POLL: Who is responsible to reimburse collectors for bad autographs

[Caseyatbat]

Dealers use major TPA's because it allows the items to be sold for money. For instance, a Mickey Mantle signed baseball with no TPA typically sells for the 350 dollar range. The same ball with a PSA letter will most likely sell for the 600 dollar range. That is a big difference. This happens because the buyer feels more comfortable buying it because it was authenticated by a nationally recognized TPA.

Yes its true there may be more knowledgeable smaller scale authenticators out there, but they are not major companies that are nationally recognized. If they decided to expand and become major companies like the other TPA's, maybe they can push them out and take over. But until that happens the larger ones are going to be the ones in demand. Not everybody can know about the smaller scale authenticators doing it out of their "basement", even if they are actually better at doing it.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Caseyatbat

Dealers use major TPA's because it allows the items to be sold for money. For instance, a Mickey Mantle signed baseball with no TPA typically sells for the 350 dollar range. The same ball with a PSA letter will most likely sell for the 600 dollar range. That is a big difference. This happens because the buyer feels more comfortable buying it because it was authenticated by a nationally recognized TPA.

Yes its true there may be more knowledgeable smaller scale authenticators out there, but they are not major companies that are nationally recognized. If they decided to expand and become major companies like the other TPA's, maybe they can push them out and take over. But until that happens the larger ones are going to be the ones in demand. Not everybody can know about the smaller scale authenticators doing it out of their "basement", even if they are actually better at doing it.

Casey - I am not sure if you were referring to my prior post but the names I mentioned are mostly nationally recognized autograph dealers, not small time authenticators.

[Caseyatbat]

Yes I was referring to your prior post, sorry for the delayed response.

[alanu]

Dealer. If you bought a brand new vacuum at walmart and it was broken, who would you take it to?