Question of the Century: To Authenticate or Not?

[tazdmb]

Originally Posted by theshleps

The main benefit to slabbing is if you have a fake and they slab it which often happens it will inflate the price

Too true

[Republicaninmass]

(GAI) they were at one time one of the leaders in authenticating

I must have been under a rock while this happened



Grade the tough names, save your money to buy more auto on the easier ones.


The auction house will get a JSA letter to cover all the unslabbed items, but the tough ones should be slabbed to stand out in an auction

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

(GAI) they were at one time one of the leaders in authenticating

I must have been under a rock while this happened

Ted,
Prior to Spence breaking away from PSA to form JSA, GAI had done some decent work becoming a player in auto cert market. While never at the same level with PSA, in either acceptance or volume, they were far and away in second place, at the time. Shortly after they had started to make those inroads, the big scandal happened and they pretty much fell apart. From my limited understanding of the card market, they are still a major player in sealed pack slabbing. Perhaps this has also faded, but I am not sure.
Best,
Mark

Even though I am no fan of some of the quality of their work, money is my main reason for saying no to TPAs except for when you are about to sell. If you're going to keep your collection for the long term, slabbing is worthless, IMO. You lose nothing by waiting to slab just prior to sale. Slabbing/certs add nothing to the value of autos sitting in your home. It may very well add a premium when it goes up for sale, but this can be done at that time. Spend the money then, rather than now. Plus, you likely won't have to take money out of your pocket, as any fees will come off the sale price and because AHs typically get a discount, you'll pay less for the same service. You don't have to worry as most AHs will wish to maximize profit by slabbing/certing anything premium prior to starting the auction.

[egri]

When I got back in to collecting over the summer, I originally wanted to have only slabbed cards. But once the TTM's started rolling in...there's just something about being able to hold the card itself that made me scrap that idea. I keep the cards I buy raw in toploaders, and if they ever do get sent in to a TPA, it will be because the kids are selling them after I'm in the ground.