[bcbgcbrcb]

As many have stated, I have to agree that it can be impossible to tell if a photograph was produced 2 or 3 or 4 years after the image was taken from an original negative, it’s a best guess system in place and I assume that PSA does the best they can based on that. Surely not right 100% of the time. However, I believe the photo authentication process was introduced primarily to weed out the obvious fakes/later generation photographs that had been running rampant on eBay and elsewhere 10-15 and more years ago. A common target were Negro League images depicting major subjects and especially powerhouse teams, where maybe 1 out of every 10 were original type 1 quality while the rest were basically “fakes”. Some people bought into and lost some pretty big money for the day and the implementation of PSA’s photo authentication system at least provided an avenue where not so knowledgeable buyers wouldn’t have to lose their shirt. Now, a seller could be requested by a potential buyer to have the photo authenticated. Nearly all of the major auction houses have adopted this policy at this point. Just like the autograph authentication process helped to clean up that aspect of the hobby. Once again, they don’t always get it right but better than nothing that was in place before that when fakes were running rampant throughout the industry.