[thecatspajamas]

I think one area where widely-recognized authenticators have helped is in the area of online sales. Not necessarily in terms of having more real material out there and less fake, but simply in terms of sellers being able to sell signed items for decent prices. Most collectors simply don't have the opportunity to get to know any authenticators outside of "the boys," and frankly, aren't interested in doing background checks on every individual authenticator that the various dealers know and refer to. That's not to say that those authenticators' opinions aren't as valid or shouldn't be trusted just as much if not moreso, but most collectors don't want to have to put in the time researching authenticators any more than they do learning to verify the autographs themselves. You can gripe about it all day long, but most buyers are lazy, plain and simple. They want sellers to do all the work, summarize what it is they're selling in 55 characters or less, and be assured that what they are getting is authentic. If it's "branded" with a major authenticator's logo so that they don't even have to read the line where you tell them who has authenticated it, so much the better. It's much the same mentality as buying brand-name clothing. They go to the store knowing they want to buy pants, but rather than testing out all the pants to see which is most comfortable or made of a better quality material or has the best stitching, they go straight to the name-brand store and get whatever looks best on the store model. A buyer knows he wants a Mickey Mantle autograph, goes to eBay and picks from the PSA or JSA-authenticated ones listed. He might compare prices among those and select the cheapest one, but there is clearly a brand-name shopping mentality there, not an evaluation of the quality of the items themselves. If they happen to know that a Kevin Keating brand authenticated autograph is just as good as a PSA or JSA, they might consider themselves a hip insider and include those in their search, but 99% of buyers are not going to go to the trouble of figuring out who's who, who has worked for who, and who can be trusted. They're just going to go to their favorite brand of "the boys" and start their shopping there.

That being said, perhaps a list of trusted alternate (meaning not PSA or JSA employed) authenticators could be compiled, debated, culled and boiled down for those of us who do not have the opportunity to know these other individuals personally? Because frankly, without getting the Good Guys' names out there, it does little to no good to have them authenticate an item that will be sold to the general public [edited to add: in order to add value other than personal satisfaction that the autograph is authentic (in other words, in order to use the authentication as a selling point, the authenticator must be known to the buyer)]. MAYBE if there was a semi-official list of trusted individuals whose merits and mistakes as authenticators had been debated that could be referred back to, MAYBE then you could get at least some buyers to look at it. MAYBE. It would still be a long, uphill battle for sellers, but at least maybe it wouldn't be a 90-degree climb.

Probably such a list should be started as a separate thread. I haven't searched the archives for such a thing, but even if there is an old thread similar to this, it could probably stand to be revived and updated every so often.

Any other thoughts on how to get some other good names out there? As a buyer, I would love a short list of who can be trusted, but even moreso as a seller, I would like to still be able to make sales. It would be very helpful to have a thread that I could point potential buyers to (the small percentage that read past the listing title anyway) in which the merits of a particular lone wolf authenticator have been publicly discussed. (Preferably a thread without profanity in the title...)