COA Stickers Affixed to Cards

[Archive]

Posted By: Mark Anderson

"Mark - I am aware of the current partnership - that's why I asked the question at the end of my post; if this card was submitted to you for encapsulation, do you remove the sticker and slab it?
I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the sticker got put on the card through JSA directly, before their partnership with you (and not through SGC); and JSA has no encapsulation facilities."

Hi Matt,

We would actually require this be resubmitted under the new JSA/BGS service. It is highly unlikely, but theoretical that a stickered (non-encapsulated) item could have had alterations done after the authentication. For instance, since BGS offers optional autograph grading, let's say a Mantle card was signed but had a few skips in the signature. In theory, someone might try to touch those skips up to get a higher autograph grade. Thus, the item would be be re-authenticated before being encapsulated (and with a new JSA serial number). As for the old sticker, that's a dilemma. We will not encapsulate cards with a PSA/DNA sticker, but that is because, 1) the same argument as above (regarding possible alterations after stickering) and 2) doing so might be viewed as Beckett validating the PSA/DNA opinion, and we aren't in a position to do that, as we don't purport to be autograph authenticators.

It hasn't happened yet and maybe never will, but I believe that, if the items passes re-authentication and the old JSA sticker was left on the item, the card could still be encapsulated, but the surface grade would suffer. We would not remove the old sticker. The other option would be to require that such examples can only be encapsulated, but not graded. [We currently offer three choices: 1) encapsulation/authentication only, 2) encapsulation/authentication with an autograph grade, or 3) encapsulation/authentication with a card grade and an autograph grade.]

Hope this helps,
Mark