A father/son team in the south has long enjoyed collecting sports cards. When their card collection grew exponentially, they recognized the need for an easy-to-use inventory system. They created one that worked with just the click of a smart phone camera. The program can not only catalog each card but provide a current value for their cards. Or can it?
Time was, if you collected sports cards, coins or stamps, if the item looked nice and was scarce it had value. If the item was particularly attractive, it would be worth even more. About 50 years ago, what I call the “grading police” emerged. These are people who devised a numeric scale for the quality of a collectible. For stamps, the grades range from “1” to “100.” For coins it’s “1” to “70.” For sports cards, it’s “1” to “10” with half grades also used....
The thing is, microscopic details can be a make-it or break-it issue in grading. A perfectly centered pristine stamp with jumbo margins could be a possible “100.” Yet, if it’s missing just one perforation on the edge or has gum flaws on the reverse, it can drop to a rating of “70” or less with an accompanying plunge in monetary value. So too for a seemingly flawless shiny coin. If it has the lightest scratch or blemish, its value can plummet.
That’s where I wonder about the sport card digital valuation tool. If the card is beautifully printed with vivid colors and fabulously centering, it could be a gem. Yet, if just one of the corners is slightly rounded, look out. Can the digital tool take those subtleties into account? Maybe.
People readily admit today’s technology is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the multitudinous cameras on streetcorners or homes have proven invaluable in catching bad guys stealing, robbing and trespassing.
Conversely, technology has become so advanced, the convincing counterfeiting of items is epic. The quality of the reproduction can be so outstanding only experienced experts examining them under high magnification are able identify what’s real and what’s fake.
One thing that can substantially elevate the value of a sports card is it being signed by the actual player featured on the card. Assuming the autograph is genuine would mean the athlete actually touched it.
That’s another conundrum in this technological era. To convincingly fake signatures there exists an advanced version of the “autopen” – a machine that precisely duplicates a human signature. Sad to say, anyone who has ever received a congratulatory letter from a US president or other government luminary, probably owns an autopen signature and not the real thing.
This is understandably discouraging. It can also be financially devastating. Such was almost the case last year involving one of our nation’s most iconic music figures.
Bob Dylan has been a fixture of the music scene since the 1960s. In addition to performing, he has penned the renowned classics: Blowin’ In The Wind; Mr. Tambourine Man; All Along The Watchtower; Tangled Up In Blue; and, of course, Like A Rolling Stone. Even so, Dylan is a shy kind of guy who doesn’t seek publicity.
His retiring nature means Dylan isn’t often found in the midst of autograph seekers. He may sign the occasional item or album cover but doesn’t go out of his way to do so. Consequently, his signature is worth between $1,000 and $15,000 depending on the quality.
Those amounts may be what raised the eyebrows of Dylan super fan Henry Bernstein.
As writer Remy Tubin chronicled in a New York Times article, Bernstein has seen Dylan in concert over 25 times. Bernstein also owns several Dylan autographed items. Last year, book publisher Simon and Schuster offered 900 copies of the Dylan book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song,”
each autographed by the singer. The selling price was $600. Uh, wait. That’s far less than one of Dylan’s signatures alone sells for. Bernstein suspected something was amiss.
At first, the book publisher contended the signatures were genuine. Eventually, they admitted the autographs were actually in “signed replica form.” That’s legalistic speak for autopen. The publisher then offered full refunds for all copies of the “autographed” book.
It all goes to show how, especially today, no matter how excellent a collectible may appear, it’s always essential to double check and even get the opinion of an expert. That input could end up being the most valuable thing of all.
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