Cpt. Caveman's TTM Autographs : Cpt. Caveman's TTM Autographs #88

Welcome back for another weekly TTM success post. I hope everyone has had a great graphing week. This week I wanted to talk about authentication. Now sure you can spend a bunch of $ and send your prized autographs to a third party authenticator (TPA) like PSA, JSA or Beckett but unless you are selling your autographs I just don't see the point of paying hard earned money for nothing more than an opinion. Most of the time we have no clue who looked at the items being authenticated and gave them a thumbs up or down and mistakes are becoming more and more frequent. For me one of the best parts of this hobby other than seeing a return in my mail box is studying the signatures I receive and comparing them with known authentic examples to see if the celebs actually signed or had a secretary do it. It takes time to train the eye but spend enough time comparing signatures and it starts getting easier to spot a fake or non authentic autographs. If this isn't an option or doesn't interest you then I suggest asking on an autograph group you may be a member of or ask other more experienced collectors for help. Here's a great site for authenticity questions http://live.autographmagazine.com/ and here is a database for autopen and secretarial signatures http://autograph-market.com/isitreal/forgery-reference-database to get you started. Just be prepared you don't always get the answer you want to hear. It stinks to find out that super expensive autograph you purchased years ago is nothing but a worthless fake or a favorite TTM return turns out to be a secretarial. If nothing else you learn a valuable lesson and hopefully avoid the same mistakes in the future. Unfortunately alot of the time I see people getting all butt hurt when told the items not authentic. They ask for an opinion but refuse any negative feedback and grasp at straws like saying one letter kinda looks similar to authentic examples when nothing else looks right and its an obvious fake. So you can waste time and money and use a TPA or you can learn more about this amazing hobby and do your own research and authentication. Anyways now on to this weeks TTM successes. Monday brought two amazing returns. First after only three months we received both pictures back signed from one of my all time favorite musicians James Taylor. To finish off the day we received both cards we sent back signed by Dirk Nowitzki after only one month. Tuesday brought a super cool via venue success from Cate Blanchett after only one month wait. Friday brought one return when we received one of the two pictures we sent back signed from James Daris. He also sent an signed handwritten thank you letter. He's a great addition to our Star Trek TOS collection and took just under a month to return. To finish off the week Saturday brought one last return when we received both pictures back signed from Robert Redford after just under one month. I'm not sure about these yet. Some say he actually signs and some say his secretary signs so I'll have to get back with you on that. That's it for this week. Have a great graphing weekend and I'll be back next week with more TTM autographs and addresses.