He was the prototypical consumer: a hobbyist who trusted someone else to make sense of the swooping letters of notable people long dead or far out of reach.Īll Sterpka knew was that he owned a coveted Lindbergh. None of this was known to Sterpka, who liked to collect sports cards with his father and had only a passing familiarity with autographs. Neither appeared to notice that he misspelled his own name as "Delehanty." Moreover, Jerry Casway, the player's biographer, pointed out that Delahanty was in Cleveland on the same day he allegedly wrote the letter, which was postmarked in Philadelphia. Johnson died in 1946.īoth companies endorsed a letter signed by turn-of-the-century baseball player Ed Delahanty. JSA gave its thumbs-up to a trading card signed by pioneering boxer Jack Johnson. PSA once evaluated a James Earl Jones autograph and labeled it the handiwork of James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin. Yet PSA and JSA have one problem: They sometimes get it wrong. But with PSA's endorsement, the same Ruth shoots up to $2,900. An unauthenticated signature from Babe Ruth might sell for $250, with bidders wary of its pedigree. There's a reason their blessing is so coveted.
Nothing seems beyond the scope of their expertise, from Frank Sinatra's scrawl to baseballs defaced by Mickey Mantle. EBay, the world's largest facilitator of memorabilia auctions, endorses both companies to its customers. The two companies have come to dominate the market, verifying hundreds of thousands of signatures each year.īusiness is so good that they use garbage cans to hold the cash they collect from reviews at hobby conventions.
Today, few autographs are bought or sold without the blessing of either Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) or its competitor, James Spence Authentication (JSA). That last bit of language is where Sterpka's problems started. The cut autograph was independently authenticated by a third party authenticator. The memorabilia was certified to us as belonging to Charles Lindbergh. You have received a trading card with an historical strand of Charles Lindbergh's hair that includes an autograph of Charles Lindbergh. The back of the tiny treasure congratulated its new owner: The company sent him a 2.5-by-3.5-inch piece of cardboard featuring Lindbergh's scrawl and a follicular sample. "I can't believe what I've got in front of me." Then he saw it: a card redeemable for Charles Lindbergh's signature and a strand of the famous aviator's hair. With just 48 remaining, it appeared to be a lost cause. He'd spent $1,500 to purchase a case of 768 cards.
The odds were not in Sterpka's favor: Only ten of the Hair Cut Signatures were available.