Buying Authentic Memorabilia

You decide Brett Favre actually might be serious about retiring this time, so you decide to pickup a signed football by the legend. Unfortunately, Carlos in Florida with his blue sharpie decided that this was a great time to make some money – selling some “authentic” autograph memorabilia online.

It’s very common in the industry and is the worst nightmare of memorabilia collectors. Fortunately, most cases of autograph fraud can be debunked by simply following a few steps:

Step #1: Certificate of Authenticity

Reputable autographed memorabilia sellers always give a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) with the autographed item. This piece of paper is proof that the item has been autographed by your favorite celebrity. It will include a signature from the celebrity and will also include the date on which the item was autographed. It may also include the name of the memorabilia seller as well as his/her signature.

You should look closely at the COA to ensure that signatures have not been forged. This can be done by comparing the signature on the item and the signature on the COA, including a Google image search for pictures of other items autographed by the celebrity.

Step #2 Photograph of the actual signing

A lot of eBay auctions now include pictures of memorabilia being signed by the celebrity. Photographs are pretty difficult to forge, even with all the technology available, so if there is a picture offered as proof that the item was in fact autographed by the celebrity, that’s a good indication it is the real deal.

Step #3: Look at the autograph closely and compare

Celebrities often have very strange looking autographs that are near impossible to be duplicated—unless they are printed onto the item. In some cases, scammers have taken a celebrity’s autograph and then duplicated it by use of a computer and a printer.

Fake autographs are easy to spot – look up an image of the celebrity’s official autograph and compare to the item’s autograph. If the autograph lacks fading and looks exactly like the image of the autograph, then it’s probably a duplicate. If it looks slightly different and the ink is a little more faded, then it’s real. Obviously, this will not apply to all autographed items, but for the most part, it holds true.