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GIOVANNI'S GALLERIA
Hi! We are Giovanni's Galleria and we specialize in autographed/signed comic books. We are writing this guide to try and help people who purchase autographed or signed comics.
We've read some of the other guides and we felt they were not applying the correct information. We are going to list some steps that will help you be more secure in your purchase.
The first step, without question, is always check the seller's feedback. If they haven't been on EBAY for a few years, their items can be questionable.
The second step is to ask the dealer if they know when and where the item was autographed. If you are buying from a larger dealer, like us, most of our autographs are done in our place of business or at the artist's home. The best thing to do is to ask them if they could provide you with a larger picture for you to view the signature. If it takes them more than 3 days to reply, we suggest that you skip that dealer and look elsewhere. Most dealers should reply to you within that day. We also recommend that once you receive the enlarged picture, try to make your own comparisons or ask another dealer, if they would be so kind to assist you.
A valid certificate of authenticity is really what you want with your item and what we mean by valid, is a certificate that can be traced back to that dealer. In other words, something with a serial number on the certificate that gets filed for your validation. Alot of dealers do not do this but that doesn't mean that the signatures are invalid, it just means that you have to ask that dealer as many questions as possible about that signature.
Believe it or not, there are not many forgeries. There are artists who do sign many books and most artists have at least 3 different signatures. We ourselves, have come across forgeries. Believe it or not, most of the forgeries that we found were from ebayer's that have very limited feedback and are not on EBAY constantly as a business. By knowing this check their feedback and see the months and times that they were on EBAY. This will give you a good round about way of knowing if the dealer is a full time ebayer or just a time to time seller.
We are going to list some of the names that can be forged easily.
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Adam Hughes
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Bob Kane
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Stan Lee
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Joe Quesada
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Howard Chaykin
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Jim Lee
This does not mean that there are many fradulent signatures out there. Actually, there is hardly any fradulent signatures out there. Lets be honest, it's not profitable to go to all that trouble.
The list provided above are just some names that if you are not sure about, you should ask questions.
At Giovanni's Galleria, we offer our services to help people with questions on this matter. We have a large staff and we specialize in autographed and signed comics. There are mostly honest dealers on EBAY but if you are not sure of something, you can always email us and we will help you.
Any other questions or inputs on this guideline, just contact us.
Sincerely,
Giovanni's Galleria
UPDATED WARNING
Giovanni's Galleria, has spoted fraudulent Michael Turner signed books. Since Michael Turner's sad passing, it was inevitable that there would be some dishonest people trying to sell fraudulent signatures. We noticed they are going as far as reproducing other company certificates to make it look legitamate. We advise all collectors, if you have any doubt about an item, ask as many questions as possible and make sure that they are answered fully to your satisfaction. If you are still not sure after you receive your answers, you can contact us and we will look over the item and try to help you with your purchase. We also noticed some Stan Lee forgeries. So we ask everyone to please be diligent in your purchase and always remember that most sellers are honest, helpful and legitamate but there is always one bad apple in the bunch.
THESE ARE QUESTIONABLE AUTOGRAPHS
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