JSA and PSA/DNA are the best things to happen to this hobby

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

Wayne,
Sorry guy, but I have to disagree with one thing you stated. The volume of autos they handle is absolutely not a factor. If they accept more than they can certify, that is entirely their problem. I couldn't care what their volume is, and it shouldn't be the customer's problem. They are selling a service based on expertise, not relative expertise based on how busy they are. For them to fall back on, well, we did the best that we could considering how many we have to do, is entirely BS. As a physician, I am not going to be cut any slack, when I misdiagnose your illness just because I tried to see 50 people in 4 hours. If you're paying the same money for that appointment as you would if I only saw 10 people in 4hrs, you'd expect the same quality of care. If they can't maintain their business by doing lower volume and ensuring the quality they promise, then perhaps they should get a new business model.

The volume has a lot to do with it. Mass marketing and mass production happen in many fields, and just like in those fields, when a consumer wants quantity at a cheaper price, quality is sacrificed. That is a consumer's choice. The TPAs are losing your business but gaining countless others because of their efficiency. Some people just don't care so much. This ain't medicine, man, on any level really.

Let me ask you this: Who does a better job at authenticating autos than these
TPAs? There may be several people you can name. I could, too. Now, how many autos are they authenticating? To take a proximal example, I trust the opinion of Mr. Simon here way more than the generic face of these TPAs, but if we started asking him to cert the sheer volume that PSA/DNA is handling, he simply wouldn't be able to do it. Would he hire people? Would he train people? Would he turn the business down? Who knows, but something would have to happen to his business model.

Originally Posted by Lordstan

I guess we should add to the definition "To make more valuable. To increase resale value."

Correct in spirit, but wrong in execution. We need not change the definition of authentication, but recognize that what the TPAs do is something different. If they were authenticating only, their fees would not directly correlate with the value of an autograph. Yet they do exactly that. TPAs, in effect, take a percentage of a potential selling price of an auto with their stamp. In that regard, they are more akin to marketers than authenticators. View them that way and you may see that their business model is not as broken as you think.

That doesn't mean you have to like them. They can be ignored like most other facets of this hobby.