There was a time on eBay that one could by decent historical autographs at a fair price. With few exceptions, this is not the case anymore. It is not eBay’s fault, no more than it is a newspaper’s fault that you buy a lemon of a car.

Going through the Autograph section of eBay recently, of the almost 10,000 items, I see items that are nice, but very overpriced; junk that is also way overpriced; fake items, many of these; misidentified items that don’t belong here, etc. You get the picture.

Of course, I am not including Liveauctioneers in this article, since they are usually reputable auction houses using ebay as a vehicle to generate more bidding on their auction lots.

They saying “If it is too good to be true, it generally is” applies to most situations in life and especially in places where antiques are offered without screening for authenticity and attribution.

The most important thing to keep in mind is if you are not familiar with autographs (or any other collectible field), seek a trusted professional.

The bargain you think you are getting maybe the nightmare you dread!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Articles, Blog Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

View all articles by Rick Badwey.

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