Competitive bias amongst authentication services (PSA / JSA / GAI)?
elsnorto
Posts: 2,012 ✭✭
I read on this board that some suggested submitting a card slabbed by another company could affect the grade when sent to a different company for grading. In a similar fashion I read on another board (eBay boards I believe) that some believe the same holds true for autograph authentication. For example, submitting an already JSA authenticated Bonds baseball to GAI for authentication could lessen the likelihood of it being authenticated by them.
I guess the theory goes that a company would be less inclined to authenticate (presumably ify) items if already authenticated by a competitor in an effort to undermine their credibility. I do not know as if I subscribe to this theory or not and I have had no experience in this regard. Thus my post... has anyone had any experience along these lines, be it with graded or authenticated items, and if so what was it? Certainly if others care to share their thoughts without having specific experience, I would be interested to hear those as well.
The reason I am curious is that I have an ever growing autograph collection and found they display much more nicely with some uniformity to them... the same style cases, signed in the same (general) area, and have the same COA. As most of my items are GAI, just by virtue of there being more GAI items out there that I collect than those authenticated by others whom I consider reputable (PSA, JSA, etc.), I was thinking of sending those authenticated by these others into GAI just to get the "matching" COAs.
Snorto~
I guess the theory goes that a company would be less inclined to authenticate (presumably ify) items if already authenticated by a competitor in an effort to undermine their credibility. I do not know as if I subscribe to this theory or not and I have had no experience in this regard. Thus my post... has anyone had any experience along these lines, be it with graded or authenticated items, and if so what was it? Certainly if others care to share their thoughts without having specific experience, I would be interested to hear those as well.
The reason I am curious is that I have an ever growing autograph collection and found they display much more nicely with some uniformity to them... the same style cases, signed in the same (general) area, and have the same COA. As most of my items are GAI, just by virtue of there being more GAI items out there that I collect than those authenticated by others whom I consider reputable (PSA, JSA, etc.), I was thinking of sending those authenticated by these others into GAI just to get the "matching" COAs.
Snorto~
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Comments
I have some GAI certified cards that I believe the autos to be legit, they were CHEAP on ebay.
I also have seen some bogus autos that weren't close in PSA/DNA slabs.
Today my sub popped and 2 autos that were signed at shows in front of me were rejected.
There's so many fakes and forgeries out there that unless you saw it signed in front of you there's no way to be 100% sure, so collect what you like and what makes you happy. My Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax autos will be in GAI slabs soon. They won't be worth as much but I'm not planning on selling them so it doesn't matter that much.
Good luck with your collecting!
That said, my general approach has been I will buy items authenticated by any of the companies listed by eBay as being credible, with most of my collection being from the three mentioned above. Some of my most prized slabbed autos are from PSA, but when it comes to autographed football mini-helmets, GAI just has far more available than the others for whatever reason (I think simply because they have been doing it longer perhaps?). It is not that I particularly favor or value GAI above the others, it is simply a matter of supply.
My question was more along the lines of an authenticator having a bias for or against an item already authenticated by another company and as if anyone had any experience or thoughts in this regard.
That said, Jim got me to thinking that GAI does have different prefixes to their voucher numbers. I believe one of them indicates the signing was witnessed by a representative rather than simply compared to a "known good" signature. Perhaps I will try to focus on those as it lends some further credibility to the authenticity of the signature.
Snorto~
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I would demand a recount.