has a scandal, then what is your family going to do. I would rather leave instructions to take my collection to a big auction house and let them deal with the certs/etc.

Regarding your points above.
1) You can always buy card holders that will protect your card a lot cheaper than it costs to slab.

2) "no question about authenticity when they go to sell them". I'm sorry, but this statement is totally false. TPAs offer opinions that is all. They do not guarantee they are correct, so all you get is some liquidity, if, of course, the TPA you chose to use hasn't fallen out of favor.

Personally, I would rather take all that extra money and buy more autographs.

The only pro to slabbing with a TPA cert is when it comes time to resell . Some buyers will only buy if it is slabbed from a TPA , but even then if the collector ( buyer) is educated a certed slabbed TPA holder is not a factor.
If you are worried about "dying" then make sure you leave detailed instructions for the disposal of your items. Also do some educating of your family.
I use slabs, ultra pro sleeves and Wilson- Jones archival sleeves and ultra pro hard plastic holders for all my items. As far as protection remember excessive handling, light, moisture, and temperature are the true dangers to any memorabilia...not slabbing it. I would not slab unless you plan to handle or show the items otherwise if you are worried then buy good protective material as I listed above.
I totally agree with Mark ( Lordstan) that TPAs offer an opinion only, and check their guarantee policy. Why pay for them to make a lot of money off you when they will give preferential treatment and pricing to an AH over you.
Save your money and put it to good quality pieces for your collection.

Excellent advice by both of the previous posters! ;)

FWIW- I hate items that are slabbed. Just don't really like the look of it. The few autos that I bought that have been slabbed I have cracked open.

And like others have stated, I wouldn't even pay to get it authenticated until you were ready to sell. Look at GAI as a perfect example, they were at one time one of the leaders in authenticating, now if an auto comes with a cert from them, most educated collectors stay away.

Thanks guys I appreciate your responses. I'm not worries about dying as I'm still young. I'm more worried that when the time comes, some scumbag dealer might try to take advantage and say hey these autographs aren't worth much I'll give you $100 for that babe Ruth autograph! And that Roberto Clemente autograph is not authenticated so I'll give you $20 for it! Because unless they collect like we do they aren't going to know the difference between a mickey mantle autograph or a Ron cey autograph. I guess I could maybe put little price stickers on the back of the top loaders with a value of the item on it or I can just tell them to take everything to pawn stars in Vegas and be on tv!

All you have to do is to give your family a list of auction houses they can consign the collection to. Even if you had the autographs LOA'd, they'd still have to go through the trouble of getting them sold.

Also, when you consign them, the AH will almost certainly get them authenticated and they can do it cheaper. If you give them to them already authenticated, they may re-authenticate them anyway.

My son just sold almost 200 items of mine on ebay- vintage signed cards. Some slabbed some not. I was alittle disappointed in the prices but even some of the slabbed ones were disappointing. The non slabbed went for alittle lower but slabbing is such a frustrating process. The main benefit to slabbing is if you have a fake and they slab it which often happens it will inflate the price but otherwise like the others say just wait till you sell and give to a good AH

Too true :(

(GAI) they were at one time one of the leaders in authenticating

I must have been under a rock while this happened



Grade the tough names, save your money to buy more auto on the easier ones.


The auction house will get a JSA letter to cover all the unslabbed items, but the tough ones should be slabbed to stand out in an auction

Ted,
Prior to Spence breaking away from PSA to form JSA, GAI had done some decent work becoming a player in auto cert market. While never at the same level with PSA, in either acceptance or volume, they were far and away in second place, at the time. Shortly after they had started to make those inroads, the big scandal happened and they pretty much fell apart. From my limited understanding of the card market, they are still a major player in sealed pack slabbing. Perhaps this has also faded, but I am not sure.
Best,
Mark

Even though I am no fan of some of the quality of their work, money is my main reason for saying no to TPAs except for when you are about to sell. If you're going to keep your collection for the long term, slabbing is worthless, IMO. You lose nothing by waiting to slab just prior to sale. Slabbing/certs add nothing to the value of autos sitting in your home. It may very well add a premium when it goes up for sale, but this can be done at that time. Spend the money then, rather than now. Plus, you likely won't have to take money out of your pocket, as any fees will come off the sale price and because AHs typically get a discount, you'll pay less for the same service. You don't have to worry as most AHs will wish to maximize profit by slabbing/certing anything premium prior to starting the auction.

When I got back in to collecting over the summer, I originally wanted to have only slabbed cards. But once the TTM's started rolling in...there's just something about being able to hold the card itself that made me scrap that idea. I keep the cards I buy raw in toploaders, and if they ever do get sent in to a TPA, it will be because the kids are selling them after I'm in the ground.