Quote Originally Posted by STLHAMMER32 View Post
A photomatch is a great way to authenticate an item obviously. That does not require paying money for an authenticator to evaluate the shoe though. It's not part of the service that they go out and seek every photo from every game to attempt to match the shoe. It's a task that would take hours and hours of research and even at that may not be possible.

Shoes are tough to photomatch, easy to style match but to find an exact match of these shoes to a particular game is one hell of a stretch and if it would be possible to do, its not the job of the authenticator. My point was that why pay someone to "authenticate" the shoe when a knowledgeable collector can take a look at see if its model issued for game use to MJ....
MeiGray does photomatch authentications. I have owned basketball shoes that have been photomatch-authenticated by MeiGray. Shoes are tougher than jerseys to photomatch, I agree, but when you are working with high resolution photos, such as MeiGray has access to through their contract with Getty, it can be done in many cases. The vast majority of collectors do not have access to the high resolution images owned by Getty.

I agree with your general point that authentications are often a waste of money, but true photomatch authentication is an undeniable exception. Once you start photomatching with high resolution images, it irreversibly changes your perspective on and approach to collecting. Other than getting the jersey or shoes directly from the player as he walks off the hardwood, there is nothing that compares to it. Of course, there are many, many good items that cannot be photomatched, so this type of authentication is far from the "be all end all" of collecting. As for these Jordan shoes, I do not know whether such an authentication service would be useful, but wanted to point it out as a possible option.