AUTOGRAPHS101 chats with BILL MILLER, President of "Autograph Collector". "Autograph Collector" was acquired by Odyssey Publications in 1991, and also runs the popular "Collecting" magazine, as well two books, "The Celebrity Authentication Guide" and the "Autograph Collector Price Guide".

Ebay will always have an autograph component, but if you look at it now, its not that serious. If you look at the material offered, there isn't much stellar material. Dealers won't put it there because they can't get the money and therefore they don't put on eBay stellar pieces. If you do see stellar pieces, it will be accompanied by a forensic COA and we know what that means.

AU101: Does Odyssey sell autographs?

Miller: Odyssey Group, which is a sister company does.

AU101: Do you buy on eBay?

Miller: I've bought other things. No autographs. It's just too arduous of a task to sift through all that stuff and when I have chosen to sift, it's very frustrating to see how much of it is phony. So in my opinion, as a dealer, it's a colossus waste of time. I do look on it. I once did a search on Marilyn Monroe and found that five out of the five pieces were bad and four out of five came with certificates of authenticity.

AU101: Have you seen a change recently since Ebay has brought forth it's new changes and the FBI bust?

Miller: I don't think so. I think the concentration on those parties have stopped. You still have a lot of people that have acquired stuff and have no idea whether it's real or not and they're going to continue to offer it. You have a lot of ignorant people out there. I think it's a very big burrow in a very small saddle.

AU101: Why don't you let authenticators advertise in your magazine?

Miller: We have made it a practice because we've never had an authentication entity come to us that was able to convince us that they were proficient in what they do. My opinion always was that we've been in the business for 11 years and if someone comes to me and is going to be an authenticator of all things, wouldn't we have heard of them before? They're all coming out of the blue. So in my opinion, these forensic guys have taken the approach that it's a conflict of interest for a dealer to authentic, well you know what? Dealers are the only ones knowledgeable enough to be qualified to authenticate because they have handled the materials so many years and they have a hell of a lot more in stake in the realm of authenticity then an authenticator does because all legitimate dealers offer a lifetime guarantee on their certificates of authenticities. Your putting your money where your mouth is when you issue the certificate so there's direct liability when you make a mistake while the authenticator has nothing to lose.

AU101: What would you do if I told you that an advertiser in your magazine is selling forgeries?

Miller: If I was told that, I would call the pieces to their attention and if they didn't cooperate in terms of excising from their inventory, we would get rid of them.

AU101: Have you ever questioned a signature from the inventory of an honest, authentic dealer?

Miller: Sure. It happens to everybody. When it happens too often, then you get concerned. I don't think I've ever looked at a catalog and felt there wasn't a bad piece. But if there's twenty in one, then thirty in another, that's when it gets suspicious. I've seen it happen. You have to remember, people react differently when they can't pay their bills. Sometimes people with all the integrity in the world, when their backs are against the wall will do things that you never thought they'd do. And then when they get away with it, they become brazen. Look at these guys in San Diego. They were printing lithographs, having athletes signing them and then printing more after they left and signing those. Now that is gutsy. Someone told me that they saw a baseball for sale in an auction and it was very distinctive with the wear and everything and the auction ended and two weeks later that baseball showed up with a Babe Ruth signature on it. I've seen a dealer sell a purse attributed to Vivian Leigh and the next time I saw the purse it had Greta Garbo's monogram on it. There are people that will do anything to make money. Desperate people do desperate things and it's a shame. They get some damn comfortable that they think they're invisible. They could be investigating  you for two years before you have a clue and they just watch you digging yourself a deeper and deeper grave.

AU101; Some states have talked about passing laws regarding autograph dealers to get licenses. What is your opinion on this?

