Impossible Ty Cobb autographed ball passed by JSA and PSA

[Leon]

Chris Ivy asked me to post this for him. He can be reached for questions at CIvy@HA.com or (800) 872-6467.




Why is Heritage selling a Ty Cobb signed baseball that was produced after his death? It isn’t. How did PSA/DNA and James Spence authenticate the ball? They didn’t.

The answers are that simple.

This will come as a disappointment, certainly, to readers craving a juicy sports collectibles scandal, but if fidelity to truth is important to you, you probably wouldn’t be paying attention to Peter Nash anyhow. Try this Google search:

Peter Nash invoked the fifth amendment

Or this one:

Peter Nash admitted fraud

You’ll find some New York Daily News articles which will put this self-proclaimed White Knight of the Sports Collectibles industry in a proper context, and give lovers of scandal and/or irony plenty of enjoyment.

But back to the facts of this particular issue.

Whether or not the ball was ever “for sale,” as Mr. Nash contended, is not even a matter of debate. This lot was consigned to our April 26-27 Signature Auction #7051. Go and have a look at that auction online today. If someone is able to find an active bid button from this auction, or a current lot price, please post a screen shot.

This auction is in previews. It is not active. Nothing is currently “for sale.” Period.

Many of you know how the process works at a major auction house, but for those who don’t, here’s a very basic primer. For several months prior to an auction “going live,” material is consigned from hundreds of different sources. Today, as this is written, there are approximately 2500 lots slated for our April auction, and that number will grow. Not all of them will pass authentication—typically a small percentage of autographed lots will fail.

The cataloging (writing the catalog text) for an auction of this size requires hundreds of hours of work. Heritage, and every other major auction house, begins writing its catalog months before bidding goes live. Most houses don’t put their auctions in previews, but we do. We believe in giving our consignors the most exposure possible. This inevitably means that a small percentage of material visible on our site in previews is not genuine.

Heritage is one of the only auction houses that utilizes the services of both PSA/DNA and James Spence for its autograph authentication. We believe that the legitimacy of the material is of paramount importance, and our dual-authentication policy should illustrate this fact.

We fly each authentication service to Dallas after the consignment deadline so that all autographed material consigned to the auction will be in house. On this trip, the visits come within a week of our deadline to turn the catalog over for layout and printing.
So, the choices are as follows: 1) We can go back individually into seven or eight hundred lots in the incredibly hectic last few hours before our design deadline and add the “authentication tags.” Or, 2) We can add the authentication tags as we write during the weeks and months preceding the authentication process, and simply delete those lots that don’t pass when they are removed from the sale. After all, the bidding is not live, and nobody of reasonable intelligence could conclude that these lots are “For Sale” when they are clearly designated as “Coming Soon.”

And nobody of reasonable intelligence did reach this conclusion.

That’s not a comment on Mr. Nash’s intelligence. He’s very smart. He just doesn’t think that you are.

He saw an opportunity to grab some headlines, to drive traffic to his website, by making an outrageous allegation. The veracity of the statement, or lack thereof, wasn’t the issue. Imagine this headline: “Heritage has non-genuine material in previews that will never make it to auction.” Boring, right?

I can guarantee that the Cobb ball won’t be the last autographed lot booted from this auction. There are surely a few dozen lots in our previews right now that won’t make the cut.

But they’re not for sale. They never were. They never will be. And Mr. Nash always knew it.

We intend to change our policy and figure out a way to add the “authentication tags” only after the authenticators’ visits, in a way that will allow us to launch our auction on time. We have our Internet Technology department working on a way to hide the tags until the auction goes live. It’s apparently more complicated than it sounds, but as long as there are people like Mr. Nash out there desperately dreaming up scandals to deflect from his own, it’s a project and cost that makes sense.




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[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Leon

Chris Ivy asked me to post this for him. He can be reached for questions at CIvy@HA.com or (800) 872-6467.




