Question about PSA/JSA "Guarantees"

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

How about offering the Ebay buyer the option to get a quick opinion from PSA? It costs only $7.49 no matter how much the full authentication costs. I use the service a lot myself on personal purchases. The beauty is, the turnaround time is usually no more than a day, and you will get the result before the buyer pays and before you ship. It saves a lot of hassle either way. On high dollar items, I would pay for it myself and post the quick opinion in the listing. Its a cheap way to get a PSA cert without the official one.

Some of my best pickups were using PSA quick opinion. The auction prices are depressed for items without an official cert and there are a lot of bargains from individual personal collections.

And your guess is as good as mine as to know who is looking at the quick opinion items.
For $7.49 it is not their most visible authenticators, those authenticators cannot even keep up with the items that need a real cert.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

And your guess is as good as mine as to know who is looking at the quick opinion items.
For $7.49 it is not their most visible authenticators, those authenticators cannot even keep up with the items that need a real cert.

is steve grad looking at QO for 7.95 a shot? like Richard says, I don't think so. so who is giving this 'qualified' opinion if the A team isn't exactly impressing me? the c team, the d team, a guy who wants to make the d team?

ask joe o, he won't say.

A vintage muhammad ali signature with the less common 'A frame" capital A came back not authentic during a quick opinion, because the guy looking at it wasnt familiar with that variation. that's how good they are.

[Plinvestments]

Originally Posted by travrosty

is steve grad looking at QO for 7.95 a shot? like Richard says, I don't think so. so who is giving this 'qualified' opinion if the A team isn't exactly impressing me? the c team, the d team, a guy who wants to make the d team?

ask joe o, he won't say.

A vintage muhammad ali signature with the less common 'A frame" capital A came back not authentic during a quick opinion, because the guy looking at it wasnt familiar with that variation. that's how good they are.

I don't know for sure but I think there is an escalation process. I believe that even their most junior authenticators can pick out the majority of the bad fakes out there. On the tougher ones, they get a second look from a senior guy. I had a Ronald Reagan sig looked at once. I was pretty sure the subject piece was an autopen sig gone awry. Oddly, psa didn't render an opinion for like 3 or 4 days. I was told they needed their specialist to look at it. That at least is reassuring, and sure enough, they reached the same opinion I reached, not likely genuine. But back to the point, the authenticity of an item doesn't matter to most people, the sticker does, since there is a market for stickered items. Unfortunate, but that is reality. A positive quick opinion will almost always get a thumbs up if you were to send it in for the full cert. I have yet to see a quick opinion fail. Same with auction LOAs. I have seen precertified lots of 50+ 8x10s. Do you think they spent more than 15 minutes precertifying the lot? Psa now gurantees all precertified items will get a sticker.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

"I don't know for sure"

That is the key part of your posting. Nobody knows for sure what goes on with a quick opinion.

[Exhibitman]

We've got a mish-mash of issues here:

1. Is it genuine? Unfortunately, it is all subjective and speculative unless you were standing there when the item got signed. In court we call it hearsay evidence; I heard from someone else that something happened.

2. Is it certified and what does that mean? People pay for the cert as a substitute for knowledge because no one can be sure of anything they haven't witnessed. It is an expert [hopefully] opinion but many experts are for sale. In litigation we call the process of finding an expert who will say what your client needs him to say "whore-shopping." It is worthless unless the expert happens to have a cachet in the collecting community. Anyone bought a GAI-certed item lately?? And don't even get me started on the odious "auction LOA" that some auctioneers now use. Talk about a popcorn fart--the small print gives you a set time to pay for the privilege of allowing the TPA to certify the item that you are ostensibly buying certified--if it doesn't pass them the 2nd time you don't pay for the submission, but if it does pass you pay the cost for the upgrade to the full LOA. What a great deal, just fills me with confidence. I know the TPA that already did a cursory review of the item will go over it again with a fine tooth comb to ferret out the truth rather than rubber stamping it so as to collect another fee. Sure, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn too, for sale cheap. When you get one of those worthless slips of paper and it is past the deadline, woe unto you--the TPA will solemnly inform you that the auction LOA has expired and you will have to pay the full recert fee regardless of outcome.

