Buying autographs? Watch out for fakes

By Bankrate.com

Your better half's birthday is coming up, and you come across the perfect gift on an online auction site: an autographed photo of his or her favorite movie star or baseball player. And what a bargain! Only $15 plus shipping, with a certificate of authenticity. What do you have to lose?

Try $15 and your shipping costs.

Chances are, if it's a megawatt star, authentic signatures will sell high. You aren't going to get an original signed Hank Aaron or Barbra Streisand for a pittance.

What about the certificate of authenticity -- doesn't that mean the item is genuine? Anyone can certify a signature, but only a true expert can authenticate a signature. Joe Orlando, the president of PSA/DNA Authentication Services, says it's vital to have the signature authenticated by a third party.

"If I say the item's authentic and grade it on quality and I'm the seller, there's a problem," Orlando says.

PSA, which stands for Professional Sports Authenticator, specializes in sports signatures. Orlando says some signatures, such as a good quality Babe Ruth single-signed baseball, can fetch upward of $100,000 -- out of reach for the average collector. But collectors can still pick up good items that will increase in value for a very small investment.

Autograph collectors who want assurance their signatures are the real deal have few options. The most reliable way to obtain an autograph is in person. But this requires a different type of investment: time.

When celebrities make personal appearances, they sometimes sign books they've authored, posters, photos and other memorabilia. Some charge for this service; others do not. Alternatively, a collector can hope to catch the celebrity at a premiere or after a game in an unofficial moment.

Another method is to purchase items that have been examined and authenticated by a reputable and knowledgeable third party such as PSA. But even knowledgeable authenticators will occasionally be wrong.

"It's always a leap of faith, especially when you're buying vintage material," Orlando says. "Remember, where's there's greed, there's fraud."

The thrill of it all

Movie and TV critic Jane Louise Boursaw says she has about 100 autographs in her personal collection. Boursaw collects some of them by mail but warns that writing and asking for an autograph doesn't necessarily net a real one. "You don't always know if the signature is authentic," Boursaw says.

She classifies her collection as a hobby, and a fun one at that, and says her favorites include Melanie Griffith, Doris Day and Tom Selleck -- "because he writes 'Jane Louise, Best wishes, Tom Selleck.' How could you not love that?"

Boursaw finds mailing addresses on the Internet through collectors' sites and drops the stars a nice note with her requests, along with self-addressed, stamped envelopes for the photographs.

Celebrities -- from actors to U.S. presidents to sports figures -- are busy people. Most don't have time to sign autographs for admirers. Some satisfy the demand for autographs with autopens, proxies and preprinted signatures.

When he receives a photo request, actor Mark Hamill, like many celebrities, will send one with a pre-printed autograph, but he's stopped signing new ones. It's easy to see why. Run a search of Hamill's name on eBay at almost any time and you'll find dozens of pricey listings: movie posters with the "signatures" of the entire cast of the "Star Wars" trilogy, props "signed" by Hamill and dozens of other items. On his Web site, he debunks the authenticity of most offerings.

"It saddens me to see the majority of signatures purported to be mine are fraudulent, along with bogus certificates of authenticity, to further dupe the unsuspecting collector," Hamill says. But, he adds, "I simply do not have the time, money or wherewithal to stop the avalanche of fake autographs."

Here's what to do

Autograph collecting attracts a huge following, making it a lucrative investment strategy. Experts say, though, that a collector who's chasing profit won't be as successful as one who's driven by passion.

Potential collectors can now search online for once hard-to-locate signatures. But while finding your favorite's autograph may be easier, it's also much more likely you'll shell out for a bogus one.

Six years ago, a special task force formed by the FBI to investigate autograph forgeries placed the value of celebrity and sports frauds at a half-billion dollars and growing. Today it's estimated that anywhere from 80% to 90% of autographs, including historical ones, are phony.

That doesn't mean everyone who sells a fake autograph is a crook, although there are plenty out there. For those who sell and buy autographs through online auctions such as eBay, it's sometimes a matter of not knowing enough about a person's autograph to distinguish the real McCoy from the fake.

Continued: A notorious forgery case

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