Add Authentication To Your Signed Card? 10 Things to Consider Before Your Next Signing

A popular question that I get from many people that are  just coming into the sports card industry is when sending in your items for an autograph signing, should you get an authentication sticker on your card? I'm talking about those JSA witness, Beckett witness or Fanatics holograms. The ones that go right on the back of the card, authenticating the autograph.

There's no right or wrong answer for this one. It's more of a personal preference, but let's talk about 5 reasons why you would not want to get the authentication sticker on your card and then 5 reasons why you would possibly want to get it on your card and then you can decide what's best for you. Of course, when you get something authenticated at a signing, the only way to get the authentication sticker is it has to go on the item. I get this weird question all the time where people could say, "can you just put it on the top loader?" No, we can't do that because what are we authenticating, just the top loader? It has to go physically on the item.

Let's talk about 5 reasons why you would not want to have a sticker on your card

#1, You hate the look of a sticker on your card. Panini does those sticker autos, we all hate those sticker autos. Let's say you're a purist and you like the card as it is how it comes out of the pack. You don't want to add a sticker to your card because you don't like the look of it.

#2, You're planning on getting the card itself graded. After you send it into the autograph signing and you get it signed, you're hoping to get a good grade on that card. You would not put a sticker on it, that's potentially going to devalue the grade. You would definitely not want to put a sticker on a card that you plan on getting the card itself graded.

#3, You plan on having PSA or Beckett, authenticate and slab the autograph and you don't want double authentication on the item. You don't want to have your sticker on the back and then you don't want to have it slabbed also, you just want to have one authentication because you like the simplicity of that. There's no reason for paying for that authentication and then paying for the slab also. You're going to get it slabbed by PSA or Beckett, and they're going to authenticate the autograph for you.

#4, You just don't want to pay the extra money for the authentication. Totally get it. If you're getting a $25 autograph, there's no point in paying the $10 JSA fee.

#5, You know that some collectors don't like to have their sticker on the card and you're planning on selling it later on. You don't want to put the sticker on the back of your card because you want to have your item appeal to the most amount of collectors.

So now let's talk about 5 reasons why you potentially would want to get an authentication sticker on your card.

#1, You like having the authentication directly on the item, it always stays with it. You're not losing that. The sticker is not coming off the card. You like having that authentication in one place. It's easy to verify that that particular item has been authenticated and nd it's just an easy way for you to never, ever have to get it authenticated again.

#2, This is kind of a big one. Athletes autographs are sometimes very, very sloppy. It might be tough for PSA or Beckett to authenticate that autograph after a signing. Take for example, Tony Parker. Super sloppy autographs can be a challenge to get authenticated after a signing. If you had the JSA witness sticker on the back of your card, it's probably more likely that PSA or Beckett are going to feel comfortable slabbing that autograph as authentic.

#3, You're not really planning on getting it slabbed by PSA or Beckett; you don't like having your cards in a slab, but you still want to have it authenticated. I totally get that, many people don't get their stuff slabbed. They like to just keep them in their top loaders or however they're planning on storing it. Again, if you don't want to do that, just add the authentication from the signing. Cost you $10, cheaper than doing the slab and you still get authentication on your item.

#4, If an athlete is known to sign with a particular company you might want to get their authentication hologram on the back. For example, Michael Jordan always signs with Upper Deck. LeBron James always sign with Upper Deck. If they were to possibly do an autograph signing, and that is going to be a big, no. Unfortunately, they're not going to be doing any where we can send stuff in, but if they were, you would 100% want to get the Upper Deck authentication sticker on the back of your card. It's going to add tremendous value to that item. Everybody knows those guys signed with Upper Deck. People are going to be looking for that. You would 100% want to get that sticker on the back of your card.

#5, This is kind of an interesting one that crossed my mind a couple of weeks ago.  If your cards ever got stolen, you could have the authentication number on the back of your card as a reference point for PSA or for the police or whoever you need to get that information too, to know 100% that was your item that was stolen. You would lose that information on the slab if the crook cracked it out of it.  If somebody goes ahead and tries to sell it down the road, you'll know that that is 100% your card.