Where to Authenticate Your Baseball Autographs

Video Transcript

"I'm Walt Case. I own Card Traders of Austin in Austin, TX. We've been in business for approximately fourteen years, sell a variety of sports cards and sports memorabilia, including autographed memorabilia. One of the keys in todays market in terms of autographed memorabilia, is you must get your autographs authenticated if you want any chance of selling them at a reasonable price. Part of the problem is there's so much bad autograph stuff on the market today, that it's very risky to purchase an autographed item that is not authenticated. There are any number of ways to do that. You can certainly buy from your local hobby dealer or a dealer in autographs. You can buy stuff that has been already authenticated. There are a number of companies that have authenticated items. One of those companies is Mounted Memories. Their authentication item will have a sticker on it. It's a little holofoil sticker that will indicate that that item has been authenticated by Mounted Memories. Which is one of the very respected companies in the industry today. Another one is TriStar out of Houston, Texas. They are a huge show promoter and they have athletes come into their card shows and sign items. And you can get those items authenticated by TriStar at the show. And they again will have a holographic sticker on them. If you have an item that you need to get authenticated yourself that you did not buy on the market that was already authenticated, there are two companies that we predominantly use. One of them is PSA out of California, another one is GAI. You can send your items to those companies and you can go onto their websites and they will tell you exactly how to package the item, how to send it, how to insure it and they will authenticate your autograph and send it back with their sticker on it. And a reference number where you can go on line and tie your item back to that autograph. But it is very critical to get your items authenticated and if you buy an item, make sure it is authenticated before you pay your money."