3. As a seller is it worth having a TPA opine? Depends. There is a misperception in the collecting base as to what a seller is purchasing with a TPA cert. As a seller I am not buying an iron-clad guarantee it is authentic--truly, that doesn't matter to me since it is just inventory I am moving. I am buying freedom from having to warrant anything when I purchase a TPA opinion. As long as I have the item in one of their slabs with the cert on it--that is critical for the sales effort--I know I can resell it risk-free to me at auction or on Ebay [if it is one of their "blessed" TPAs]. What will a buyer do, say it isn't a PSA/DNA certified item? Now, that freedom comes at considerable expense. If I am selling a common signed card for $9.99, no way do I waste the money--I will refund the occasional bitchy buyer. If I am selling something a lot higher priced, however, I will hold my nose and use the TPA service.

4. As a seller should you cover the buyer's fee for TPA? Not if you want to stay in business. Those TPA fees are very expensive and will eat you alive. Offer to cover those and your business life expectancy will be about the same as a mosquito.

And last, my buyer's perspective: I try to do my homework and buy based on what I see and learn rather than a TPA opinion. That said, I recently purchased a Marciano signed PC with a guarantee from a local seller [I only buy unslabbed from locals so I can readily sue them to enforce a guarantee if needed]. I sent it to PSA/DNA [cost me $$$] and it got dinged. I got my money back but I also ate the TPA fee. I will never, ever do that again--I cannot afford to eat cert fees like that. What that means, in my way of collecting, is that there is no more middle ground for me as a collector. Assuming it looks good to me to begin with, I will either buy a slabbed/certed item or I will pay a rock-bottom price for a raw item on the assumption that it is worth the gamble and with the understanding that I will have to shell out to get a TPA cert on it so I can sell it. The "middle ground" [decent item, reasonable price] is dead to me. And no, I don't particularly care about the sterling reputation of the seller of the item because if I ever want to resell it that person isn't there, it is just me, and I better have a TPA cert or I will be treated as the lowball seller of dodgy raw items.

FWIW, my advice for the OP is to consign the items to an auctioneer who will do the TPA for free or provide its own COA and let them take all the risks. Without a TPA cert you will be treated as the typical Ebay scam artist and see low prices on your items because that, unfortunately, is where the market has gone for the weekend warrior type.

[MooseDog]

Well stated and great post, Adam!

[RichardSimon]

Adam - you have stated "I will either buy a slabbed/certed item" in your post.
Don't you think the seller has bumped up his price to cover his cost of the slabbed/certed item? You are paying for the cert/slab, just not directly to the TPA.

[mschwade]

Nice post Adam!

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by mschwade

Nice post Adam!

but see i like the ungraded decent item, decent price. it is a marciano and it is ungraded, and at a decent price. i love that. others will stay away but if i know its good i will get it and i dont care if psa says its bad. i already know its good.

i once bought a marciano signed album page on ebay, it was uncerted, and the photo was a little blurry and a little far away, but i knew it was good, i bought it for 200, it was as good as gold. if psa, or jsa, or the man on the moon ever said no good. i dont care. i ended up selling it for 400 ungraded, with my own guarantee, which was the prevailing going price for marciano, (even WITH a TPA cert, they sell for about 400 bucks). the cert costs about 100 bucks when you factor in shipping both ways. I didn't pay that 100 dollars, and still sold it for the going rate. WHY?

Because there are people out there who know marciano's signature and dont need the tpa cert either, and my lifetime guarantee is a real guarantee, not like psa's no guarantee.


when psa said no good to the marciano, how did you know it was a bad marciano? did you ask a boxing signature expert? psa has no boxing signature expert. they have slabbed several wife signed sonny liston autographs as real sonny liston autographs, and jsa has certed wife signed liston autographs as well, and psa and jsa have both given thumbs down to authentic sonny liston autographs, one of them which belonged to me. I didn't throw it away just because they said no good, by the way. Half my collection could be no good according to them, but i know it was all good, so their opinion means what to me since they get boxing wrong so often? nothing.

You don't need to play the psa or jsa game, it just costs money you don't need to spend. fighttoys.com sets up at the boxing hof convention every year, and does well selling at the memorabilia show, and none of his items has psa or jsa certification. but he offers a lifetime guarantee and honors it. Full disclosure, I am friends with him by the way, Mark Ogren. he doesn't need psa or jsa either. it's a waste of money because they aren't known for boxing at all, what they ARE known for, I don't know.

[toybulldog]

But isn't the ultimate goal to purchase an authentic autograph? Does the Holyfield look legitimate or does it more resemble the common forged version next to it?


