2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

[kingjammy24]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

patrick:
you fail to make any distinction between the general concept of third-party authentication (which is what collectors initially demanded) and the reality of how authenticating is actually currently practiced (which is what collectors are currently bitching about). what was demanded is not what's been received. what's been received is a pitiful system designed exclusively by the auction houses/authenticators to maximize profits by gaming the system at the cost of the collector.

secondly, while the collecting community may have demanded third-party authentication as a general concept, they had virtually no role in determining its specific execution. you can blame collectors for the advent of the concept but not for the reality of how authentication is currently being performed. exploitation was a foreseen risk but awareness of risk doesn't equate to culpability. we all want air travel, for example, and we all realize hijackings are a risk but i hardly think passengers are to blame when their plane is hijacked.

you seem to fault the entire concept simply because it's been twisted and exploited, as if everything in life can't be twisted and exploited. in the instances where we've been given ethical, diligent experts performing genuine authentications there haven't been many complaints. if lampson is proof that authentication is a broken concept, then are you proof that it isn't? concepts rise or fall on their own inherant merits, not on individual personalities.

"Having been hired by the seller/auction house, these authenticators act in an agency relationship for the sellers. As such, they are really accountable only to these sellers and owe us—the lowly collector—very little if anything at all. While an ugly prospect, such is an undeniable truth."

i don't believe it's the truth in the least. in your world then, individuals are only accountable to the person who signs their paycheck? they aren't accountable to a set of ethics, morals, and standards? at a minimum, they aren't accountable to state and federal laws against negligence and malfeasance? if a realtor tells you that a home has a pool when it doesn't, a judge isn't going to give a shit that their commission comes from the seller.

mark h:
"few Forum members post endlessly in this Forum expressing a lot of passion on the ills in our hobby. If I may ask, what are any of you who express these concerns doing to rectify the situation?"

i'll let patrick answer you; "When errors occur, I believe that as a responsible community we have an obligation to bring this information to the attention of both the community at large".

"Posting in this Forum is fine, but as stated in my opening sentence, I would think that most of the folks in this Forum are aware of most of the hobby's problems."

your assumption then is that no new hobbyists join the forum and/or that the forum attracts no new members; that the hobby is made up of a fixed group of veteran collectors who are all aware of the same things.

re: caveat emptor

i agree but it also seems like a wonderful way to let auction houses and authenticators off the hook and place the blame entirely on the buyers. there are laws against negligence, fraud, misrepresenation, malfeasance, and false advertising because it isn't simply caveat emptor at the end of the day. caveat emptor may be the best practical solution to the problem but it does nothing to address responsibility for the problem.

rudy.

[EndzoneSports]

Re: 2 Elway White 94 Throwbacks- What are the odds?

Rudy:

It’s certainly not that I failed to note the disparity between the ideal and reality re: 3rd party authentication; it was simply an editorial battle that I chose to avoid. I think that most are aware that the current situation is far from ideal, being fraught with its own set of conflicts of interest. In a utopian world, any/all authenticators would be infallible, being blessed with the knowledge of all things sporting. In such a world, they would be readily willing to offer this service and their wealth of expertise for free, thus removing all of the financial pitfalls associated with performing such a service for hire. However, in the real world… Well, no sense rehashing that, you’ve pretty well summed it up perfectly! I also have my own deep-seeded opinions of both dealers/auction houses and several authenticators, but prefer to leave those opinions to the side.

Ours is a hobby that is, in large part based upon varying levels of uncertainty; tempered by faith. Absolute authenticity is indeed a true rarity. Because of this, all of the tools that we employ such as historical research, photo-documentation/analysis, and the seeking of 3rd-party opinions are simply an effort to close the uncertainty gap to a point where one have sufficient faith in their items’ authenticity so as to allow them to sleep at night.

I certainly don’t believe that any one participant can be demonized at the root of all the hobby’s evils. All play a part. Nor do I believe that there is a magic bullet that will cure all that ails us. As someone pointed out previously, this is a complex issue.

When I emphatically referred to our endeavor as a hobby, another was quick to point out that it is a multi-million dollar a year business. Even from a collector’s standpoint, ours is by no means an inexpensive hobby. When the “cheap stuff” often carries asking prices in the triple digits (and for the premium items, the sky’s the limit), this is not a venture for the faint of heart or weak of wallet. It is for this reason that I stand by the caveat emptor position. Not because I believe that the sellers and authenticators should be let off the hook, but because ultimately, it is the collector that has to determine his/her own comfort level in an arena of uncertainly.

All of the photo-matching, provenance and professional opinions in the world don’t make an item any more authentic, these only serve to mitigate an item’s inherent uncertainly. And just as the others shouldn’t be let off the hook, nor should the consumers. When a deal goes awry after the fact, many are quick to point the finger at some other element in the equation in order to place blame, often without shouldering any themselves for those things that they might or should have done differently to abate the situation in the first place. So often I’ve seen collectors wander waist deep into dangerous waters, devoid of any semblance of common sense and then scream bloody-murder at having been snake bit. The risks are fairly obvious; the warning signs are posted, yet so many fail to heed the warnings.

Respectfully,