Help with PSA/DNA LOA Bat terminology

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by JoeDfan

Despite the wording on any LOA, I collect lots of game used bats; and I have personally found PSA (and Mears) to be extremely helpful.
I mostly collect small time stuff; I am not buying PSA 10 Ruth lumber, so I could not comment on the big sandbox items.

But I personally have no problem sending in a bat. I do not sell many of my bats, but if I ever wanted to, I think having the LOA gets the deal done much faster, and at a higher price. Probably because for some reason, the general public seems to trust John Taube's opinion more than mine.

I used to trust MEARS, a couple years ago I contacted them about items in their auctions that were absolutely fake or no way could be attributed to the player, I gave a list of reasons but the items were sold anyway and they never even responded. I stopped buying from them altogether.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Jim65

I used to trust MEARS, a couple years ago I contacted them about items in their auctions that were absolutely fake or no way could be attributed to the player, I gave a list of reasons but the items were sold anyway and they never even responded. I stopped buying from them altogether.

As Mears likes to say, the LOA's are really Letters of Opinion. If you collect bats from a given era and read a lot of letters, you can learn a lot from reading thosee letters. Reading them helped me figure out what counts as good evidence that an item was game used or that it could have been used by a given player.

At the same time, I now read the letters closely. Auctions can pick things from the letters that lead me to infer things about the bat that the letters don't exactly say. The letters themselves can incline me to leap to conclusions that aren't entirely warranted, but if they describe the bat thoroughly and acccurately, then the letters are still very useful to the educated collector.

BTW: In my experience, John Taube has been objective. Others will have had more experience with him. I used to buy a lot of bats from Mears, and if there was a mixup they treated me very well. Their auction mislabeled a bat now and then, but I still liked the bats that I got. Lately, however, they haven't been auctioning or evaluating much that I want.

[eastonfalcon19]

I got one of my bats authenticated ( I won't go into to much detail of who it is etc.) and Taube authenticated it as "Pro Stock". Yet at the end of my LOA he says that there was an order placed by the player for the exact measurements my bat was which was for 12 bats in June of that year. There's at least 2 other bats that sold at major AH that are the exact same specs and time period as my bat and they were considered "Professional Model" bats. Those bats that sold didn't have any kind of provenance with them and neither does mine. There's a big difference in price between Pro Stocks and Professional Models as you all know. I'm still scratching my head whenever I look at the bat and don't fully agree with the LOA of my bat.

[JoeDfan]

Originally Posted by eastonfalcon19

I got one of my bats authenticated ( I won't go into to much detail of who it is etc.) and Taube authenticated it as "Pro Stock". Yet at the end of my LOA he says that there was an order placed by the player for the exact measurements my bat was which was for 12 bats in June of that year. There's at least 2 other bats that sold at major AH that are the exact same specs and time period as my bat and they were considered "Professional Model" bats. Those bats that sold didn't have any kind of provenance with them and neither does mine. There's a big difference in price between Pro Stocks and Professional Models as you all know. I'm still scratching my head whenever I look at the bat and don't fully agree with the LOA of my bat.

Oh, that sucks. Did you ask why it was different? Usually, when one of my bats turns out to be different than what I thought, there is some tiny thing that they know or see that I didn't pick up on.

[eastonfalcon19]

Originally Posted by JoeDfan

Oh, that sucks. Did you ask why it was different? Usually, when one of my bats turns out to be different than what I thought, there is some tiny thing that they know or see that I didn't pick up on.

No I didn't. One of the bats I saw while looking through one of my old auction catalogs.

[bigfanNY]

My 2 cents. I am not a game used expert so when I buy a bat I look for one graded a 9 or 10 by PSA. And I have always been happy with the bats. Just wish I had more room to display them.

[JoeDfan]

Originally Posted by bigfanNY

My 2 cents. I am not a game used expert so when I buy a bat I look for one graded a 9 or 10 by PSA. And I have always been happy with the bats. Just wish I had more room to display them.

Exactly my problem!