Miller: Some states have talked about it, some have implemented a certificate of authenticity law, but that primarily implicates the sports autographs. I don't know how you can license all these people that sold all these autographs. In terms of  licensing by governmental agencies, the less of that the better. The government needs to cooperate and participate when something has gone array. What is the government going to do? It adds a layer to an already arduous task. It's hard to do business anyway and if you have to license that will make it more difficult. What are the requirements going to be? I know people in the business that have been selling autographs for 30 years but if they had to put down their qualifications on paper other then the fact that they've been selling autographs for 30 years , they might not sound that good on paper even though they are the most knowledgeable people in the field. Here are all these guys with degrees, FBI courses and all this bullshit and it doesn't mean anything. Five years ago, nobody was familiar with the term forensic document examiner. The only time they were used was during a divorce case or white collar crime case when they reconstructed credit card receipts and verified signatures or see if fraud was going on. They sure as hell weren't looking at Jim Nabors autographs. That's what bothered me most when we were approached by these authenticators who wanted to advertise. There is no way any one guy or two guys can know everything to known that there is to know. We've been doing this eleven years and there are certain personalities in areas that I won't even look at it because I don't feel that I'm qualified. I don't want to dilute my knowledge by trying to expand on all these areas.  I would rather stay in the areas that I specialize in, Entertainment other then Beatles and contemporary because they change their signature so much. We are good in vintage, mainstream space, history. Sports, don't even try.

AU101: Does Odyssey do any private signings?

Miller: We have done some private signings but with non-sport celebrities. We did one signing with the million dollar quartet, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. We also handed Johnny Cash's autograph affairs for many years. Also Dorothy LaMour, Pete Conrad, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper.  We may do another signing, but we're very selective. The autograph market, the non sport market in terms of a concentration on any one particular personality, and you have to do it such large quantities, 3-400 pieces that it is not that economical in most cases. Now in the case of Johnny Cash where you have such a big following, it was worth it. But in terms of a lot of the others, the price per signature does not make it worthwhile since it tends to be high. To find 400-500 people that want to buy it is even tougher.

AU101: What is the current status of the autograph market in your opinion?

Miller: It's robust. I think what is happening is good but I think it will keep some people on the sidelines a little longer then they would have if they were interested in getting in. Fortunately for us, since we deal in non sports, their haven't been that big enough effect even though there are a lot of non-sport forgeries on eBay. As far as publicity the bulk is on sports pieces.

AU101: What is your opinion of eBay?

Miller: I think eBay has done more to hurt the industry then any  ten combined entities in the marketplace as far as forgers scamming the public. Well in a way, I hope these class action lawsuits go somewhere. That's the only way your going to get eBay to listen. They are such a huge giant that it's like "if we lose our entire autograph business, who cares". They don't care. They have 500 other categories to replace autographs. You may even see them voluntarily get out if it if it becomes to much of a problem. That will be a landmark case if that goes through, imagine if I have to verify every single piece in every single page is authentic in my magazine? I couldn't do it. It's a double edged sword. On one hand eBay is a conduit, the same token I hold them responsible for having so much garbage on there. Do I really want them responsible for every piece that is sold? I don't know because I would be affected too.

AU101: If you were commissioner of autographs for one day, what would you do?

Miller: I would take the eBay autographs section out of their hands and put it in the hands of 1-12 autograph experts and let them proctor it all day. When you deal with crooks, crooks are crooks and crooks can out crook crooks. So yes you can certainly have an opinion as to whether the signature appears to be a authentic, but is what you see on eBay what you are going to get or not? You and I both know that pieces sold that were scanned out of dealer catalogs that the guy has never seen touch, tasted or felt. So I think it's a tool to help collectors, certainly a step in the right direction but whoever is giving the opinion better qualify the hell out of it because the liability in relying in such an opinion purchasing the piece is pretty high. You have to cover your tail if your going to be in that business.

AU101: You have a lot of good dealers that deal in your magazine, do you think your readers buy on eBay?

Miller: I don't think they buy on eBay, but I'm sure they look a lot. Our readers tend to be fairly educated for the most part. They are the hardcore collectors. The bulk of our readers are long term readers because we have a 90% renewal rate. You have a lot of people that get into the greed factor. You look at someone who wants to collect and where do you tell him to go? There may be a great dealer who bought some pieces in a round about way through the San Diego ring and it's very tough  and I hate to see that happen because a lot of dealer inventory was polluted and it's still polluted. You have a guy who walks off the street with one baseball and the dealer looks at it, it's okay and he puts it in his case.  Not everyone bought these items by the case. You have second and third party sales as they change hands. I think there's a lot more out there that the FBI is aware of. I have to believe it's 99% sports or it seems we would have gotten some calls because whenever there's an investigation by a states attorney general or anything and one of our advertisers in involved, we'll typically get a call wanting copies of the magazine and copy of the advertising contract, but we haven't gotten anything like that.

