SGC is now authenticating autographs

[travrosty]

The problem is how do collectors judge how good they are? it's not accuracy, it is whether or not they get the cert and they can buy and sell on ebay and auction houses. If it gets slabbed and accepted on ebay and the auction houses, then they are doing a great job, aren't they, regardless of whether or not they are accurate? These are two different things. my standard of whether or not a company is doing a good job is whether or not they are accurate, period.

We have already heard collectors say that if psa says its good, thats good enough for them, even if the autograph is no good, because they can sell it in the slab and that's all they are looking for.


Why even send it to this new service when psa and jsa are doing such a bang up job??? if this new service just takes any evander holyfield "signed" trading card and encapsulates it, then they will be doing a great job too!!!!

Most collectors only want the certs and slabs and couldn't care if they are accurate and wouldn't now how to judge accuracy anyway, because when someone like me points it out, i get accused of "cherry picking" and nitpicking. It's only accuracy, it's not like it is the ability to buy and sell on ebay and auction houses, which is all that counts to most collectors. Don't mess with that. Accuracy falls by the wayside and is a secondary concern if it is a concern at all.

CLARIFICATION, someone said "before it even starts." It has started!!!! We just don't know who the authenticators are, if they are going to disclose who looks at the autograph or not, if they are going to show exemplars they used, if they are going to give a "detailed" explanation if the autographh fails. All of these questions are unanswered. I have sent them emails and haven't got a response. It will probably be a psa and jsa "clone job". Just slab them and keep going. Keep the collectors happy, bread and circuses. And it exists this way because the big services want it to be this way, they don't want a focus on accuracy, just acceptability in the hobby, which they can influence and control without them necessarily being accurate. Once it turns into an accuracy standard, then they are in trouble, they don't want that, because then they would be required to be accurate! So they keep touting the acceptability standard, GO WITH US, IT WILL BE ACCEPTED IN THE AUCTION HOUSES AND ON EBAY!

There are two kinds of real, abc and xyz company real, and 'actually real'. A lot of collectors are only concerned with abc and xyz real, they couldn't care less about actually real because i have emailed some and PROVED that their slabbed autograph is only abc and xyz real, and is not actually real and they tell me to go jump in the lake.

Someone send me a PM and tell me who michael root is, and why he has less than 1 YEAR's exposuire on JSA's expert page, and how that qualifies him to be the lead authenticator for this company? How many certs has he signed in the past? What is his specialty category? Anything about this guy????? And why is considered taboo to ask questions about a new guy authenticating?

Because certain people here and elsewhere don't want the answers to come about. they want the status quo because the status quo slabs their autographs, pays their bills and keeps them on the coat-tail train. We wouldn't want an accuracy and transparency and accountability debate to break out because that threatens the good thing they (the collectors, the hobby insiders and others who profit) have going. I have gotten banned from another site (some autograph periodical joke site) for saying these things, but thank God for free speech here. I have to give this site credit for that.