Does it even come close to resembling these examples of Holyfields vintage autograph? Would you rather have the Holyfield signed card above or the one below?



Why guarantee an item will pass a third party authenticator when the TPA doesn't even guarantee there opinion?

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by toybulldog

Why guarantee an item will pass a third party authenticator when the TPA doesn't even guarantee there opinion?

Because a lot of buyers want that TPA, for whatever reason (some take their word as gospel, some like the protection of a slab, some like uniformity in their collection, and most recognize the market that the TPAs have created and want greater resale value themselves). Whether or not a seller has/wants to use a TPA, buyers sure do. When I have listed autos on eBay without certs, all of the questions I get are about certs.

And what would it mean for a TPA to "guarantee" their opinion, anyway? If an item can be shown to be bunk, not by another person's opinion but actually proven to be a forgery a la laser copies, impossibly dated material, etc, then the TPAs should refund the cost of authentication. They aren't and shouldn't be responsible for the selling price of any item. It is an opinion, not an insurance policy.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

That is the key part of your posting. Nobody knows for sure what goes on with a quick opinion.

it's a secret, they don't want people to know. if people knew, they would probably be shocked to find out some guy they most likely never heard of that's probably not listed on their website and has ? hobby credentials has power to knock their item off of ebay. I use 'most likely' and 'probably' also because again, like Richard said, no one knows, which is the way they want it.

[Plinvestments]

Originally Posted by travrosty

it's a secret, they don't want people to know. if people knew, they would probably be shocked to find out some guy they most likely never heard of that's probably not listed on their website and has ? hobby credentials has power to knock their item off of ebay. I use 'most likely' and 'probably' also because again, like Richard said, no one knows, which is the way they want it.

To me, all of this is irrelevant because whoever gives the "likely genuine" tag will be backed up when and if the item is submitted for full authentication. I have yet to see a "likely genuine" fail further inspection. I'm not a huge fan of PSA or JSA but the fact remains that they created a market. PSA items sell for a premium and there are more buyers for their items. I wish it wasn't true but since it is, I have to play ball.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

I like having the protected slabs, could care less about authenticity because I don't sell. Nice if you drop them you don't need to worry about it flying out of a top loader or whatever or move around too much (depending on card etc). And unfortunately, re-sell value with a sticker goes waaaaay up (depending on item).

[thenavarro]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

I have yet to see a "likely genuine" fail further inspection.

I have personally had PSA/DNA fail items that I submitted that had received "likely genuine" when I purchased the quick opinion.

Tends to make me mad as hell when it happens, but it does happen. Had one within the past couple weeks as a matter of fact.

Mike

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

To me, all of this is irrelevant because whoever gives the "likely genuine" tag will be backed up when and if the item is submitted for full authentication. I have yet to see a "likely genuine" fail further inspection. I'm not a huge fan of PSA or JSA but the fact remains that they created a market. PSA items sell for a premium and there are more buyers for their items. I wish it wasn't true but since it is, I have to play ball.

you only think they sell for a premium, they don't, and too many people have the 'i have to play ball' mentality, that allows psa and jsa to get away with what they get away with and not provide true customer service and an accurate opinion. they have too many customers 'playing ball' that they can do whatever they want and the customers come back for more.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Plinvestments

To me, all of this is irrelevant because whoever gives the "likely genuine" tag will be backed up when and if the item is submitted for full authentication. I have yet to see a "likely genuine" fail further inspection. I'm not a huge fan of PSA or JSA but the fact remains that they created a market. PSA items sell for a premium and there are more buyers for their items. I wish it wasn't true but since it is, I have to play ball.

you only think they sell for a premium, they don't, and too many people have the 'i have to play ball' mentality, that allows psa and jsa to get away with what they get away with and not provide true customer service and an accurate opinion. they have too many customers 'playing ball' that they can do whatever they want and the customers come back for more, many of them even admitting they don't like it and think these companies leave a lot to be desired. The companies get away with it because the customers let them. If people withheld their dollars until they got their act together, they would have to change, but customers don't, so we just get a lot more of the same and it will be that way forever unless people wake up. I have sold hundreds and hundreds of boxing autographs at good prices and I didn't pay for the non-expert opinion of these companies.

disclosure: I have sent a grand total of two autographs to jsa a few years ago when i didn't know any better, and I realized no extra profit and actually a loss on an item because I got the same price that I would have gotten without authentication, and I couldn't recoup my authentication fee by an increase in sale price.