I am a very avid collecter of prized signatures from athletes.  Dr. J, MJ, Magic , Larry Bird , Bill Russell,

Steve Young , Rickey Henderson etc. etc.  COA's ...Certificate of Authenticity.  Anyone or supposed business can make up their own COA and have them printed at a print shop or even better on their own computer.      The beginning of Feb. 2006 on HBO, Bryant Gumble Sports, did a segment on counterfeiting sports memorbelia.   It is over a 1 BILLION dollar a year business counterfeiting sports memorbelia!   It was documented by the FBI on a raid in a wharehouse in New Jersey of several Thousand sports memorbelia autographs....of course every Jordan Picture or Jersey, Micky Mantle hat, Babe Ruth cut signature, and on and on were forgeries.  The bad news is that the ring leader of this forgery ring (who later cut a deal to save himself from prosecution) said that over a MILLION pieces of counterfeited goods had already been sold from Basketballs, baseballs, footballs, jerseys, helmets, bats,.....again on and on.  Most of these are sold on E-bay.  When Bryant Gumble had some 20 pieces of memorbelia authenticated , some genuine some counterfeit.  Most of the companies that were sent these items failed miserably!  Steiner, GAI, and PSA-DNA as well as Upper deck  passed the test with flying colors.  Dan Marino the Great Miami Dolphin QB sat with a repoter from the Bryant Gumble HBO show....as they talked they went on to an E-bay site....Dan Marino did not see one autograph that was genuine.Unbeleivable, not one genuine auto of  Dan on E-Bay!..He Know's his own signature as I  know my own.  If you have interest in  autographs, research the company. Ask questions, "why did you not get this authenticated by GAI (GAI used as an example) E-Bay does have a service that if you are uncertain of a particular auto...E-bay has a specialest on sigs and will tell you if the auto is genuine or not..for a small nominal fee.  After hearing of this on HBO I had alot of my so called autographs authenticated by GAI.  Of the all my COA's the only good ones were from   Sports Centre Autenticated.  As well as my PSA-DNA, Upperdecks and the GAI's.  So I have litterly thrown Thousands of dollars down the drain.  Please be careful.  If you have any questions please feel free to message me.

Thank you for reading this objective guide.  It is here to help those that are wanting to educate themselves about legit autographs. 

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