Memorabilia Collecting and Authentication: How to Know If a Golfer's Signature is Fraudulent

So how does one know if he/she is about to purchase a fraudulent item? One way to find out is to pay $10 per item to Global Authentics LLC in Carlsbad, Ca. Disclaimer: I have no connection with this company. If you e-mail GA a digital image of the signature, within 24 hours, they will evaluate the signature and e-mail their expert opinion on whether it is authentic, or not. If you buy the item, GA will apply the $10 to their authentication fee and provide a Certificate of Authenticty (CoA).

After being informed by GA that several golf balls I purchased from one dealer had fake signatures with fake CoAs, I e-mailed the seller and asked for a full refund.

I had to backtrack, because these purchases were made several years ago (before I knew about GA). However, if you have the eBay item # you purchased and have a Pay Pal account, you can quickly search for and retrieve the details of a transaction, including Seller's ID and e-mail.

The following is the horse s--- answer I received:

"First off, I do want to apologize for the inconvenience you've had to endure regarding this matter. A brief explanation is in order. A large lot was purchased by X in 2002 from a local sports memorabilia dealer, many items from which were later found out to be fraudulent. Most of the items in question were tracked down and we refunded the full purchase amount to the buyers. Due to the exceptionally large volume of memorabilia that we were selling at the time, we knew that a few pieces were inevitably going to slip through to some of our customers, yours of course being two of such. You can see by our past feedback and by the fact that, unlike so many other unscrupulous sports memorabilia businesses, X is still welcomed on Ebay, that this was not a common occurrence for us. Again, for that I apologize. It was issues like this that finally drove us to get out of the business and try something else. It was costing us too much in returns and we didn't really trust anyone outside of the larger authentication companies, which cost a fortune to work with.

X is no longer run by me and I don't have much (if anything) to do with it. I handed it over to him and his budding business, wishing him luck. Herein lies the issue. As it stands, I haven't worked for the company in almost 3 years. When I did, I was in charge of the Ebay / online portion of the business, i.e. designing auctions, registering the domain, listing items, packing and shipping, email questions etc. Though I was not the owner, I still took it upon myself to see matters through as though I were, which is the main reason that even after so much time, I still felt it important to write you directly. I know that if I was in your shoes, I'd certainly want at least that much. I haven't stayed in touch with the co-founders, for some time as we all had a falling out of sorts.

I wish I could offer more help, honestly, but as it stands I'm just a guy with a wife and son working 60 hours a week to pay the bills. There's just no way that I could afford to refund your money, especially after 7 years. Were the item checked out and returned earlier, I know that there wouldn't be an issue. I don't even have any of the files from X's sales prior to 2005. Please understand that I'm not blaming you for waiting so long, you should have felt comfortable with your purchase, something I worked very hard to achieve for the company, I'm merely conveying the situation.

I will keep this email and see what I can do. If, by some chance, I can acquire a refund for you, you have my word that I'll email you first thing."

My response: "if I were in your shoes, I would find a way to do the right thing."

An authentic Arnold Palmer autographed golf ball sells for $150- $250. So, if you see one being auctioned for $20, beware. Also, I learned from a reputable dealer that Tiger Woods has signed about 50 golf balls since his college days at Stanford U. Consequently, an authentic Tiger Woods autographed golf ball sells for several thousand dollars, or more.

I am having GA check every signature I have bought and will be notifying every seller whose item was judged to be fraudulent. By the way, if anyone is interested I am "taking names and kicking ass" by complying a list of fraudulent dealers.

Two other authentication services:

PSA/DNA
JSA (James Spence Authentication