Which authenticator should you trust? Or just how much more is a graded card really worth?
What a nice idea ….. some one considered an expert in this field to guide a non-expert buyer as to the fact of whether the autographed item or baseball card you are looking to buy is real or fake and how this card or autograph ranks in a scale of 1 thru 10. (10 being purfekt!)
When it comes to authenticating sports collectible items, the “expert” authenticators are generally split into two groups. One group is the “sports guys”. This group tends to believe that it has seen so many “samples” of each item that they can spot a real one from a fake one. They also claim to know from the actual media whether the timeline for your hero could possibly match the availability of that particular media.
The second group is the “science guys” who also use “comparisons to known autographs” in addition to some kind of forensic science to attest to the media and ink of the autograph as well. One might give the edge to the “science guys” here.
HOWEVER: Whoever the authenticator is and in order for them to BE KNOWN AND SUCCESSFUL they must authenticate a lot of items. After all there is just a small amount you can earn by just doing a few items.
Question: How does someone become “successful” in the authentication business?
Answer: By “teaming up” with large auction houses (the prime buyers of these expert opinions). One very large example of this team up is EBAY and PSA/DNA. Since EBAY merchandise is not pre-screened a user can request a “quick look” and pay a small fee for the “experts opinion” of the authenticity of an autograph they are thinking of purchasing. Then, the authenticators “appear to look” but do not actually even look at the item for sale and have the nerve to call it a “probable fake”! And they charge you for this questionable on-line service to boot! PSA gets paid and EBAY gets its percentage and in this way neither has any potential risk. But this certainly is not fair or honest! Admittedly they will be right 90% of the time. The seller usually gets much less for his item unless he has it “authenticated”. Once authenticated more buyers appear to be interested and the bidding usually ends up higher.
Other than this fool proof public fraud other “team ups” tend to cause the auction houses (the income providers) an advantage over the authenticator. When a questionable item comes up where the authenticator wants to say “I don’t know about this one” the rule of needing to make a living comes into play. The auction house will try to make a big client (who is trying to sell) happy and try to leverage the decision by “threatening” to terminate their agreements if the authenticator cannot “work with them”. Even if the threat is not obvious it is always “implied”. A small individual collector does not have this “volume clout”.
So it is never black or white ……it’s just plain grey! Most of the times both groups will tend to disagree with each other on questionable items. It is always “safe” to call an item “questionable”. If one group calls the item “authentic” and the other calls the same item “fake” which one is right? There is no guaranty even from the most well known! If an artist can paint your face on paper and it really looks like you this same artistic skill can fool any authenticator. Buy wisely! Research carefully! And if you can get an authentication letter (if you really must) …. Be happy!
Just remember, the grading on your card is a subjective number. There is no computer involved where the outcome is always consistently the same We are all human, there is no diploma issued by any college for grading sports cards. If you had thousands of samples to sort thru you could certainly rank them from best to worst. or too close to call … most of the time these samples are in far limited numbers to do a ranking process. So would the 9 be a 9 always? Or could one grader call it an 8.5 (a real tough grader) or a 9.5 (a grader who is looking to please). How much extra will it cost to get that 9.5 rated a 10 since on EBAY 10’s seem to go for much higher prices. Is there any governing body overseeing these graders? Trust me, no one is monitoring this process. To us it just seems out of control.
Our suggestion is to trust your own eyes and buy your collectibles from a reputable retailer where you can see and touch the item. Buying from a picture on the internet is not always a good move. Back to the key question: which grader do you trust? The answer will be to check out auction results to see which graders name will garner the highest bids when it comes time for you to sell your collection. Then compare their fees to see if you can come out ahead of the game.
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