Only thing with hand signed letters or COA's for a given item, how do you know what the signature is even supposed to look like? How doyou know its not just traced or copied onto the paper. Its hard being an autograph expert let alone one with no sample to compare against as often is the case with things signed by some minor production person. Its a start though as then you have someone in theory you can question about the item. Actually website url is better than a signature as you then have saved the leg work of having to find out how to contact the original seller of the item.
Certificate of Authenticity
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I can't say I've ever examined a signature on a COA. I've just been collecting long enough that I've gotten most of the common COAs from reputable dealers firsthand and know what they're supposed to look like, what the paper and printing and embossing and hologram or whatever that particular COA uses is like on an original, etc., and have other exemplars for most of them to compare to. Of course, these often change over the years; a Fox COA from early 2003 is a full sheet of parchment-yellow paper that looks like something I could print myself with a bunch of handwritten fields, one from the next year is a small white rectangle with an embossed stamp and fewer handwritten fields, and more recent ones are smaller evolutions of a third design which eventually added numbered holograms &c. If I ever ran across a high-value item I had any questions about I'd probably contact the COA issuer directly for more information if available, or contact an expert in that particular kind of prop to ask for more information, but most of my high-value items were purchased directly from studio outlets where I have no authenticity questions, or from production members or otherwise don't have common COAs to deal with.
One fraud or problem on resale that you can't easily detect unless you can get information from the COA issuer is the substitution of one prop or wardrobe item for another. In a recent Heritage Auction there were several Resident Evil and other items sold, with original Premiere Props COAs. I have an archive of all the original Premiere Props images from their Resident Evil listings, and a few others, and alas some of the COA numbers and items in the pictures did not match. Fraud? Accidental mismatch of COAs to items by the owner? Premiere Props being careless (wouldn't be the first time)? I don't know, but with such open questions I sure didn't buy.
Any hobby of value will have frauds or other issues to beware of. Prop & wardrobe collecting is no different from coin collecting, baseball cards, art collecting, comics, buying brand-name clothes and watches, or any field where objects of value are bought and sold: some people are scammers selling counterfeits, and some are honest collectors who don't know they're reselling counterfeits. But most items (aside from a few well-known and infamous sources) are genuine and most sellers are not out to screw you, and if you're buying from longtime reputable sources you almost certainly have no worries. I myself spent a few hundred dollars on fakes years ago; it stung, but I learned from the experience to develop a good nose when it comes to sniffing out dodgy sales. I also benefited far more from taking chances on items where my information wasn't complete but nothing smelled wrong, than I ever hurt myself. But YMMV...
PropworxOliver
Member
just a note: Propworx CoA's come with a matching, numbered hologram sticker on the COA and the item. Very, very hard to fake.
just a note: Propworx CoA's come with a matching, numbered hologram sticker on the COA and the item. Very, very hard to fake.
So you put a sticker on the props?
I recently obtained patches from a SciFi series for my collection groupwise from differend sources like several well known prop stores and a propmaker of this series.
Then i sold some of the patches i had doubly in my collection. But as i had only COA's for groups of patches i added photocopies
of the pertinent COA's to proof the patches origin. I this case what can someone do? Not everbody understood why i only could send photocopies.
Then i sold some of the patches i had doubly in my collection. But as i had only COA's for groups of patches i added photocopies
of the pertinent COA's to proof the patches origin. I this case what can someone do? Not everbody understood why i only could send photocopies.
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Rik1138
Sr Member
Yeah, Propworx does that. The holograms are serial numbered and match the prop and the COA. From the props I've seen (and have) the stickers are placed in areas that are discrete, and they can usually be removed if you really want to (but that destroys the sticker). But, I would think anyone that would want to buy a prop with a Propworx COA would _expect_ that sticker to be there, or would immediately suspect the item as possibly being fake...
PropworxOliver
Member
Yes, unless it is a costume or similar, and we use costume tags. Stickers are placed in non-obvious areas. We have even consulted directly with buyers to place the hologram where they prefer.
Many times, buyers frame and display our CoA's with items - they are designed around the theme of the auction and are very nice.
I agree with posters who comment that the CoA is only as good as the issuer. It is just one piece of the puzzle...
just a note: Propworx CoA's come with a matching, numbered hologram sticker on the COA and the item. Very, very hard to fake.
Yes and no. It would be difficult to remove hologram stickers intact and transfer them to a fake prop yes, but there are securities counterfeiters who do similar things, so I'm sure someone dedicated enough could learn how. I'd imagine a little research on the net for chemical or physical removal treatments, and some practice with low-value props with the holograms, could most likely give one the skills needed. [Or perhaps as an avid viewer of the show White Collar my imagination gets the best of me. :lol ] But in reality this is highly unlikely, since few props are valuable enough for the unscrupulous to spend that much time on, and the ones that are would be subject to high scrutiny on resale. To waste time acquiring such skills in order to risk jailtime over a few thousand dollars would be crazy. It serves as a very practical barrier to counterfeiting props, and for that Propworx's method deserves praise. Props that are directly hologrammed can't just be instantly substituted and sold with the COA from something more valuable, as I mentioned seeing done with some Premiere Props items on resale in a recent auction.
