Wednesday, November 9, 2011

3rd party authentication


In an earlier post I talked about the importance of authenticity and that there are only a few companies worth getting a 3rd party authentication from.  I want to follow that up with a few thoughts about 3rd party authenticators and what that exactly means because I get asked all the time about them.

First let me define what a 3rd party authenticator is for those who are already lost.  A 3rd party authenticator is someone or a company where you send an item that is already signed to have them inspect it and give their opinion as to whether or not your autograph is real. 

A Letter of Authenticity (LOA) or Certificate of Authenticity (COA) states that in the person’s BEST OPINION that item is real.  Let me repeat that and be very clear, it states that in their BEST OPINION.  It is not stating a fact, it is merely stating an opinion based off of their expertise.  

As I said earlier anyone can have a COA or LOA that states that an autograph is real, but if that company’s reputation is a bad one, then most people aren’t going to believe their opinion.  Companies like James Spence and PSA/DNA make their money based off their reputation.  People trust those two companies because of their reputation.  A store like John Doe’s Collectibles in Kalamazoo’s reputation for authenticating is probably not as reliable as that of the big two.  

The same can be said for 1st party authenticators.  A 1st party authenticator are companies like Ironclad, Steiner, Mounted, etc that actually go out and do the signing with the player and place their own COA on the item.  You trust that when you order a signed baseball from Ironclad it is 100% real because of Ironclad’s reputation of only selling real signatures.  The same goes for all the other big companies.  

I hate to pick on John Doe’s store again, but if you see a John Doe’s hologram on an item you may think twice because you don’t know the reputation of John Doe’s store.