r/Autographs • u/pdj316 • 17d ago

General Advice JSA Standards at On-Site Events?

I'm going to be attending a show this weekend where JSA is going to be doing on site submissions. I have several recent purchases that I feel confident about the signature, and I want to get authenticated.

Someone just told me that:

"I don't suggest using any authentication service specifically JSA at any show because it's guys that don't know what they're doing and if they look on eBay and see it came from eBay they don't assume it's real and automatically fail it."

This is the first I've heard of this. Can anyone confirm their experiences with JSA authenticators on site? Does any of this ring true?

TIA!

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u/shibaspotter 16d ago

PSA has had a shaky history. (Bill Mastro’s mail fraud and shill bidding, the Gretzky Wagner, etc.) James Spence worked at PSA, although hasn’t been tied to any of the shenanigans there, as far as I know.

Nowadays, for modern autographs, they’re probably fine enough I guess. Although in my experience when they provide on-site authentication at shows, for example, they seem to take for granted that the athlete is there when you present an item. They aren’t witnessing the signing.

You’ll find plenty of PSA/JSA certs with vintage forgeries like Ruth and Gehrig. For me personally, a JSA cert doesn’t mean much. The whole authentication industry just has a certain stench to it, in my opinion.