Memorabilia Historian

One of the keys to sports autographed memorabilia is to know whether or not your sports memorabilia is actually authentic. A lot of people find themselves wondering how they can be able to tell whether or not their sports autographed memorabilia is authentic. The bad news is that it is hard to simply know. Unless you managed to see the actual athlete autograph the item with your very own eyes, then you really cannot ever be 100% certain. However, it is important to know with sports autographed memorabilia that there are certain steps that can be taken to try and make sure that you are purchasing only authentic pieces of sports autographed memorabilia.

First and foremost, determine who actually authenticated the piece in question. Who was the original authenticator? If there is no type of written guarantee associated with the authenticity of the piece of sports autographed memorabilia, then do not buy it under any circumstances.

First and foremost, you are going to want to find sports autographed memorabilia that has been authenticated by a company that is reputable. If the certificate of authenticity comes from a reputable firm such as Tri Star, Upper Deck, Steiner Sports or even Mounted Memories, then you are almost certainly dealing with an autographed piece of memorabilia that is actually authentic. These are companies that have contracts with athletes, and they bring the athletes in to have the items autographed personally.

There is another company to look out for, which is Online COA. This is a third party company handling authentications. They personally witness every single autograph that they give an authentication to. They are there for authenticating more than for buying and selling pieces of sports autographed memorabilia, so you can rely on their authentications since they are not in it for the money but simply want to make sure that your sports autographed memorabilia is legitimate.

Something else to look out for is whether or not there is a money back guarantee for the sports autographed memorabilia that you buy. The company or the dealer that is selling the piece of sports autographed memorabilia to you should be willing to provide you with a money back guarantee should you find that the piece is not actually real.

Next, you should be willing to pay a little more for an authentic autograph when it comes to sports autographed memorabilia. If you find something for really cheap on eBay, then the autograph is probably fraudulent. You are going to find cheap sports autographed memorabilia out there, but there’s no telling if its real or not. Real, authentic autographs are actually worth something and the dealers selling them know it. You need to be aware of this too in order to make sure that you only buy authentic, legitimate sports autographed memorabilia.

Photo credits: The U.S. Army

• Guitar Picks Memorabilia -> Rock, Pop -> Guitar and Guitar Picks When you think of guitar picks, do you think of those tiny rounded triangles of plastic that probably cost about a penny to manufacture? Guitarists used to file down materials like wood, bone, stone, amber, ivory and even metal or shell......
• Selling Autographed Memorabilia Most of the people that own autographed memorabilia do not even think about parting ways with their beloved memorabilia. They look at their autographed memorabilia as true crowning achievements in their collections. Unfortunately, there may eventually come a time in their life where they need to part with their autographed......
• Buying World's Fair Memorabilia There are an endless variety of different types of collections and memorabilia out there, and one of the options that are available to you is to collect World's Fair memorabilia. For several decades now, both children and adults have brought home a multitude of different souvenirs and mementos following their......
• Celebrity Autographs Memorabilia -> Autographs: Original -> Movies If you are seeking celebrity autographs, there are a few options available to you. For some however, if you don’t live where there are a lot of celebrities, it can be a little difficult to get the celebrity autographs you want. However, there are......
• Movie Scripts Memorabilia -> Autographs: Original -> Movies-> Scripts If you love movies, one of the best collectible items you can find is an original autographed movie script. These are very rare in many cases, but when you do find one for your favorite movie there is always cause for celebration. This......

