A Jimmy Spence authentication question.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Originally Posted by travrosty

Here we go again. deflect, change the subject, because there is no defense for the item I have shown. typical.

Mr. Mueller can answer for himself, he has put forth an authentication challenge publicly to anyone with no takers.

Spence must not have anybody willing to defend what he does when no one speaks up for him except to accuse me of something. Then they just bring up someone else like morales, mueller, someone else and claim i 'attack' spence or 'attack' the tpa's. Just go start a morales, or a mueller thread if you want. But this spence thread has more than made its point when inevitably, people try to derail the topic at hand with other diversions. happens every time.

I saw a cc thread recently when cc and morales were lambasted, items from their auction shown and name calling began. i dont care but notice no one came online and tried to steer the topic to someone else. no one defended cc or morales by saying, well, what about this other guy, lets look at him, dont talk about cc or morales, this other guy over here did this, and so forth.

But we constantly get that here when the sacred cows of spence, jsa, grad, psa come up. they cant debate the facts or choose not to, so let's switch the topic.

It is an abbot and costello routine every time, but instead of saying "i don't know" which is instantly followed by "third base", it is the word spence, or psa, instantly followed by someone yelling "Morales".

Third party authentication companies don't mind a bogeyman, so they can claim that the hobby really needs them to save collectors from these bogeymen. It gives them a reason for being. Find a monster and then tout yourself as the white knight coming to save the day. No one ever questions the white knight when there is a monster around. When the monster is sick, the white knight might get nervous as no one needs a knight without the dragon.

The case of the disappearing wagner autograph certed by spence was one of the biggest stories i have ever seen regarding authentication, and the rug sweeping began. Where was everybody?

Notice no one on this board that I am aware of has any morales certed items at home. but do they have spence and grad certs? wonder why they won't say anything to critique them? maybe they have a vested interest in the certs they have at home and want to protect them? Not everyone is like this but some are. When GAI was equal to PSA I bet no one would criticize them out of fear also, but when they declared bankruptcy, their certs plunged in credibility, and everyone piled on because there was no more intimidation factor or backlash for speaking out. They were fair game. No downside to criticizing them. Now people with a collection stockpiled with psa or jsa's certs don't want the GAI phenomenon to happen to them. And some people have thousands and thousands of items certed by psa or jsa. Quite the incentive to slap down someone like me for speaking out at basic issues making valid points.

For full disclosure I don't have Morales, JSA or PSA certed items. I do my own homework and if something I buy has a cert, I simply place it in the wastebasket since they don't guarantee their opinion. When someone guarantees their opinion, I will keep the cert because it's then a warranty.

I have always said, I have never been against the concept of third party authentication, I just don't like the way it is being done now and can't endorse the current system of what I consider fast food authentication and no guaranteed opinions.

Mueller is not a TPA. But his opinion is valued by myself. If Spence of Grad's is valued by others, that's great, it's a free country.

I'm not deflecting anything, Travis. I wasn't there when JSA examined that particular item but I'm sure after looking at literally thousands of autographs (both good and bad) over the years you don't always have to examine certain autographs for a long length of time to determine authenticity.

That Jeter forgery certed and sold by Todd Mueller Autographs was determined by me to be a 100% forgery in one second. All I asked was how your expert Todd Mueller determined that one Derek Jeter signature (not 150) to be authentic? Maybe someone here other than you, Travis, can answer that question.

Travis, you question JSA certing that 150 signature item. My parallel question is how Todd Mueller certed that single (not 150) Derek Jeter pathetic forgery?

Travis, you want to attack JSA that is your right here on Net54. You want to attack and bash PSA; you have that right, too. You have your agenda, Travis, and I have mine. You want to attack a company that gets it right 95% (probably higher in my opinion) that's your right, Travis. Then I will defend that company that gets it right 95% of the time and I will attack someone like Chris Morales, Forensic Investigator, whose certed autographs I have looked at for a long, long time and have yet to see one autograph that he actually got right.

You praise Drew Max for getting that Joe Louis signed bell examination correct on the Pawn Stars show, but not a peep from you about Drew Max getting the FDR Letter To Clergy wrong on the Pawn Stars show. You bash John Reznikoff for mis-identifying that Al Pacino signature, but not a word from you about Drew Max and that Bram Stoker signed Dracula book debacle on the Pawn Stars show.