Are Global Authentication (GAI) Autographs Legit? Watch Before You Buy

Well, if you are new to the autograph industry, you've probably seen this certificate of authenticity out there at some point, and I'm talking about Global Authentication, also known as GAI. They have a little white sticker that goes on their items, and then they've got a little matching glossy card that looks really nice with it. So if you're new to the game, you might be seeing their stuff out there and thinking everything looks legit and the autographs are all good and everything like that. Well today's topic is going to be a little bit about Global and about some of their history and whatnot and what you should do with Global Authentication items if you run across them.

So, first off Global was also known as GAI went out of business back in 2009. So about 12 years ago. So you can kind of see where I'm going with this story if they went out of business, but global doesn't have a great reputation in the industry, sort of like PSA, JSA and Beckett do. Not to say that every autograph that they've authenticated is a fake autograph. That's not what I'm saying.

They just don't have a great percentage of them being real. So my advice, when you see a Global Authentication item is to avoid at all costs unless you are very well-versed in an athlete's autograph. You can spot a real one and a fake one right off the bat.

For example, if you are a Mickey Mantle expert. You guys are great at this stuff like this. You can spot a good Mantle from 10 feet away. If you see one that's Global Authenticated and it's a good autograph, go ahead and buy it. No problem with that. Again Global has authenticated real legitimate autographs, but for the novice or new collector, everything looks legit right? You got a nice little sticker on the ball. It's got a nice certificate. You can actually still verify it online. There's another website that popped up here that is not affiliated with Global at all. If you go to globalauthentics.com, it says right on the bottom of their site, that they're not affiliated with the old company that went out of business, but this website is just set up right now so you can just verify the hologram number on the Global item.

So it all looks legit. You got a nice little online database here, and if you were new to the business, you would think, "wow, okay, this, this all checks out. It looks good. It says it right in the database there. So I'll go ahead and buy this item. It looks like a good item to me." Well, you would be wrong in most cases. So if you are new to the business, I would avoid them and stick to the well-known companies that are still in business. Like JSA, PSA and Beckett, but again, avoid them like the plague. I have never heard anyone say that they've had a great amount of success with them, with seeing legit autographs that they've pumped out of here.

There's a reason why people were sending autographs to them as opposed to PSA and JSA. You would see a lot of team signed stuff that they would authenticate. You would see weird stuff, for example, like the Saints. The Saints won the super bowl and within a week or something like that, you see Global Authentic team signed items out there. You're like, "What the hell? How is that even possible? There's like 40 signatures on that, and it's already authenticated?"

People were using them because they were cheap and they would essentially give you a legitimate looking certificate of authenticity attached to that item. So that's why you see a decent amount of stuff still out there. I think I just did a quick little search on eBay and there's still about 2,600 items or so on there. Again, I'm not saying all of those are fake and I'm not saying all of them are real. I'm just saying that you need to be very careful when buying something from them. I would suggest definitely having a good amount of history with buying autographs and being able to spot a real and good one because again, remember, when we're buying autograph. Yes, the hologram that's on the item tells part of the story, but it's not the whole story. Yes, it'd be great to have a Fanatics hologram on there and and MLB hologram. Most likely that Aaron judge autograph is probably legitimate, right? Because Aaron judge is a Fanatics exclusive and you've had two companies that have witnessed the autograph, that being Major League Baseball and Fanatics. That makes sense to me. So just be careful when you're out there buying autographs out there that the hologram is not what you're buying, you are buying what the autograph looks like.

The hologram just tells a piece of the story. Sometimes the piece it tells is a good story, and sometimes this part of the story it tells is a bad story. So just be careful out there with Global stuff and again, if you are unsure or you feel scared about buying something, you can always ask questions and whatnot, but the worst case scenario is you just don't buy it.

It's not a big deal. It's autographs, right? There's plenty more out there, you know, and you can always find a good and legitimate one. In most cases, if you do your homework and take your time and find the right one that is for you.