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Posted By: Rhys

As far as authenticators go, I trust Mike Guttierez of GAI the most from my experiences. I once submitted a few autographs to him years ago I was thinking of buying and even though they looked really good, he could tell that the same guy forged both items from very subtle similarities and I was very impressed (needless to say I passed on the items). However, very rarely does he actually look at the items and usually at shows some of his "understudies" will be examining your items and they are NOT very good. I have heard really good things about Richard Simon but only ever used him as part of the company PAAS a few years back.

I deal quite a bit with Kevin Keating and Jim Stinson as far as dealers go, and Phillip Marks (who usually sets up at major shows) is very reputable as well. I would consider any of those three to be Dead on as far as Dealers go and would consider anything they have for sale to be authentic. These guys also stand behind everything they sell and have been around forever.

The card companies simply set up deals with individuals for the autographs which come in their packs. EXACTLY the same way they make deals with Kit Young for vintage insert cards. Topps will contact a dealer and say "I need 100 Babe Ruth autographs for our cards". Said dealer will then go out and buy Ruths @ a certain price and then mark them up to the company. If the dealer they use is reputable in their opinion, there is no third party involved in the deal and all is perceived to be good. I have heard similar experiences of people taking Cracker Jacks and T cards from their packs of newer cards and trying to get them graded only to find out that they were trimmed/bleached. It all works the same way and cost of third party authentication is too high for these people when dealing with thousands of signatures/vintage cards that need to be placed into card packages. They make thier money off of buying cheap and selling high to the companies so they are looking for bargains, and in the autograph hobby you usually get what you pay for.

Sorry for the windy response, but I am pretty familiar with the process since I know most (not all) of the dealers who are contracted out by these companies to find their signatures and insert cards for packs. Some are very reputable and some are not as much.

Rhys