autographed baseballs - selling opinions

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Posted By: davidcycleback

If they are all authentic and you got them all in person, you can consign them through Scott Gaynor and get fair market dollar, as he's a trusted dealer in autographs. If you want to include your letter, even notarized, that the sigs were obtained in your presence at a show or whateve, that would be good.

I've bought autographs without LOAs before, and it all depends on who you buy from. If the seller is well known and respected in the autograph hobby, there's no issue. If you print out the eBay auction page and save the packaging, no one will doubt you bought the Walter Payton signed football from Mike Gutierrez, Jim Stinson, Dan Knoll or whomoever.

As far as team signed balls, there will often be clubhouse signatures of star players. Obviously the ball will be worth a lot less, but will still have value if most of the signatures are real. Team balls are actually easier to get a handle authenticity wise over single signed star balls, as the collector can look at the lesser player signatures as see if they look good. See how the common player sigs match up with known real examples. If the common players look good, that's a sign of authenticity. Someone forging an entire team is going to put the effort and skill in the Mantles and Ted Williams sigs, not the two year wonders and guys who batted .233. It's one thing to forge well a Mickey Mantle, it's another to simultaniously forge well 20 different common signatures. Newbies think they should put all their authenticity attention looking at the Mantle sig, when they should also be checking Lou Skizas and Charlie Silvera. The newbie would respond, "But no forger specializes in Lou Skizas and Charlie Silvera." And I would say, "That's my point."