• Olympic Memorabilia Sports Memorabilia -> Autographs: Original -> Olympics -> Summer -> Winter When it comes to sporting events, there are few that capture the hearts and minds of the people as much as the Olympics. As such, the popularity of Olympic memorabilia continues to rise. If you are looking for a......
• Sports Memorabilia Sports Memorabilia -> Autographs Original -> Cards Out of all of the different kinds of memorabilia, perhaps the one that collectors seek the most is sports memorabilia. There is something special about finding that special item from a player you admire, or a memento from a game that meant something......
• Types of Sports Memorabilia Items to Buy There are a number of different forms that sports memorabilia items can take, including both modern memorabilia and vintage memorabilia. Some of the sports memorabilia items that you can purchase and add to your collection include: - Autographed sports memorabilia items, including balls, gloves, bats, cards and anything else that......
• Seeking a Sports Memorabilia Appraisal When you are seeking out a sports memorabilia appraisal for an item that you own, there are two ways that you can do it: The first way is to have it done in person using a specialist in the field of sports memorabilia appraisals, and the other way is to......
• Collecting Signed Sports Memorabilia If you are interested in sports, then there is a growing business trend that you should be aware of, which relates to buying, collecting and selling signed sports memorabilia. This is a sound investment that would be well worth considering if you are into sports, but the first consideration that......

• So Truly Real Ashton Drake By Brand, Company, Character Dolls Dolls Bears
• Baseball-MLB Manufacturer Authenticated Sports Collectibles
• Basketball-NBA Manufacturer Authenticated Sports Collectibles
• Football-NFL Manufacturer Authenticated Sports Collectibles
• Manufacturer Authenticated Sports Collectibles

Sometimes you may see it claimed that autographed memorabilia is one of the biggest wastes of money out there, but is this true? A man named Chris Pummer once equated autographed memorabilia to premium coffee as well as cigarettes as the biggest possible wastes of money, but is this true about autographed memorabilia, especially when it comes to autographed sports memorabilia?

The truth is, the only time autographed memorabilia is NOT worth the investment is when you buy the wrong thing, or buy something that is fake. Investing in fake autographed memorabilia is obviously a waste of money. If you are investing in real autographed memorabilia, however, then there is no reason why you wouldn’t be making a sound investment, especially if you are investing in something that is going to go up in value over time. For example, some players have such a great demand for their signed sports memorabilia, that no matter how often they autograph things, the value of these items is going to go up. Take Pete Rose for example, who visits Las Vegas and autographs sports memorabilia on a consistent basis. When he finally becomes unable to sign, or if he should happen to pass away, then any authentic autographed memorabilia of his is going to double or triple in its value nearly instantly.

Shopping for sports autographed memorabilia is really about choosing the right player. Barry Bonds is not the right player. Willie Mays may be the right player. Doing your research is absolutely vitally important. Willie Mays is the greatest baseball player on the planet, and no one is more collectible than he is. If you are serious about collectible autographed memorabilia, then you absolutely need to be willing to shop around and get a feel for what types of autographed memorabilia are out there, what they’re worth, and perhaps most importantly, how they are going to change in value with time.

You need to be willing to educate yourself on all aspects of authentic autographed memorabilia. You need to find players that are good enough for you to invest in soundly. You also need to study the values of items that are based on not only what they are currently going for but also what they could go for in the future. If you do these three things then you will have a much better chance of seeing excellent returns in your future, perhaps even bigger returns than what a stock market portfolio could potentially afford you. Why should you waste your time investing in stocks, where the risk is high and the returns are incapable of being calculated, when you can spend your time collecting valuable sports player autographed memorabilia, something that you enjoy doing that could potentially earn you some serious money?

Photo Credits: Hayley_Bouchard

Originally posted 2009-06-21 05:20:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Benefits of Collecting Autographed Memorabilia Collecting autographed memorabilia is a hobby that can be enjoyable whether or not you are actually into sports collectibles or collecting other types of memorabilia for that mater. Collecting autographed memorabilia, in fact, has become a fad among pretty much everyone because collecting autographed memorabilia is a great way to......
• Movie Scripts Memorabilia -> Autographs: Original -> Movies-> Scripts If you love movies, one of the best collectible items you can find is an original autographed movie script. These are very rare in many cases, but when you do find one for your favorite movie there is always cause for celebration. This......
• Collecting Film Memorabilia There are many actors, actresses, movie scenes and other film moments that are memorable and popular years after they initially came into the limelight. As a result, many people collect film memorabilia as a way to relive their favorite movie moments, or to commemorate their favorite movie heroes. Although the......
• Selling Autographed Memorabilia Most of the people that own autographed memorabilia do not even think about parting ways with their beloved memorabilia. They look at their autographed memorabilia as true crowning achievements in their collections. Unfortunately, there may eventually come a time in their life where they need to part with their autographed......
• Music Memorabilia Memorabilia -> Music Memorabilia -> Rock, Pop Music memorabilia has always been popular, and although we associate it primarily with today’s rock and pop musicians, the practice of collecting items for musicians and groups dates back many hundred years. In fact, in Japan, before mass printing was used on a......

