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Posted By: <b>Bill Panagopulos</b><p>Well said, Mr. Jaffe.<br /><br />While we await your response to my earlier inquiry, Mr. Morales, just a few more questions, if you don't mind.<br /><br />Elaborating on your areas of expertise a bit, it seems that you also authenticate a good deal of non-baseball material, that is, historical and pop-culture items. As I (bragged) before, I've sold a lot of autographs in my time, but there are many fields I need help on. I'm not bashful in asking for assistance, because frankly I've never encountered any dealer, auctioneer or authenticator who considers himself fully competent to authenticate EVERY autograph extant. No one can contain that amount of expertise in the human cranium (except, perhaps, an "idiot savant"). <br /><br />Now, you obviously do an awful lot of authenticating of baseball material. But according to websites I've viewed and catalogs I've obtained, you've also authenticated:<br /><br />The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, John F. Kennedy, Orville Wright, Eric Clapton (with the members of Derek and the Dominoes and Cream), Jefferson Airplane, The Band, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Grateful Dead, Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Allman Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Who, Sitting Bull, Boston, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Bobby Darin, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, cast members of The Godfather, Caddyshack, American Graffiti, the Wizard of Oz, and The Blues Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Buzz Aldrin, KISS, Frank Sinatra and the "Rat Pack", Bob Marley, Muhammed Ali, Neil Armstrong, Clark Gable, Cole Younger, George A. Custer, and hundreds more. <br /><br />How were you able to handle enough material and obtain enough experience to confidently authenticate these items? Most of these names are the most forged signatures on the market, and their ethical authentication requires much more than a "cursory" examination. <br /><br />And some of the items you approved are of extraordinary rarity, yet appear in dealer catalogs, showrooms, and on web sites with alarming frequency, selling for a fraction of their true value. How could a Beatles signed album sell for only $15-20,000, even in a retail gallery, when auction records show such albums selling well in excess of $75,000? And if they are indeed authentic, I would certainly like to know the source - and buy a few bushels full, send them to Christie's, and retire. What do these galleries and internet auction houses know that we don't?<br /><br />In the HBO Sorts expose, your associate, Mr. Frangipani, was asked: "When you gett all these items coming in, boxes and boxes...you don't say...what the hell's going on here, where's all this stuff coming from?...How can there be this much real stuff" <br /><br />He replied: "Oh, I always ask myself that question.". <br /><br />Mr. Morales: Do you ever ask yourself that question?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />