[Topnotchsy]

I bought a collection of lineup cards from the 1995 Orioles bench coach, Phil Cottier. Included in the lot was a lineup card from Ripken's record setting game. The auction house assumed these were all extras, since another copy had sold years before at REA, and that was assumed to be the dugout one (it came from the pitching coach).

I paid a guy $20 to try and find a photomatch. Luckily for both of us, there was a Getty image with Phil Regan (the manager) looking over the lineup card which was an exact match. The REA one was not. I assume that came from the bullpen, which makes more sense for a pitching coach anyway.

When I sent the item to Goldin for their auciton, they felt it made sense to get it professionally photomatched. Despite being able to show them the match. Initially I was charged over $1250 for the photomatch. When I pushed back, I was able to get the price reduced to $750. For an item I had already matched. With loads of hand-written text so there many, many matches to confirm its authenticity (besides for the fact that the origin with the bench coach made a ton of sense).

I'm going to give Goldin benefit of the doubt here and assume what they charged was a pass-through. Still completely insane.

I think there is real value to photomatching for some items, and in some cases it may take real work. But this is a bit of a joke. Personally, I'm hoping that pretty soon, AI can make this something we can all do for free.