• A Quick Guide to Property Investment With our culture of widespread home-ownership, the British are at the forefront of foreign property investment. Such ventures are fraught with potential problems – bureaucracy, local laws, exchange rates, foreign languages – but the end result can be hugely rewarding and profitable. Most people buy property that will grow in......
• How to save money on Ebay You can save money on EBay by learning how to sell on EBay correctly. There will always be mistakes that you will make as a beginner. This is why it’s important for you to do your research before you sell on EBay so you can avoid scam, lost and spending......
• What To Do With $75,000? Ask the M-Network Earlier this month, I announced the M-Network's new Ask the M-Network feature. In brief, we'll do our best to provide feedback on personal finance questions (several members of the network answer each one). We are not financial professionals, so this is not professional advice. It's our opinions as people who......
• What I believe Everyone has their own favorite personal strategy for wealth building. Some people believe that you should leverage your assets as much as possible in hopes of returning great returns. Others are more risk adverse. Some love credit cards, some hate them. Through the course of this blog, I plan on......
• Dollar cost averaging and assumptions MyMoneyBlog recently had a post on dollar cost averaging.  In this post there is a reference to a paper by Knight and Mandell, the conclusion of which is that dollar cost averaging is not worth the additional effort over buy-and-hold investing or periodic rebalancing.As a brief review, dollar cost averaging......

• Player Piano Musical Instruments

Collecting autographed memorabilia is a hobby that can be enjoyable whether or not you are actually into sports collectibles or collecting other types of memorabilia for that mater. Collecting autographed memorabilia, in fact, has become a fad among pretty much everyone because collecting autographed memorabilia is a great way to build worth in something. This is so true, that autographed memorabilia has become a sensible method of investment for many people, but before you make an investment in autographed memorabilia you need to understand what things are actually going to guarantee returns and what purchases are not going to benefit you at all. There is a wide variety of sports memorabilia and other types of autographed memorabilia for you to choose from. In terms of sports memorabilia alone, there is boxing, football, soccer, baseball and any other sport imaginable for you to choose from.

The biggest attraction when it comes to investing in sports autographed memorabilia is that it can appreciate tremendously in price in comparison to other types of investments. No matter what type of autographed memorabilia you have, your autographed memorabilia is likely going to become worth more with time. Not only will autographed memorabilia items have a money back guarantee in place essentially, but these items are also going to grow significantly in price over a period of time.

The biggest catch when it comes to sports autographed memorabilia is knowing how to find authentic pieces of memorabilia since there are fakes out there doing the rounds within the market. These knock off pieces of autographed memorabilia can really mess up your ability to invest if you are not careful about the investments that you make. As a result, it is vitally important that you purchase your autographed memorabilia from reputable and reliable sources as well as recognized outlets. You can insist on receiving an authenticity certificate with your autographed memorabilia in order to make sure that what you are getting is legitimate, as well.

Buying autographed memorabilia has really become a trendy option for investing, and it is something that you can use to teach family members and children about investing as well. Basically, when you invest in autographed memorabilia you are ensuring a guaranteed return because autographed memorabilia is highly likely to appreciate in price over time. This is a great bet for you to make if you want to preserve some of the best moments in the history of sports, passing it down from generation to generation and watching it grow in price through the years. This is a great way to involve your entire family in investing and a hobby that can bring your family joy and future wealth. If you are not already investing in autographed sports memorabilia, why not?