AU101:Is Odyssey going to run it's own authentication company?

Miller: We have certainly been talking about and we would not rule that out at all and I think we're moving towards something like that even though we're not ready to make an announcement yet. The volume of e-mails and phone calls and photocopies in the mail is just overwhelming and we just can't do it for free all day long. We do it as much as we can and as best as we can but it's simply impossible. As far as sports goes, I don't know how heavy we would get into that. We would probably concentrate on all the other areas.

AU101: Where do you see this business in five years?

Miller: The business is going to get tougher on dealers, not because of eBay. I think eBay is going to fade away as far as being a major autograph force. I see it getting tougher because the material is harder to get. Every time a new collector gets into the market, the market is affected in the supply and demand round. Competition among dealers for good material is getting fierce. There is always just so many pieces going around and when the dealers can't get the pieces, they're going to go out of business. I've been watching this sports thing and there seems to be a lot of consolidation with Mastro  combining with Robert Edwards. More consolidation like that, maybe a lot of smaller dealers will work for or with large companies or go and do something else.

AU101: Ebay no longer a force? Why is that?

Miller: I think basically eBay is pretty much dug it's own grave with the public now becoming aware that's so much of this is being placed on the large internet auction site. I think what's going to happen is that collectors are going to traditional dealers, companies which will have their own auctions because they offer safe harbor. If I was to do an on-line autograph auction, this is how I would do it. Any material that was placed or offered, if it was sold through a private party or an individual would have to come to us physically first, then it would be authenticated and examined, estimated, scanned and put on the auction here. And we would have to have arrangements with certain dealers that were qualified to offer  material, but no one else. If a new dealer wanted to apply, we would have to be solidly convinced that that this person was qualified to authenticate the material and offer it on the site. On eBay, you will never see that happen. It just won't happen. If I had the FBI in my face and my name was in the newspaper every time this was mentioned and I took in billions of dollars , you bet I would change my operation 180 degrees. But that's not happening there. What's going to happen is most autographs are bought by a relatively small number of people. The collecting industry is rather small in comparison to other areas. Serious collectors are going to go where serious material is being offered. Niches have always worked the best. Since we do a magazine that concentrates on autographs and only autographs, we do really well. Ebay will always have an autograph component but if you look at it now, its not that serious. if you look at the material offered, there isn't much stellar material. Dealers won't put it there because they can't get the money and therefore there aren't stellar pieces. If you do see stellar pieces, it will be accompanied by a forensic COA and we know what that means.

AU101; What advice can you give to a collector who wants to get into it today?

Miller: Don't buy until you read read read. Get your hands on anything you can, whether it be magazine, books, call dealers and get to know them. Get to know the industry, try to be educated on prices, but the biggest thing is when you make those purchases, if the price is too good to be true, it probably is. My advice is there is never any need to jump in with both feet if you are not comfortable. Get comfortable first. Don't be afraid to ask question. Do your homework and if that autograph is there and someone is pressuring you to buy it , there will always be another one around the corner. Don't be rushed into doing anything when your getting started. Too many people do that and they get burned and then they're gone forever.

AU101: Do you collect yourself and what is your most prized possession?

Miller: I have a Johnny Cash collection but it tends to be high end things like used instruments, letters, lyrics and memorabilia. A Guild guitar he (Johnny Cash) gave me in 1993 that was used  in every concert and session for the last ten years. Without a doubt. If you noticed, I didn't have to hesitate at all. It's on a couple album covers and videos and he handwrote a letter outlining the serial number, model number, when he used it. 

AU101: What's next?

Miller: I think we really like disseminating information in the publication division. We like publishing  and I think you'll see us get more into publishing, hobby related publishing. We will probably in the near term future do something with the sports title like a high classed Sports Collectors Digest with less frequency. Something that has meaty editorials and meaty information and that isn't just one giant ad-rag.