Authentication, Who to trust?

[obpercent1]

Count me as another person not in favor or PSA. I sent in a Dice-K autograped sweet spot ball that I personally got signed directly in front of my eyes on fathers day 2007 at Fenway Park before the gates opened and they rejected it, charged me the full price and when I asked them how they could possibly reject it their excuse was that they did not have enough of his exempliaries on file to autheticate it. I simply went off and asked them how in good faith they could advertise then that they could authenicate one for him and they had no response. So now the clowns as PSA have in their data base a real Dice K autograph that they in fact say is a fake.

Part two of the story: I brought the ball to a show where JSA was and they said it was 100 % real(of which I knew already). Like previous folks have said the only true way of knowing is getting it front of your own eyes. After that point everything is simply a "matter of opinion". By the way it really is a sweet Dice-K autograph that he took his time to sign boldly across the entire sweet spot and put his # on as well.

[xpress34]

OBP -

Like yourself, I sent in my Pujols ROY inscribed ball that I had personally signed in 2002 and they rejected it because they didn't have enough early examples AND, they had never seen a ROY inscription by him before.

I have been told NUMEROUS times that if you aren't one of their 'big-time' dealers, they will NOT authenticate your auto the 1st time, but if you turn it right back around, it will come back authenticated. In other words, pay twice as much and they will give it their stamp of approval.

In the book I referenced below - 'THE CARD' - it discusses how at one point in time, they 'graded' and authenticated so many items (the # is in the book) with a staff of 16 people that in order to do so, those 16 people would have had to have worked round the clock 8 hour shifts with no lunch break and only minimal bathrooms breaks in order to give as much as 5 seconds of their time to each item! In other words, they would have barely had time to move an item from one stack to another! And that does NOT include anytime for checking in items or packing and shipping items back out, much less writing the LOAs or slabbing the cards they were grading! (I may be a little off in my paraphrasing, nut you get the gist of it.)

Just another blight on the hobby IMHO...

- Chris