Why is Heritage selling a Ty Cobb signed baseball that was produced after his death? It isn’t. How did PSA/DNA and James Spence authenticate the ball? They didn’t.

The answers are that simple.

This will come as a disappointment, certainly, to readers craving a juicy sports collectibles scandal, but if fidelity to truth is important to you, you probably wouldn’t be paying attention to Peter Nash anyhow. Try this Google search:

Peter Nash invoked the fifth amendment

Or this one:

Peter Nash admitted fraud

You’ll find some New York Daily News articles which will put this self-proclaimed White Knight of the Sports Collectibles industry in a proper context, and give lovers of scandal and/or irony plenty of enjoyment.

But back to the facts of this particular issue.

Whether or not the ball was ever “for sale,” as Mr. Nash contended, is not even a matter of debate. This lot was consigned to our April 26-27 Signature Auction #7051. Go and have a look at that auction online today. If someone is able to find an active bid button from this auction, or a current lot price, please post a screen shot.

This auction is in previews. It is not active. Nothing is currently “for sale.” Period.

Many of you know how the process works at a major auction house, but for those who don’t, here’s a very basic primer. For several months prior to an auction “going live,” material is consigned from hundreds of different sources. Today, as this is written, there are approximately 2500 lots slated for our April auction, and that number will grow. Not all of them will pass authentication—typically a small percentage of autographed lots will fail.

The cataloging (writing the catalog text) for an auction of this size requires hundreds of hours of work. Heritage, and every other major auction house, begins writing its catalog months before bidding goes live. Most houses don’t put their auctions in previews, but we do. We believe in giving our consignors the most exposure possible. This inevitably means that a small percentage of material visible on our site in previews is not genuine.

Heritage is one of the only auction houses that utilizes the services of both PSA/DNA and James Spence for its autograph authentication. We believe that the legitimacy of the material is of paramount importance, and our dual-authentication policy should illustrate this fact.

We fly each authentication service to Dallas after the consignment deadline so that all autographed material consigned to the auction will be in house. On this trip, the visits come within a week of our deadline to turn the catalog over for layout and printing.
So, the choices are as follows: 1) We can go back individually into seven or eight hundred lots in the incredibly hectic last few hours before our design deadline and add the “authentication tags.” Or, 2) We can add the authentication tags as we write during the weeks and months preceding the authentication process, and simply delete those lots that don’t pass when they are removed from the sale. After all, the bidding is not live, and nobody of reasonable intelligence could conclude that these lots are “For Sale” when they are clearly designated as “Coming Soon.”

And nobody of reasonable intelligence did reach this conclusion.

That’s not a comment on Mr. Nash’s intelligence. He’s very smart. He just doesn’t think that you are.

He saw an opportunity to grab some headlines, to drive traffic to his website, by making an outrageous allegation. The veracity of the statement, or lack thereof, wasn’t the issue. Imagine this headline: “Heritage has non-genuine material in previews that will never make it to auction.” Boring, right?

I can guarantee that the Cobb ball won’t be the last autographed lot booted from this auction. There are surely a few dozen lots in our previews right now that won’t make the cut.

But they’re not for sale. They never were. They never will be. And Mr. Nash always knew it.

We intend to change our policy and figure out a way to add the “authentication tags” only after the authenticators’ visits, in a way that will allow us to launch our auction on time. We have our Internet Technology department working on a way to hide the tags until the auction goes live. It’s apparently more complicated than it sounds, but as long as there are people like Mr. Nash out there desperately dreaming up scandals to deflect from his own, it’s a project and cost that makes sense.




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Great response Chris Ivy! Thanks Leon...

[drc]

The Game Used Universe auctions posts their auction lots early in part to give bidders and board members a chance to look over the lots and discuss them before the actions-- the discussions going on at the same site where the auction takes place! There was discussion of a Joe Namath jersey and, due to questions, it was pulled before the auction started so they could further research. I believe this is an example of why they post the lots early and let people discuss. If they made a big boo boo, they want to hear about it before the auction starts rather than after it's sold and shipped.

