Who Provides The Best Coa On Game Used Jerseys?

[porsche544]

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Is There Someone That Specializes In Each Category?

Any Input Is Appreicated.

Thanks
Gerald

[David-A]

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[both-teams-played-hard]

Porshe
Do you want a COA for re-sale purposes or are you unsure about an item in your collection?

[ahuff]

As far as baseball goes, I really like the COA's that come from MEARS. I just like that they are very detailed and specific. There is a great checklist that shows they have done their research and inspection on the jersey.

I've never received one, but I've heard Milt Byron does a great job with hockey jerseys. The only hockey COA I've gotten came from Drop the Puck, and they were o.k. - not as detailed as MEARS, but he knows his stuff.

[psmachetti]

THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEST !!!
FOOTBALL (specifically Giants and Eagles): MEIGRAY
HOCKEY: MEIGRAY
BASEBALLRangers) MEIGRAY.
BEST COA'S IN THE BUSINESS BAR NONE!!!
Paul

[Nathan]

I'd still say it depends based on what exactly you're looking for and what your objective is. If there's something for one specific team that needs to be looked at, then there are individual collectors who are far more knowledgable than even MeiGray. I love MeiGray to death, but if I had, say, a Philadelphia Phillies jacket worn during a three-week period in September of 1977, I'd be talking with Mr Howard Wolf first.

I'm sure there are other individual longtime collectors who can be thought of, but I'm currently medicated and am starting to fade. Mr Wolf should be honored that I thought of him first in a pharmaceutical-induced stupor.

[kingjammy24]

There are indeed people who specialize in each category and within each category people who specialize in additional sub-categories or niches. This is where I think you'll find the greatest expertise - in the niche experts.
Personally, I have far more use for the experts who specialize in a single team or single niche category, like Steinmetz, Wolf, Sutton, Weimerskirch, Scoggin, Caravello, Benish, Taube, Sullivan, Scott, etc, than the "pro authenticators" who seem to be able to authenticate everything from 60's college football helmets to 70's baseball cleats to 90's hockey jerseys and everything in between. Do you really want a bat expert commenting on your 1996 McGwire jersey? Or a Cincinnati Reds expert evaluating your Rod Carew glove? Economically, it's impossible for large authentication firms to employ the number of niche experts that would be ideal. There isn't enough work to regularly keep 15-20 permanent, full-time, niche-expert authenticators busy. As a result, they employ 2 or 3 authenticators who handle everything. How these authenticators aren't regularly dealing with items beyond the realm of their expertise is beyond me. They must be geniuses with encyclopaedic brains. While I'm sure it's very profitable to try to grab as much of the pie as possible (with as few salaries as possible), it's impossible for your error rate not to increase dramatically.

On top of that, because they handle such a large volume of authentications with an increased overhead, it would seem they'd be hardpressed to devote a substantial amount of time per each jersey.
It's a very 'McDonalds', assembly line approach. McDonalds can whip up a burger in 30 seconds for $2 but it's not exactly a quality product is it? It can't be - they have a huge line of people to serve who demand quick turnaround and low prices and they can't afford to hire a baker, a butcher, a saucier, etc (aka specialists) for each restaurant nor can they afford to spend 35 min making each burger from scratch. The best burgers I've had always came from low volume, burger-only specialists. They didn't serve 3 billion, the burgers were 3 times the price and about 3 times the wait, but in the end it was a higher quality product.

(The kicker is that many of these niche experts regularly give free advice on this Forum whereas the paid authenticators charge for their "jack of all trades" advice).

Anyway, that's why I don't think it's possible to give a single answer to this question. It entirely depends on what you're having evaluated. Try to find a niche expert and if you can't, then people like Kim Stigall, Howard Wolf, Steinmetz, are always good to go to for baseball items. They typically aren't overwhelmed with authentications, will happily give you free advice, and are genuine experts in their field.

A word about MeiGray - I believe MeiGray is more of a dealer than an authenticator. Their COA's are rocksolid because of their provenance, but I don't believe they do thirdparty authentication. Barry (or anyone else), correct me if I'm wrong.

