David Or Fuddjical?

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by mr2686

Leon, I absolutely understand what you're saying and why that could be a problem. It is touchy for those reasons and for the following. Without any discussion of why an autograph is bad, there can be no knowledgable dialog to possibly "correct" the person that thinks a good autograph is bad. By just taking Chris's word (and I'm not trying to pick on him, believe me) the rest of us are taking a leap of faith (and as we all have discussed recently, a leap of faith in this hobby is very dangerous). Now, all I know about Chris is that he starting doing the videos on youtube exposing the autographs he thought were bad. Now Chris is on here and trying to expose bad autographs on ebay and cc, etc. All of this is great, but he's asking everyone to take him at his word...which wouldn't be as hard if he, or anyone else in the same situation for that matter, would come out and either explain why they are bad autos, or at least discuss their qualifications. Let's face it, even Richard has said that he (Richard) made mistakes on some Mantle autos in the past. Has Chris been a long time collector? Guess what, I have too but that doesn't qualify me as an expert on some stuff (granted you could pick anything off of CC and be right 100% of the time). I'm not saying Chris is wrong, and I'm not saying he doesn't know what he's talking about, all I'm saying is that if you can't see both sides of the fence on this issue then there will never be a solution to the growing problems in the hobby.
Like I said, I don't have the answer, but I do appreciate the chance to discuss this here.

Mike,
I for one would like to speak up for Chris' qualifications.
Discerning bad autographs from the good is part art and part science. The "science" part being a good exemplar file to use to compare the questioned autograph to what you absolutely know is good (your exemplar file). The art part is in a persons eye, for want of a better term. You have the eye to do it well or you don't. Many advanced collectors don't even have this. I have seen bad items in many a quality collection.
I know after being his friend for some time now,that Chris has the eye. I trust his opinion. He knows what he is talking about. I have seen examples of it and I have seen items on ebay, that were well done forgeries, that he has pointed out to me. I trust his opinion and always will.