Getting Started with Authentic and Autographed Sports Memorabilia

More people are interested in autographed sports memorabilia today than ever before. That's why it's so important if you're just getting started yourself to take a few minutes and learn the basics. This way, you'll have a better idea about what to expect, you'll be able to make more intelligent judgments on what you should be looking for and how much you should be willing to pay, and you'll be all around more prepared to get into this exciting hobby. There is more authentic sports memorabilia on the market today than you could imagine, but it's all about making the right choices and finding what best matches your own desires and needs.

There was a time just a few decades ago when the autographed sports memorabilia market hardly existed. The "market" was kids going to ball games with a pen or a marker and whatever they had on them, and trying to get a few signatures to add to their collection. If you were able to track down your favorite player and get your jersey, hat or baseball card signed, that was fantastic. But there weren't a lot of other ways to get authentic sports memorabilia, and in fact, that might have been the original and only one.

When I first became a fan of the Chicago Cubs back in the early 1960s, I collected baseball cards, as most baseball fans at the time did. You would get a handful of cards in a pack, along with a piece of gum that nobody ever liked or wanted, and you would collect and trade the cards. I must have had over 1,000 cards in my collection, and boy do I wish I still had the shoe box where they were all stored in. The cards were much simpler too, just a basic posed picture of the player on front, and his stats on the back, nothing more.

Clearly, the arena of autographed sports memorabilia has changed and evolved a great deal over the past generation or two then. Now, you can find an unlimited selection, you can find authentic sports memorabilia from many different sources, and you also have to be willing to spend much more money to get your hands on what you want.

Going along with all of this is the fact that the market for authentic sports memorabilia has also created a huge black market or illicit market. There are lots of items being sold that aren't legitimate or authentic, and shouldn't be worth as much as they are being sold for. All kinds of people are just waiting to pounce on fans and consumers and rip them off for something that is clearly a reproduction and doesn't have any actual value.

You also have to watch out for sly tricks that involve slight changes to the terminology being used. In the strict sense, "memorabilia" is any kind of collectible or piece of gear that has been signed by an athlete or another party and has been verified and certified by a legitimate dealer, reputable distributor or another third party. But a "collectible" is something that hasn't been signed, or something that has been signed but hasn't been authenticated.

Now, often times the words memorabilia and collectible will be used interchangeably, and that's perfectly fine. But when it comes to buying autographed sports memorabilia and getting real value for what you're paying for, you need to pay attention to the details such as the choice of words used, and you need to look for things such as certification and verification.

In addition to the problem of judging authenticity, another huge problem is the quality of the authentic sports memorabilia that you're dealing with. Something like baseball cards have a very wide and detailed scale for how they should be graded, and correspondingly, how much they are worth. Learning to see the details on any item and adjusting buying and selling prices accordingly is very important when you want to pursue the hobby of autographed sports memorabilia, or even if you just want to buy a few great items, or sell off your old childhood collection.

It's also very important then that you don't take anyone's word for it about how high quality their merchandise is. It's always best to see any piece of authentic sports memorabilia in person for yourself. This way, you can inspect all of the details closely, look for flaws, make sure everything looks authentic and certified, and on down the line. But with so much business being done online today, that's not always possible. So what you need to do in its place is to see as many high quality and unaltered photos of the merchandise as possible. If an individual or a company is unable or unwilling to actually show you up close what you are buying, then you shouldn't work with them.

You also need to do your homework on the seller or distributor. When in doubt, only work with companies with a strong and well known reputation and history. For example, Steiner Sports is one of the largest and most well known suppliers of authentic sports memorabilia. They also supply many other retailers and websites, have a great reputation and are extremely credible. So, when you purchase an item directly from there or from one of their partners or retailers, you can then rest easy knowing that you're getting exactly what you paid for, and there won't be any concerns about quality or authenticity.

Alright, by now you should be a bit better prepared to dive into the world of autographed sports memorabilia. You can find anything that you've ever dreamt up out there today, you just need to be careful and perform your due diligence. Don't take any risks, and start to pay attention to differences in terminology, in certification, in the quality of the item and reputation of the dealer and more, and you'll come out on the other side with all of the gear and authentic sports memorabilia you've been craving.

Shop Chicago Cubs Merchandise and Memorabilia