Unlocking Authenticity: Navigating the Process of Getting Your Cards and Tickets Authenticated at Signings

Welcome to "The Powers Sports Memorabilia Show," your go-to destination for all things collectibles! In today's episode, we unravel the mystery behind authentication at signings in our discussion titled, "Unlocking Authenticity: Navigating the Process of Getting Your Cards and Tickets Authenticated at Signings."

Hosted by Matt Powers, this episode delves into the crucial process of getting your cards and tickets authenticated at signings. We explore why the sticker method is considered the gold standard in the world of sports memorabilia.

Join us as we demystify the intricate world of authentication, discussing the significance of having a sticker placed directly on your cherished items. Matt sheds light on the reliability and authenticity assurance that comes with this method, ensuring collectors have the peace of mind that their memorabilia is genuine.

Whether you're a seasoned collector or new to the game, this episode is your guide to understanding the essential steps for verifying the authenticity of your cards and tickets. We break down the process, explore the benefits of the sticker method, and share expert tips to empower you in your collectibles journey.

Subscribe now to "The Powers Sports Memorabilia Show" and stay informed about the latest trends, industry insights, and valuable tips to enhance your collecting experience. Join Matt Powers as he unravels the secrets of authentication, making sure your memorabilia collection is not only impressive but also authentic and trustworthy.

Tune in to discover why the sticker way is the only way when it comes to unlocking authenticity in the world of sports memorabilia!

