Which sport is easiest/toughest to self authenticate

[joelsabi]

I have been thinking about branching out into another sport beside baseball to collect. The big four sports for memorabilia collecting are baseball, basketball, football, and hockey post 1980.

I trying to think which sport would be the toughest to self-authenticate an game used item and which would be the easiest. Granted my experience outside of baseball is limited but based on what I see available, i would be least comfortable with self authenticating a basketball jersey. Without any proper paperwork I find it difficult to see much difference with the pro-style jerseys that are available on ebay versus the jersey auctioned off at nba.com. it seems tough for me to try to attempt to authenticate a gu basketball on my own.

On the other hand, it seems very possible to get a photo match from a roughed up modern day football jersey. It seems like the safest way to branch out from baseball.

Anyways, I maybe misleading myself on this opinion. So I ask this question. I enjoy authenticating items on my own if that helps so if there is lots of available resource for any of these sports to make it easier to research that would be helpful and not a burden.

[nickacs]

I agree too that basketball, IMO, is the hardest. With baseball and football, both are outdoor sports which adds another element to find areas to photomatch better. Especially football, naturally. Hockey is a close second to me as it's still an indoor sport, but heavy contact, which leads to rips/marks/etc for photomatching.

And yes, with all the recent rukus of JO and their "issues", marks/hits/stains *could* be faked, but virtually impossible to replicate the exact marks to the tee.

With basketball, yes there's plenty of contact, but nothing to do any "damage"/marks to the jerseys. For the 80's/90's superstars that I mainly collect, the placement of logos, fonts, and most importantly the NOB are the most notable areas that can help style match, but not necessarily to photomatch to a particular game. Likewise with the 82 game+ season, no player wears a different jersey for every single game, so again, they are more scarce as it's impossible to tell which game it's from unless with patches/logos (ie. All-Star/Dream Team/Finals/etc).

I've been collecting NBA for almost 17yrs now and have passed on probably close to 50-60 BIG name superstar player jerseys because it's sooo hard to know if it's truly game worn or not unless your their in person and watch them take it off their back.

Would love to hear from others!

[nickacs]

Forgot to add that at least in the last several years, Meigray has been the only true source of game worn NBA jerseys and most of the time they do note which game(s) their from, which is great!

Kudos to them for sure.. Just wish they were doing/offering these jerseys back in the 80s/90s!

[sportscentury]

Basketball is tough, though I have had considerable success with high resolution photos. By examining loose threads, patch bumps, hole patterns (and how they match up to the patches and trim), and several other factors, one can often match or reject a jersey. Scuffs, design patterns, and stitching differences may be used for shoes, too, though it is tougher to find high resolution photos that show shoes clearly.