[Bilko G]

Originally Posted by drc

The Game Used Universe auctions posts their auction lots early in part to give bidders and board members a chance to look over the lots and discuss them before the actions-- the discussions going on at the same site where the auction takes place! There was discussion of a Joe Namath jersey and, due to questions, it was pulled before the auction started so they could further research. I believe this is an example of why they post the lots early and let people discuss. If they made a big boo boo, they want to hear about it before the auction starts rather than after it's sold and shipped.

Thats all fine and dandy but is game used Universe stating that their items are already authenticated by JSA or PSA before JSA or PSA even looks at them?

Personally, if its a preview auction and nothing is actually "for sale" yet, i don't see nothing wrong with posting the items so people can "discuss" them. I really don't think anyone is against that. The big thing is, is they posted that the Ty Cobb ball came with full PSA loa and JSA auction letter, when really JSA and PSA had never even looked at the item.

Post the items early, thats great!! People can discuss these items, but it should state authentication pending from PSA or JSA or both. Like mentioned earlier, what if a collector seen this preview, seen the statement about the PSA and JSA letters and decided to save all their money for this item? The very next day, they see another "Whale" of theirs somewhere else for sale but since the Cobb ball was more important to them, they hold off buying the other item, it sells to someone else then they find out days later that the Cobb ball never was actually authenticated and now they are SOL on both items? That would REALLY suck for someone.

Even if there is 2500 items to "Edit", like Travis said, hire a couple temps/family members/friends for a day or two at $10-$15 bucks an hour and get them to edit the authentication into the preview/auction or give some of their own workers some OT or a "special Project" for a couple days , WHEN the items have actually been looked at and authenticated.

Just my opinion, please don't take any offense if you disagree. I just think it would be wiser to spend a couple hundred bucks to hire a couple guys for a couple days instead of going through an issue like this.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Bilko G

Thats all fine and dandy but is game used Universe stating that their items are already authenticated by JSA or PSA before JSA or PSA even looks at them?

Personally, if its a preview auction and nothing is actually "for sale" yet, i don't see nothing wrong with posting the items so people can "discuss" them. I really don't think anyone is against that. The big thing is, is they posted that the Ty Cobb ball came with full PSA loa and JSA auction letter, when really JSA and PSA had never even looked at the item.

Post the items early, thats great!! People can discuss these items, but it should state authentication pending from PSA or JSA or both. Like mentioned earlier, what if a collector seen this preview, seen the statement about the PSA and JSA letters and decided to save all their money for this item? The very next day, they see another "Whale" of theirs somewhere else for sale but since the Cobb ball was more important to them, they hold off buying the other item, it sells to someone else then they find out days later that the Cobb ball never was actually authenticated and now they are SOL on both items? That would REALLY suck for someone.

Even if there is 2500 items to "Edit", like Travis said, hire a couple temps/family members/friends for a day or two at $10-$15 bucks an hour and get them to edit the authentication into the preview/auction or give some of their own workers some OT or a "special Project" for a couple days , WHEN the items have actually been looked at and authenticated.

Just my opinion, please don't take any offense if you disagree. I just think it would be wiser to spend a couple hundred bucks to hire a couple guys for a couple days instead of going through an issue like this.

Bilko,
You've brought up some excellent points here. Nice post...

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by Bilko G

Thats all fine and dandy but is game used Universe stating that their items are already authenticated by JSA or PSA before JSA or PSA even looks at them?

Personally, if its a preview auction and nothing is actually "for sale" yet, i don't see nothing wrong with posting the items so people can "discuss" them. I really don't think anyone is against that. The big thing is, is they posted that the Ty Cobb ball came with full PSA loa and JSA auction letter, when really JSA and PSA had never even looked at the item.

