PSA Is Rejecting Panini Pack-Pulled Autographs of Anthony Richardson

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Mike Junk Wax Hero
February 19, 2024

PSA Is Rejecting Panini Pack-Pulled Autographs of Anthony Richardson

On Friday Twitter user @johnbann237 dropped a post showing that PSA had declined to authenticate a Panini pack-pulled autograph of NFL rookie Anthony Richardson:

This should be pretty surprising, obviously, since Panini guarantees all of their pack-pulled autographs. A lot of responses theorized that Richardson was signing left-handed since he underwent shoulder surgery in the fall. This seems like a reasonable suggestion, but is it so unlikely that someone else signed them?

Phil Hughes did a video a few years ago (during COVID lockdown) showing the process of signing Topps cards at that time, and it did not involve any sort of company representative witnessing the signing. It simply required that someone sign a witness form. In the drive to make more money and get more autographs, is it more likely that companies still do it that way, or that they went back to having a company representative witnessing every signing?

(If you know or have a link that I couldn’t find, please let me know by replying to this or commenting on this post.)

Card Purchaser on Twitter claimed to have a “good” source on this rumor:

An athlete using autopen would also not be unprecedented, as Dak Prescott was busted doing this in 2017. I believe — and I may be mistaken here, since PSA’s glut of label details can be confusing — that the “DO NOT HOLDER” on the PSA flip may point to this as a possibility. I believe if the authenticity of the autograph was in question, it would say “?Authtct” for “Questionable Authenticity.” I’ve had some come back that way. Does the “DO NOT HOLDER” mean something different, like they detected an autopen signature?

There were rumors that PSA was investigating Panini over this, but PSA quickly quashed that, tweeting that they are not investigating Panini but are in contact with them about the matter. I suspect that they are trying to find out from Panini what due diligence Panini did to ensure the autographs were real, and asking Panini to talk to Richardson’s camp about it.

Of course people had jokes:

Someone else asks a great question:

Can you encapsulate and grade the card and have PSA ignore the autograph, and then potentially sell it with the fake autograph as if it’s been authenticated? This is the exact opposite of the question I’ve been asking lately, which is why does PSA encapsulate counterfeit items with real autographs on them? But PSA claims that they’d prevent this:

2023 Bowman Inception Looks Sick

Releasing March 15th, 2024. Yes, it’s a 2023 product.

YouTube Comment Of The Week

None! You guys really need to step it up.

Upcoming Videos

A made my biggest purchase (yet) of 2024. It’s a huge PC item. Oh hey I give you a sneak peek below.

A movie review!

Channel Highlights From the Past Week

Attic Find Friday stays strong with a recap of an Antiques Roadshow segment featuring some 1948-49 Leaf baseball cards. A ton of you sent me this story, so I know there’s still a big appetite for this series.

My eBay had loads of scammy sellers resulted in my sole eBay listing getting removed out of spite by an unhappy viewer, and then eBay calling me about it. I might tell this story on an upcoming video.

Among many other things, my Clearing The Bases episode featured lots of questions on Twitter about the value of buying Topps flagship.

I recently did a video on NorcalCollects being “destroyed" by Nat Turner on Twitter. Has NorcalCollects resurfaced as a Whatnot seller now?

Topps “First Card” Finally Defined

When images first released of the new “First Card” stamp on 2024 Topps flagship cards a month or so ago, everyone wondered what it meant. Well, now we know:

With about 869k base cards, these are unnumbered 1/1s in a strange way. Are they packaged with the base cards? Are breakers and collectors skipping over them because they skim the base? I haven’t seen any surface publicly yet after a few days.

More importantly, do they matter? Will there be high demand for these? Or did Topps/Fanatics just manufacture more scarcity that won’t matter?

Let me know in comments

My Pickup Of The Week

Sneak preview for my newsletter readers:

Whew

I’ll put out a video with the story, but here was my pickup of the week. I’m very excited to add an autographed ticket from Yaz’s 3,000th hit game. The video will dive into the costs to do it all myself vs what I paid for it.

Subscriber Pickup Of The Week

From Michael:

As a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan, I’ve always been on the hunt for a Tom Alston autograph. While not a great player, he holds a major place in Cardinals history as the first African American player for the team. His life story is very fascinating and tragic. While Alston was a gifted athlete, he suffered from neurasthenia and many other mental health issues. He seemingly disappeared from the public eye and when he could be found he was often in poor health, both mentally and physically.

In 1990, the Cardinals brought him back to the ballpark to honor him and throw out the first pitch, as well as meet fans and sign autographs at events across St. Louis. He remarked that he “had more fun that visit than I ever had when I was playing”. He passed away in 1993 from cancer. While his autograph isn’t rare, I always wanted one that was on a clean card or photo in bold ink graded by SGC. I finally found one on eBay for only $50 and I couldn’t be happier to own it and continue to expand my collection and knowledge of baseball history.

To nominate your card for next week, reply to this email and include why it should be included and a photo. Please don’t be offended if I don’t reply.

I don’t remember if I shared this already, but I’ve had it open for a couple of weeks and haven’t read it yet. Into the lucrative world of sports trading cards and memorabilia with expert Michael Osacky.

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