Concerned about buying autographs? 

Our advice to anyone today when buying autographs, is to simply do a little homework and look into the background of the dealer you might be considering buying from, rather than accept all the stories they can tell you about where an item was signed etc, and believe me, many of them are simply stories!

Many web sellers are simply that, they sell only on the web, and are simply unknown outside of it. They often make claims about having 'inside contacts' at film studios, music industry, football clubs or their membership of any associations. They may say they have a team of people collecting at film premiers and after show parties, or in some cases even claim to hold 'private' signing sessions with top stars.

The truth is that the number of items signed at premiers etc is limted, and certainly not large enough to go around the many 100's of dealers now making these claims. and as for those private signings, well if they were telling the truth, don't you think they would have some good photo proof showing the stars at a desk with piles of signed photos etc?

This kind of ‘provenance’ can often be simply made up, and in many cases it is. A recent TV programme we were involved in (Inside Out, BBC East) created a whole load of provenance good enough to fool not just the general public, but also a number of university experts as well.

Those 'photo proof' images are often just stolen images from another dealer, website, or in the worst cases simply created in Photoshop. Any photo proof at best, only ever proves that the seller may have met the signer in question once. 

Far better to spend a little time finding out about the background of the dealer you may be buying your autographs from. 

• How long have they really been dealing in autographs?
• How much do they really know? 
• Who else in the trade knows them? 
• Are they full time?  
• And very importantly, are they actually members of any recognised association? (always check).

And of course there is little point in asking the dealer themselves these questions is there? If you want to check anything about any dealer, then do what you probably did to find us, and use Google! If you had been buying off of Sporting Icons or Gary Hayes over the last few years, and done a search you would have found out all you needed to know to avoid these 2 sellers of fakes!

I can tell you that Autografica has been buying, selling and authenticating autographs for 18 years full time. We attend shows where you can meet us in person, and we are available on the phone 7 days a week. We have been UACC Registered Dealers for over 8 years, and are also AFTAL and ACAF Approved Dealers as well.

Autografica were voted UACC dealer of the year in 2000, and were presented with the UACC Presidents Award for Quality in 2006. Not only that, but these facts can easily be checked or confirmed by the many UK and US based dealers that we work with within AFTAL or the UACC. Can you say the same about 'Superduper Autograph Celebrity International' on eBay or elswhere? 

Autografica were also the founders and partner in the ‘Autographica’ autograph event for 8 years, and have been featured in many local and national newspapers and magazines, as well as the TV shows ‘The Real Hustle’ and ‘Inside Out’

We have given expert witness testimony for both trading standards and the Police, which is used in court against the many dealers who ‘pretend’ to be experts but are really just confidence tricksters out to take your money.

You should also always check that any dealers memberships. If they say they are a member of the UACC or AFTAL this very easily can be checked at the relevent websites. You may be surprised to find that some dealers actaully lie about this! So the next time you want to buy something signed, check out the dealer first, and not the fancy talk or COA’s they offer, it could save you a small fortune! 

If you have purchased anything signed that you are now suspicious of, then we may be able to help.

If you have purchased via eBay, then all we need is the item number to be able to give you an initial answer. If we believe it to be fake, we will then fax a letter to PayPal confirming the item is fake, so that you can get a refund. PayPal normally require an experts written confirmation for you to be able to get any refund.

Providing we can see from the eBay page that the item is fake, this faxed letter will cost you just £4.95

We can also offer a similar service for items you would like to buy on eBay. Let us have the item number and £4.95 via paypal, and we will then give a valuation for the item. If the valuation comes back as £1.00 then you know its not worth buying!

If the item was purchased elswhere, then we will need to know exactly where the item came from, size etc, and we will need to see at the very minimum a good clear scan, then we can make some kind of assesment as to authenticity. Dependant on many things, this service starts at £9.95 up to a maximum £49.95 for which you will receive our LOA signed by us, and detailing the item, its authenticity, and its value.

Garry King. UACC RD 179. AFTAL 002