A word about MEARS - ahuff, I'd caution against believing that simply because an item has been checked off on a MEARS worksheet, that it's actually correct. That is, simply because MEARS has noted that the back numbers are 7", for example, doesn't mean that they've actually done the research to show that the numbers should indeed be 7". All they've done is note the size of the numbers. Whether it's correct or not, who knows. The worksheets seem to pretty much be just a long description of the jersey. How a description of the jersey is supposed to help me, I don't know. I can see the jersey for myself. What I need is someone to tell me what aspects are correct and which are incorrect. If you bring a jersey to an authenticator and they spend 45 min describing the jersey to you - "its grey, it has a patch, it has a nameplate, its from Russell..." without any comment on whether any of those are correct or incorrect, then they haven't done anything you couldn't have done yourself. Lampson LOA's are notorious for being 4 line, mind-numbingly obvious, descriptions of the jersey. Mike Specht wrote an interesting article about the Evolution of LOAs in the "Experts Corner" section. In it, he shows an LOA from some guy named Mike Montbriand. Montbriand's LOA is a hell of a job and is what LOAs should be. Of course, Montbriand probably spent an hour or two on his LOA alone plus another hour on the bat he was authenticating. No authentication firm in their right mind is going to spend 3-4 hrs on a bat with a $100 authentication fee. In short, I think Mike Specht hit the nail on the head perfectly regarding LOAs when he said "they serve a useful purpose if they bring forth knowledge and facts about the specific item that are not known or easily determined by the average collector. It is not enough to say "This jersey has proper tagging for the 1984 season." What is the proper tagging for that season, and how is it different from the previous season or the following season?". Unfortunately, I don't see too many LOAs around like that.Mainly because I don't think many authenticators know enough to be able to write them and for those that do, it simply doesn't pay off unless they charge very high fees in which case they won't sell enough authentications.

Rudy.

[ahuff]

Excellent post Rudy. You hit the nail on the head. Especially about the correct tagging issue.

I was going to mention the same thing about Meigrey, but it looks like you beat me to the punch. I love how they have the serial numbers stitched into their more recent stuff. However, the one thing I don't like is that in most cases, they don't have someone with the team marking them as worn or simply issued. Therefore, they simply do what we as collectors do, and that is make an "educated guess" based on the wear patterns. That is why I still love the way the Blue Jays do their jerseys, the most. They actually have the equipment manager mark each jersey as the players wear them. That way there is no questioning if it was worn or simply issued. (If I'm wrong, please correct me, but that was what I heard the last time I discussed this topic with them)

As far as my earlier post, I'd agree with you. I guess I was answering his question as though I was going to sell a jersey. I thought, who would I want to authenticate my jersey? Sure, there could be mistakes. However, I would much rather provide someone with a MEARS COA than say Lampson or Grey Flannel where you simply get one or two paragraphs and a photo. I've gotten several of Lampsons, that I really wondered if he even looked at the item. i.e. I won a Mike Greenwell batting practice jersey that came with a LOA from Lou. When I received it in the mail, it was simply a silk screened t-shirt that would have fit a 13 year old boy. No way possible that this fit a 6'0" 200 lb major leaguer (that is unless he wanted to walk around looking like he was wearing a halter top).

[hblakewolf]

I'd still say it depends based on what exactly you're looking for and what your objective is. If there's something for one specific team that needs to be looked at, then there are individual collectors who are far more knowledgable than even MeiGray. I love MeiGray to death, but if I had, say, a Philadelphia Phillies jacket worn during a three-week period in September of 1977, I'd be talking with Mr Howard Wolf first.

I'm sure there are other individual longtime collectors who can be thought of, but I'm currently medicated and am starting to fade. Mr Wolf should be honored that I thought of him first in a pharmaceutical-induced stupor.

Nathan-
Thanks for the warm words. As I have noted on the Forum, I am more than happy to provide any insight on Phillies equipment, FREE OF CHARGE. If you are considering a purchase of a Phillies jersey, jacket, warm-up, etc., and have questions, by all means contact me with any questions. Likewise, if you desire me to look at an item, all I ask is that we discuss the item first before sending it to me, and include return postage. I have Phillies game worn jerseys dating back to an amazing 1949 Ed Miller thorugh 2005. I may not know New York Jets equipment, however, I'm pretty familiar with most years of Phillies equipment.

As an example, I poted the following "Luzinski" thread in hopes to warn others. As of this post, Broadway Rik has still not pulled the item or responded to my 3 emails.

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_f...hlight=lampson

Always willing to help!

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@patmedia.net

[Nathan]

A word about Barry and MeiGray....

True, they are a very large dealership. However, Barry himself has been a collector for close to 30 years and has also employed very well-known collectors to assist with doing research before authenticating. To suggest that their name is well-known and rock-solid based simply on the clout they have based on number of sales is inaccurate. One gentleman in particular, Stu Oxenhorn, is a longtime collector of vintage hockey (and a very respected one at that) who currently works with MeiGray to do authentications.

To respond to AHuff's point, they do in fact label a jersey as being either game-used or simply issued. I spoke with Barry about what the line of demarcation is, and he told me that if a player is actively in the lineup with a jersey on, it's game-used (with hockey, every player dressed with the main exception usually being the backup goaltender will play); if he is out there for pregame warmups, possibly acquiring visible wear on a jersey, but never plays in an actual game then it's catalogued as game-issued.

In addition, each MeiGray letter that accompanies a jersey will specifically state what set the jersey is from and whether it is game-issued or game-worn, as well as the catalog number assigned to the jersey itself (in the hem tag) that goes into the database and can be checked in the future. That's specifically to stay ahead of the "buy a GI, make it a GU in a pickup game" phenomenon that some have found from NFL Auctions.