PSA JSA actual lower prices for auto seekers

[Shoeless Moe]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but I recently made a good autograph find I'll be sharing shortly, and I'm thinking NOT having a JSA or PSA helped keep the price down.

With so many people only buying if it has a LOA when they do come up without one you can get a better deal.

So as much harm as they do, now because they are so big they are actually helping lower prces.

[Mr. Zipper]

If you can authenticate yourself and seek out items without TPA certification, you are part of a smaller pool of people competing for that item. So, yes, bargains are to be had, most especially with more common material. I got all my Mantles unauthenticated for a fraction of what I would have paid if they had JSA or PSA.

That said, in my opinion, there are very few bargains for "unauthenticated" blue chip autographs. Why? Because the people who know what they are doing -- including dealers -- are always watching and willing to bid these items up knowing they are good.

[travrosty]

It's a myth that sellers get higher prices for psa or jsa authenticated items, if that was the case, then richard simon, jim stinson, myself and others would be fools for not using them. the truth is that dealers can get the same prices that jsa and psa brings plus they can skip the high authentication fees.

i lost money on an autograph i had jsa authenticate because i thought the jsa name would add value to my autograph. it didn't. i just ended up with a high fee and no expertise in the boxing area from someone who doesn't know boxing at all. that goes double for grad.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by travrosty

It's a myth that sellers get higher prices for psa or jsa authenticated items, if that was the case, then richard simon, jim stinson, myself and others would be fools for not using them. the truth is that dealers can get the same prices that jsa and psa brings plus they can skip the high authentication fees.

i lost money on an autograph i had jsa authenticate because i thought the jsa name would add value to my autograph. it didn't. i just ended up with a high fee and no expertise in the boxing area from someone who doesn't know boxing at all. that goes double for grad.

But do u agree some buyers out there only buy autos that have certs?

And thus if a genuine is out there w/o a cert, that eliminates part of the buying pool, because some won't touch it. Which in turn helps the rest of the buyers who don't need that piece of paper.

I'm talking an auction, not a buy it now. Because yes dealers with or without the cert know the value of their auto, of course many inflate it, which is their choice, may or may not sell, but if you start an auction at 9.99 that is genuine but doesn't have the cert, it will go for less then if it had it.

[JimStinson]

Really good thread ! I'd like to add a couple OBSERVATIONS not controversy or debate , And want to be very clear that what I'm about to say is in no way a negative observation of ANY TPA, as that topic has already been discussed into the ground and no need to go over it again other than to say that those services obviously fill a market demand and as a result make alot of money doing it which basically is what any business is designed to do.

Using hindsight as an example , I can remember being a regular on the baseball card show circuit. Even BEFORE the advent of card grading. In those days everyone that wasn't a baseball card dealer WANTED to be one because there was so much money to be made. I never dealt in baseball cards so I used to just marvel at buyers carrying hand trucks full of boxed card sets out to their waiting vans.

Almost all of the time I was the only person in the show buying and selling autographs. A good show for me in those days was if I sold maybe $500.00 over the course of a 3 or 4 day show. By comparison the card dealers on either side of me would be taking in $5,000 to $10,000 in sales. As a result card shows were BOOMING , there was a baseball card shop in almost every town. It was just a GIVEN that you could NEVER LOSE MONEY buying baseball cards because they would ALWAYS go up in price NEVER DOWN. And for awhile that was true.

Around that same time card graders came on the scene and I can remember veteran card dealers being very bitter about it and not being involved with baseball cards I could not understand why. Their mantra to me was "If a dealer can't grade a card he has no business being a dealer"

But what was happening is that the card graders were filling a nitch in that it allowed many new card dealers who DID NOT know anything about grading a card to become involved in the "Boom" and the cost of the encapsulation was nothing compared to the theory that EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS GOING TO GO UP IN VALUE Most of you know the rest of the story.

As interest in baseball cards began to wane , interest in autographs began to grow, there was only a handful of sports autograph dealers that were involved "full trottle" when that wave hit, There were some "dabblers" but most collectors knew very little about autographs. Enter the 3rd party authenticators which allowed many card dealers to "dodge a bullet" and transition into another business and allowed many dabblers to become either collectors or dealers overnight, They filled a void as evidenced by their popularity today.

And as long as the value of autographs continue to go UP, everyone is happy......BUT , when you take a $5.00 autograph and pay $10.00 to slab it , you STILL have a $5.00 autograph , No worries though because next year it will be worth $25.00 and in ten years $100.00. Or will it ?? Use the same theory if you want using different dollar amounts but it all boils down to the same thing...... as long as the values continue to climb the cost of authentication becomes INCONSEQUENTIAL.

As many long time collectors drop out of the hobby , and MANY of them are doing it and fewer new collectors enter. Its inevidable that autograph values will stall and maybe even.....gulp....plunge downward, what then ?

Like it or not the cost of having something authenticated HAS made the selling price higher. And one can use the argument suggested here that "It pays for itself" in that the item will sell for more.

Looking at the current landscape I'll admit it does seem improbable that autographs will ever lose value. But I can remember hearing real estate agents telling me "real estate will NEVER come down in price because they have stopped making it" Or baseball cards are the best INVESTMENT you can make because well.....or fill in any one of a thousand examples of things that people once thought would never happen and did.
______________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

[packs]

I don't see how you can really say that JSA and PSA certs boosting autograph prices is a myth. A certed ball is always going to sell for more than one without if it is a major player.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by packs

I don't see how you can really say that JSA and PSA certs boosting autograph prices is a myth. A certed ball is always going to sell for more than one without if it is a major player.

Agree - I think Travis example where he got one cert'd and then it sold for less is more the exception. 8 /9 out of 10 will sell for more with the cert., you don't have to like the TPA's, but it is a fact.

Thus bringing me to my point that the ones out there w/o the certs can be had for "relative" bargins.

So learn the signature, know what the fakes look like, run it by others, read the sellers story, look at their history, and put it all together and there is gold in dem der hills!

[packs]

Absolutely. If you know what you're looking at there are bargains out there. I won this GC Alexander ball (since sold to a fellow member) for $80. It did not have a cert and the price was a Buy It Now.

For the dreamers like me, there is hope.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by packs

I don't see how you can really say that JSA and PSA certs boosting autograph prices is a myth. A certed ball is always going to sell for more than one without if it is a major player.

you just had a jsa authenticated babe ruth signed ball on a snow white baseball sell for 22,000 dollars at premier auction. this is regularly a 40,000 dollar or more baseball authenticated. explain that?

does jsa or psa blindly get higher prices, no because customer confidence was shaken on this ball.

https://www.premierauctionsonline.co...inest-Ball-We-

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

Agree - I think Travis example where he got one cert'd and then it sold for less is more the exception. 8 /9 out of 10 will sell for more with the cert., you don't have to like the TPA's, but it is a fact.

Thus bringing me to my point that the ones out there w/o the certs can be had for "relative" bargins.

So learn the signature, know what the fakes look like, run it by others, read the sellers story, look at their history, and put it all together and there is gold in dem der hills!

that's not true, if it was, all the major boxing autograph dealers would have everything certed by psa or jsa, and i don't even know one that does.