https://powerssportsmemorabilia.com/

Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of the Power Sports Immobilia Show. I am your host, Matt Powers. Thank you again for joining me. Don't forget to visit the website powersportsmorbilia.com. Also, maybe you follow over there on Instagram at PowersAutographs. All right, today we are talking authentication at autograph signings. How do you get it? I've been getting uh quite a few questions about this, specifically kind of related around cards and tickets and how to get authentication on them. Some people have specific questions because they don't want holograms on their actual items, but they still want authentication. Is that even possible to do at a signing? So, first off, there are basically going to be three main authenticators that are going to be at pretty much most of the signings, right? You're going to have Beckett, you're going to have JSA, and then to a lesser extent, PSA. Pretty much everybody uses JSA or Beckett. And the only way to get authentication at an autograph signing is to have one of those companies place their authentication sticker, hologram, whatever you want to call it, directly onto your item. That is the only way. They will not mail you a sticker that you can put on the top loader, it can't go on the top loader, it has to physically go on the item that is being signed. That's the only way. So if you are doing a card or a ticket and you want authentication from a signing, but you don't want a sticker on your item, you are out of luck. The only way that you can now get your item authenticated is by sending your card or ticket to PSA or Beckett and then have them quote unquote give their opinion and put it in a slab if they authenticate it. That's the only way. So there's no Beckett doesn't like mail you a sticker and hope you put it on your item or you put it on the top loader. That makes no logical sense. Why are we putting a sticker on a top loader? What are we authenticating? Nothing. So it must go on the item. Now, there is a caveat here. If you want to do your own signing with an athlete and you want to bring in PSA or Beckett to the signing, they can sit there and witness all the autographs on the cards being done, and then they can gather all those cards up. They can then slab them themselves and they will put it PSA in the present slab. You'll see those on the labels. That's another way to do it, but you've got to do your own signings and you've got to uh do what three three to five hundred items, okay? That's the only way. So if you're sending in ones and twossies to an autograph signing that we are doing, the only way to get authentication is to have that sticker placed on there. Another common question that we get with cards and tickets is do we grade them? No, we do not grade your items. It's too messy, it's not something that we want to mess with. Uh, and also we don't know how you know if you want the card graded or you want the autograph graded or you want nothing graded. It just becomes really, really uh consuming. And um, then we've got a customer service you for like three or four months while we wait to get these things back. Okay, it's just not worth it to make a dollar or two, right? So we always send back your tickets or cards. You will have to submit those to PSA or Beckett yourself if you do not want authentication at the signing and you'd like to have do it that way. Most people, as far as cards go, do not get authentication on the back of their card. It's actually you would think it's not very many people that do it, but actually, a lot of people do get authentication. It's just more people choose not to, but it's not like you know, one percent of people are getting stickers on the back of their cards, it's probably more like 10 to 15 percent. So, quite a few people like to have that because they don't slab their cards with PSA or Becca, they just want to have the authentication and have the autograph card. As far as tickets go, uh, I see most people kind of airing towards the uh no hologram on there. But again, it's not like a lot of people don't do it. It definitely um is is pretty popular in as far as I've seen, especially with higher end stuff. For example, if you are gonna get Tom Brady to sign a ticket and spend $4,000 to have him sign that ticket, I would definitely 100% push you towards getting Fnatics' hologram on the back of that ticket. Number one reason would be is it's gonna add you first person authentication for that item. So should you go to sell it, the other buyer can feel pretty confident that this is a legit autograph, okay? And uh second off, I mean, what the worst case scenario would be is you get this thing signed, you don't get authentication on it, you send it to PSA, and PSA is gonna heavily scrutinize pretty much any high-end autograph that comes through there, and they see one thing wrong with your Tom Brady in their eyes, and they don't pass your Tom Brady ticket. That would be just actually devastating, right? Like you spent all this money on it, you passed up the authentication at the signing, and now you've got this. And what do you do at that time, right? That's kind of the the the the toggle back and forth, the tassel thing that we do with uh do we get authentication at autograph signings. I like to get stickers on my cards for an autograph that I know is pretty sloppy, or it's an autograph that just maybe PSA or Beckett haven't seen a ton of yet. For example, it's a rookie, maybe that's never signed, and uh I want to get some hologram on there in the back just to make sure that, hey, listen, I I've got you know some sort of proof for PSA that I know it's a legitimate autograph, but also, hey, listen, case in case PSA gets squirrely and they don't pass it for whatever reason, that I've got authentication on the back that I know is 100% legit. So I will do that with high-end stuff. For example, like give me the Tom Brady stuff. If I'm spending a good chunk of change on an autograph, I want authentication on that item. It's just me, but I you know, again, I'm reselling most of the stuff there, so I want to make sure that I'm giving the person that's buying this every confidence that hey, this is a 100% authentic autograph. So that's why I like to get the Beckett witness or PSA witness or JSA witness on the back of a high-end autograph. All right, so again, to kind of recap, if you want authentication at the signing, the only way is to have the hologram placed directly on your item. No top loaders, no mailing your uh hologram to you. It's gotta go on the physical item. Uh, second thing is if you are doing jerseys at a signing, some of you guys have been getting back jerseys with stickers, especially from Beckett, on the front tag of your jersey. And the reason why they are doing that is you are probably sending in a screen printed or a mesh type jersey, and the Beckett stickers do not stick very well on those. So, what Beckett will do is they have to put those on the front tag because they will stick better there. So I I I apologize if some of you guys get that. I don't Beckett is forcing us to do that. You have to do that if it's uh like a screen print it or it has like a mesh number, something that where the sticker cannot stick very well as opposed to like a sewn-on number. So if you do get that, I don't have any control over that. What you could do if you wanted to get some sort of uh let's say you're framing the jersey, right? A lot of people either will fold the tag over when they frame it so they can see that sticker, or if you don't want to do that, what you could do is you could submit the item to PSA, Beckett, or JSA and get a letter of uh authentication and have the sticker from like say JSA have that put on the letter there. So you've got the full letter of authenticity, and then you can just put that on the back of the item because they'll take a picture of the exact item and put that on the LOA. So another little weird caveat for autograph authentication. Someday, I really hope someday, we can just do this whole thing online where we just have some sort of like you scan the autograph, the exact autograph pops up, and we don't have to do this whole kind of sticker deal, and you can say, hey, this was signed on this date. Here's the exact autograph that it belongs to this item, and here's the type of item, and all that kind of stuff. That would be super cool if we had some sort of like infrared thing we can kind of scan. But for now, it's gotta be the hologram deal. And I'm sorry, but that's the only way to do it for those tickets and cards at a signing. Guys, got any questions? Let us know. Also, don't forget to visit the website. We kind of we're we've been really revamping stuff up here, trying to clean it up, uh, make things a little easier for you guys, a little more um easily understandable for the lot of new customers that come in because I understand that purchasing an autograph for the first time is uh it can be overwhelming. So we are gonna really clean that up. We've cleaned up the autograph pricing for everybody. So the autograph pricing going forward is just all inclusive. It includes everything. The autograph price, return shipping, anything that you previously were paying for, it's all included into one price now. So if you see a $150 autograph on there, just know that's all inclusive. That's everything. Okay, you're not gonna be paying anything more unless you add something else to your cart, for example, authentication or you know, in an inscription or something like that. All right. So we're hoping that makes it a little bit easier for everybody to follow along and understand. But visit the website powersportsrebility.com. I'll see you maybe follow over there on Instagram at powers autographs. And I will see you guys on the next episode.