Post the items early, thats great!! People can discuss these items, but it should state authentication pending from PSA or JSA or both. Like mentioned earlier, what if a collector seen this preview, seen the statement about the PSA and JSA letters and decided to save all their money for this item? The very next day, they see another "Whale" of theirs somewhere else for sale but since the Cobb ball was more important to them, they hold off buying the other item, it sells to someone else then they find out days later that the Cobb ball never was actually authenticated and now they are SOL on both items? That would REALLY suck for someone.

Even if there is 2500 items to "Edit", like Travis said, hire a couple temps/family members/friends for a day or two at $10-$15 bucks an hour and get them to edit the authentication into the preview/auction or give some of their own workers some OT or a "special Project" for a couple days , WHEN the items have actually been looked at and authenticated.

Just my opinion, please don't take any offense if you disagree. I just think it would be wiser to spend a couple hundred bucks to hire a couple guys for a couple days instead of going through an issue like this.

Good post. +1.
But some people seem to be surprised by what Heritage did. Why?
Alleged COA's out of thin air? Why should that be a surprise?
And are the authenticators complaining to Heritage about this?
I would think that they should be complaining or have they given their permission to Heritage to engage in this practice?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Good post. +1.
But some people seem to be surprised by what Heritage did. Why?
Alleged COA's out of thin air? Why should that be a surprise?
And are the authenticators complaining to Heritage about this?
I would think that they should be or have they given their permission to Heritage to engage in this practice?

I find myself scratching my noggin quite often when reading this and other boards. Why is it people take almost every situation either out of context or don't fully comprehend what folks say? I just don't understand. Chris, above, already said they are going to change the way they do the authentication tags on line. I think that means they feel it wasn't being done correctly, in their mind. If they were doing it correctly he wouldn't have said this-

"We intend to change our policy and figure out a way to add the “authentication tags” only after the authenticators’ visits, in a way that will allow us to launch our auction on time."


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[RichardSimon]

Leon,
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
You stated: "I think that means they feel it wasn't being done correctly"
They might have felt that way but IMHO until someone called them on it they were just going to continue to do the same old thing.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Leon

I find myself scratching my noggin quite often when reading this and other boards. Why is it people take almost every situation either out of context or don't fully comprehend what folks say? I just don't understand. Chris, above, already said they are going to change the way they do the authentication tags on line. I think that means they feel it wasn't being done correctly, in their mind. If they were doing it correctly he wouldn't have said this-

"We intend to change our policy and figure out a way to add the “authentication tags” only after the authenticators’ visits, in a way that will allow us to launch our auction on time."


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Leon, I told them 7 months about this problem and they didn't care.

It's only after it blew up in their face that they decided to change it and if you look at Ivy's post, he says that they are changing it just so people wont take what they are doing and misrepresent it anymore. It didn't seem to me that he wanted to change it solely because they thought they were doing anything wrong. They would have changed it 7 months ago when i wrote an article detailing this very problem, and I told them it was wrong, they DID NOT AGREE with me and Ivy's emails to me called me the equivalent of naive and totally ignorant of the way auction houses do business. that doesn't sound to me like someone who is concerned about this problem and wanting to fix it because it is the right thing to do .

fixing it because its on the radar now and he doesnt want to go through it again.

7 months ago he didn't seem to care, I told them, I told them, I told them. But back then the article was just on a small website, and didn't make it onto deadspin, and tagged by a large national newspaper.

[tinkereversandme]

I read this first in Nash's site.

The first and easy thing to do is attack Nash who did a great job uncovering this. Why attack him? He's acting like a journalist. Sounds like all the political ads on my television.

Second, so let me get this straight. The item was "in preview" and therefore you assumed it would pass JSA or PSA/DNA, but doesn't Heritage employee authenticators themselves like Mike?

Lastly, I guess Nash should wait until the auction runs before pointing out errors, huh?

Regards,

Larry

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Bilko G

Thats all fine and dandy but is game used Universe stating that their items are already authenticated by JSA or PSA before JSA or PSA even looks at them?