For costumes though I don't have the same faith in the Propworx holograms because they're attached to cards attached to the costumes; a tagging gun like retail clothing stores use, which could be used by a fraudster to remove and reattach the card with the hologram to an item of lesser value, is a common item. That's why it's important to closely examine costumes of value on resale, comparing details to the images on the COA or in the case of Propworx its online archive. That's another thing I have to thank Propworx for, in addition to the holograms on props: the online archive, with good resolution images of all their publicly sold props and wardrobe. I wish all the other companies would provide the same (ScreenUsed.com does, but none of the other majors do).
Anyway, Propworx's COAs, addition of hologram stickers to the props themselves, and full online archive database is the current state of the art. I can't think of anything practical that's better.
I usually include the original COA to the new buyer when I resell part of a lot, because it typically helps raise the final price and because if I part out a lot the item(s) I keep are usually ones I intend to keep permanently. Also, as the original buyer whose name is on them I figure my invoices, receipts, or other records of the original sales transaction together with color copies of the COA would most likely be adequate provenance for future buyers (or auctioneers/retailers) should I decide to sell the rest of the lot later. The original COAs themselves have little or no point or anything they'd add to a display once you've got hundreds of screenused props and costumes sitting around.
At least, the ones from companies start to feel superfluous; I've got a few personal notes from production members that I do display with their items.
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Stickers on items and coas are helfpul but a website with pictures archived of things that sold is more so. Propworx does this. Modifying a propworx coa and removing and creating a new sticker while a tall task is a lot easier to do than making a prop look exactly like another in a picture archived on a site. Many other sellers like premiere props often used one picture for multiple versions of the same prop so a switch would be easy on them.
Sorry about the late post. Just wanted to add to this thread. My collection of original screen used miniatures were acquired by myself from effects personal and people associated within the production. I have never asked for a LOA as most of these people you simply don't ask. I was to busy focusing on getting the model. Every ship in my collection are all 110% original and not one has a so called L.O.A. So personally I never cared about the "document" as said here, they could be forged. BUT on the other hand, real effects people never bother to even think about it. this is how it usually is when collecting on this level. Hope this helps...
I was rather surprised when i opened my John Long Star Trek TOS phaser replica kits to find a 'certificate of authenticity' inside.
Authentic... replica... hmmm..
The best protection is probably to register the props. Because as expensive as a screen used prop can be, very few of them sell for more than the original fabrication cost in real money. If you look at the prices Wah charged for his communicators and phasers and translate that into today's money it is quite a chunk of change. And replicating a forty year old prop and aging it is much more work than making the original.
To make real money a forger has to be selling the same prop over and over. Which is I suspect why the Mark English props started to be noticed. There were just too many serious collectors with 'authentic' props. Once it is obvious that at least some had to be fakes the inconsistencies are noted.
Certificates of Authenticity in themselves don't add much, but backed by a public registry they can be quite effective. Nobody makes money selling fakes of the Mona Lisa because everyone knows where the original is.
Now that sales of props is becoming a significant part of budgeting for films and TV, there are techniques that could be economically deployed during the production process. There are bottles with tiny little dots with a unique serial number that can be mixed into things. There are RFID tags and so on.
Authentic... replica... hmmm..
The best protection is probably to register the props. Because as expensive as a screen used prop can be, very few of them sell for more than the original fabrication cost in real money. If you look at the prices Wah charged for his communicators and phasers and translate that into today's money it is quite a chunk of change. And replicating a forty year old prop and aging it is much more work than making the original.
To make real money a forger has to be selling the same prop over and over. Which is I suspect why the Mark English props started to be noticed. There were just too many serious collectors with 'authentic' props. Once it is obvious that at least some had to be fakes the inconsistencies are noted.
Certificates of Authenticity in themselves don't add much, but backed by a public registry they can be quite effective. Nobody makes money selling fakes of the Mona Lisa because everyone knows where the original is.
Now that sales of props is becoming a significant part of budgeting for films and TV, there are techniques that could be economically deployed during the production process. There are bottles with tiny little dots with a unique serial number that can be mixed into things. There are RFID tags and so on.
I see on ebay one specific seller is selling screen props and says he has a coa from dandy props but I can't find it on the internet. No contact info on the coa and each signiture looks different. Some are old 1970 shows so is it possible that the company no longer exists or is this a scam. I already bid before I googled. My bad. Any info would be helpful. Thanks
Stairstars
Well-Known Member
Why not just cancel your bid?
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