Photo Credits: heath_bar

• Is Autographed Memorabilia Worth it? Sometimes you may see it claimed that autographed memorabilia is one of the biggest wastes of money out there, but is this true? A man named Chris Pummer once equated autographed memorabilia to premium coffee as well as cigarettes as the biggest possible wastes of money, but is this true......
• Collecting Sports Autographed Memorabilia One of the keys to sports autographed memorabilia is to know whether or not your sports memorabilia is actually authentic. A lot of people find themselves wondering how they can be able to tell whether or not their sports autographed memorabilia is authentic. The bad news is that it is......
• Buying World's Fair Memorabilia There are an endless variety of different types of collections and memorabilia out there, and one of the options that are available to you is to collect World's Fair memorabilia. For several decades now, both children and adults have brought home a multitude of different souvenirs and mementos following their......
• John Wayne Memorabilia Collection If you are a fan of John Wayne, and looking to start a John Wayne memorabilia collection, keep reading. John Wayne memorabilia collections have always been a popular subject, but ever since his 100th birthday was celebrated on May 26 of 2007, the concept of beginning a John Wayne memorabilia......
• Maria Callas Memorabilia -> Opera Memorabilia Maria Callas may be the best known female opera singer of our time. While Pavarotti is an internationally recognized name, Callas was the soprano whom most people had heard of. She was an American-born singer of Greek descent who came to be called La Divina by......

• Spotting Real Autographed Sports Memorabilia Many people get excited about autographed sports memorabilia when they find it for a good price, and as a result, many people purchase so called authentic autographed sports memorabilia without investigating the authenticity of said memorabilia. The question that all buyers should be asking when shopping for autographed sports memorabilia......
• Sports Memorabilia Collecting 101 Before you jump into the world of sports memorabilia collecting, there is some basic information that you should be well aware of. First and foremost, you should have an understanding of certain terms that are common when it comes to sports memorabilia collecting. For example: Photos, jerseys, cards and related......
• Sports Memorabilia Sports Memorabilia -> Autographs Original -> Cards Out of all of the different kinds of memorabilia, perhaps the one that collectors seek the most is sports memorabilia. There is something special about finding that special item from a player you admire, or a memento from a game that meant something......
• Baseball Cards Sports Memorabilia -> Autographs, Original -> Baseball-MLB-> Trading Cards Baseball cards have been around for just about as long as the sport has and many of them have turned into very valuable collector items. Whether you are interested in collecting baseball cards from a fan perspective, or you are more......
• Antique Doors Antiques -> Architectural and Garden -> Doors Antique doors have much to offer the private collector and many of these, depending on the materials used, and the designer may actually be worth quite a lot of money. Whether you are looking for a collectible that you can put to good......

One of the most important aspects of collecting any type of memorabilia is the ability to determine what memorabilia is authentic memorabilia and what is not. This is especially vitally important when it comes to autographed memorabilia in a variety of different arenas such as sports star memorabilia and movie star memorabilia. If you enjoy collecting in a realm where having authentic memorabilia is an important consideration for you to make, then knowing how to identify real authentic memorabilia in comparison to fake memorabilia is vitally important for you.

The FBI has recently reported that as much as 70 percent of all autographed pieces of sports memorabilia are actually inauthentic, or otherwise fake. This is a truly astounding number if you think about it. The best way that you can possibly ensure that your autograph is really and truly authentic is to have the athlete sign the memorabilia for you, in front of you. The next best thing if you cannot have this happen is to have a reputable sports memorabilia company authenticate the autographed memorabilia for you. You need to put a large amount of emphasis on the concept of reputable, because there are also companies out there that are not reputable and should be avoided at all costs as a result.

