Posted By:
David Atkatz<<For most casual hobbyists, so much of this bad material is floating around that they basically confuse it for being real as it is commonly seen (and unfortunatly sold as real by dealers - propelling the need for authenticators who I assure all do not let 99.999999% of this material slip through).>>
My point exactly.
If you're often spending upwards (and sometimes quite a bit upwards) of a grand on an autograph, you shouldn't be a casual hobbyist. If you are often doing so, but are not qualified to judge authenticity yourself, you are an investor, and not what I would call a serious collector.
To my mind, the qualifier serious has to do with the depth and breadth of one's knowledge, and not with the depth of one's pockets.