Personally, if its a preview auction and nothing is actually "for sale" yet, i don't see nothing wrong with posting the items so people can "discuss" them. I really don't think anyone is against that. The big thing is, is they posted that the Ty Cobb ball came with full PSA loa and JSA auction letter, when really JSA and PSA had never even looked at the item.

Post the items early, thats great!! People can discuss these items, but it should state authentication pending from PSA or JSA or both. Like mentioned earlier, what if a collector seen this preview, seen the statement about the PSA and JSA letters and decided to save all their money for this item? The very next day, they see another "Whale" of theirs somewhere else for sale but since the Cobb ball was more important to them, they hold off buying the other item, it sells to someone else then they find out days later that the Cobb ball never was actually authenticated and now they are SOL on both items? That would REALLY suck for someone.

Even if there is 2500 items to "Edit", like Travis said, hire a couple temps/family members/friends for a day or two at $10-$15 bucks an hour and get them to edit the authentication into the preview/auction or give some of their own workers some OT or a "special Project" for a couple days , WHEN the items have actually been looked at and authenticated.

Just my opinion, please don't take any offense if you disagree. I just think it would be wiser to spend a couple hundred bucks to hire a couple guys for a couple days instead of going through an issue like this.

exactly right, this isnt putting a man on the moon to make this change.

A few temps with a macro key or a cut and paste feature wouldn't take that long, and a more permanent fix by some IT guys wouldn't be that costly. The probably upgrade their auction software anyway on a periodic basis and for an auction house with millions upon millions of sales and a lot of commissions, it would be a drop in the bucket.

It's not finding the cure for cancer.

[thecatspajamas]

I think Heritage's biggest mistake in all this is not in writing the copy for the auction catalog ahead of time, but rather in letting people view the "work in progress" with the expectation that they would understand that it was not finalized. There seems to be a pretty broad misunderstanding that every word in the preview is to be taken the same as the finalized catalog.

I have no doubt that writing up the descriptions ahead of time for hundreds of items as having full LOAs from autenticators, with the anticipation of that being the case, is a common practice with auction houses. After all, who wants to go back and re-work the description of EVERY autographed item sold in an auction? By "pulling back the curtain" to let bidders see the catalog as it is being formed though, they are inviting headaches of this sort. If they feel the headaches are worth it for the additional exposure for their consignors' items, that's their decision, but they should either take the additional measures that have been discussed here as well as add big glaring notices that this is only a preview (subject to change) and not the finalized catalog. That way, if/when someone does a screen capture of the preview, the notice would appear big and bold to put the write-up in its proper context.

Incidentally, this is why I actually avoid looking at auction "previews." Too often I am either disappointed when something I was watching gets pulled from the "live" auction, or else I don't notice when a description has been tweaked between the preview and the live version. I prefer looking at items I can actually bid on then and there.

Lance F!ttr0

First, it was a 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 not a 1967 Mustang driven by McQueen in Bullitt. http://themustangsource.com/timeline/67-68/68/bullitt/. Any collector or auction house who had done their homework knows it, and would not sell or buy it.

Second, the Cobb ball is obviously a bad forgery. Any collector or auction house who had done their homework knows it, and would not sell or buy it.

Yes, authentication is a touchy subject as is misrepresentation. But really, take a breather, please.

Ty Phelan

[chaddurbin]

doesn't mike gutierrez work for heritage? shouldn't they let him look over these autos first? weird situation all around.

[mschwade]

Originally Posted by Leon

We have our Internet Technology department working on a way to hide the tags until the auction goes live. It’s apparently more complicated than it sounds, but as long as there are people like Mr. Nash out there desperately dreaming up scandals to deflect from his own, it’s a project and cost that makes sense.
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Actually, it shouldn't be that complicated. I'm guessing there is an Auction Open/Live boolean flag or a Date field when it's open sitting in your database that you can use in your if and else statement to hide those tags on all items that belong to that particular auction. I noticed your pages are PHP, give me two hours of time at $150/hr and I'll code it and test it for you. And my guess is that JSA/PSA would like this done immediately too.

Matt