One example of a reputable sports memorabilia company that you can rely on to provide you with authentication of your memorabilia is Upper Deck. They originally started their memorabilia authentication process in the year 1992 in order to give collectors the confidence that they needed that the memorabilia they were purchasing was going to be the real deal rather than one of the 70 percent of phonies and forgeries out there. There is a five step patented program that Upper Deck employers in order to authenticate the memorabilia that they sell to their customers. First and foremost, every single autograph is witnessed by an Upper Deck representative, or it is not considered to be authentic.

Next, a document is signed by both the athlete and the representative that documents the autograph session. A hologram featuring a serial number is secured to accompany the signed sports memorabilia, and then a certificate of authenticity featuring a similar hologram is assigned to each of the pieces of memorabilia. Finally, each and every piece of authentic sports memorabilia is packaged with a card for registration that allows the owner to register their item with the Upper Deck Company, allowing their registration to be logged in a permanent file along with the document providing the authentication for the memorabilia. Should the item change hands, the new owner will be provided with a complete history of the item from when it was signed until when it was received.

This is one of the best possible ways that you can make sure that your memorabilia is authentic, so if you are looking for memorabilia that you can trust based on its authenticity, you should see what Upper Deck has to offer.

Photo Credits: tabrandt

• Benefits of Collecting Autographed Memorabilia Collecting autographed memorabilia is a hobby that can be enjoyable whether or not you are actually into sports collectibles or collecting other types of memorabilia for that mater. Collecting autographed memorabilia, in fact, has become a fad among pretty much everyone because collecting autographed memorabilia is a great way to......
• Is Autographed Memorabilia Worth it? Sometimes you may see it claimed that autographed memorabilia is one of the biggest wastes of money out there, but is this true? A man named Chris Pummer once equated autographed memorabilia to premium coffee as well as cigarettes as the biggest possible wastes of money, but is this true......
• Rock and Roll Concert Memorabilia Collecting One of the types of collections that is gaining in popularity right now is collecting concert memorabilia. This is because every band seems to be going on tour these days, and in their wake they are all leaving plenty of autographed concert memorabilia for collectors to snap up, stuff into......
• Law Enforcement Badges and Memorabilia Different people have different interests when it comes to collecting memorabilia and other collectibles. For example, some people collect law enforcement badges and other law enforcement memorabilia. The reasons for such a collection may stem from having a history working with law enforcement or possibly having an ancestor that was......
• Collecting Sports Autographed Memorabilia One of the keys to sports autographed memorabilia is to know whether or not your sports memorabilia is actually authentic. A lot of people find themselves wondering how they can be able to tell whether or not their sports autographed memorabilia is authentic. The bad news is that it is......

• Sports Memorabilia Collecting 101 Before you jump into the world of sports memorabilia collecting, there is some basic information that you should be well aware of. First and foremost, you should have an understanding of certain terms that are common when it comes to sports memorabilia collecting. For example: Photos, jerseys, cards and related......
• Spotting Real Autographed Sports Memorabilia Many people get excited about autographed sports memorabilia when they find it for a good price, and as a result, many people purchase so called authentic autographed sports memorabilia without investigating the authenticity of said memorabilia. The question that all buyers should be asking when shopping for autographed sports memorabilia......
• Lou Gehrig Sports Memorabilia -> Fan Apparel & Souvenirs -> New York Yankees Lou Gehrig, whose full name was actually Henry Louis Gehrig, is one of the most well-known names, not just in the history of baseball, but in the history of sports. He's distinguished because of his remarkable career as......
• Football Helmets Sports Memorabilia -> Fan Apparel & Souvenirs -> Football-NFL Official NFL memorabilia comes in all shapes and sizes, but some very distinctive collectible items are NFL football helmets. Whether you want to collect one from each of the 30 teams, or just your favorite team or teams, it's a fun......
• Build Your Own Sports Memorabilia Collection Some people begin to create a sports memorabilia collection to create a hobby, and other people decide to put together a sports memorabilia collection for the sole purpose of eventually selling their memorabilia off later. Some people, then, specially build up their sports memorabilia collection full of specifically chosen items......

• Artist Signed Postcards Collectibles