Autograph forgeries are nothing new to this hobby, or any hobby for that matter. As time goes on though, dishonest people will come up with schemier ways of taking money from the vulnerable and unaware.
As of recently, a person by the name of Antonio Moscato (Venustoise/Shiny_Hunter23), who you will see has forged many autograpahs, decided to take things up a notch in an attempt to sell one of their fake signed cards.
Antonio, being the clever little trickster he is, was able to locate an old photo of Ken Sugimori deep within the bowels of Instagram, that hasn’t been seen by too many people. With this photo, he took it upon himself to photoshop the image in a number of ways, to help create a false provenance to support the fake Ken Sugimori autograph he created. Below I’ll show the original post, the forgery, the photoshopped image and the original image.
At first glance, I’m sure most would be hesitant of this autograph. It could be the fact that it’s poorly done, the sketch looks off or because this would be too good to be true, either way red flags would go off for most. What changes that, is the photo they produced to go alongside it. Without the knowledge of this photo existing elsewhere, most would fall prey to the image, story and think it’s a legitmate item. Without the “photo evidence” this card would’ve immediately crossed my mind as being a fake.
Original Untouched Photo of Ken Sugimori
Posted by Petchymon on Instagram:
Comparison Pictures
The autograph itself also exhibits many issues I could have listed off, but that’s always a gamble to reveal too much information that could be used to assist future forgeries. I figured the real importance here was the extent this particular person took to really “sell” it as being legitmate.
In Conclusion
As always, please be very careful when it comes to buying autographs. With people taking extra measures to try and scam the less knowledgeable, you can’t ignore any sort of red flags you see or feel. With PSA dropping the ball hard right now with autographs, please tread carefully even if you consider purchasing a slabbed autograph. I encourage you to really dig deep to uncover all you can about the card, the autograph, the history, the who, what, where and why behind it.
My DMs are always open if anyone needs a second opinion or just has a general question about an autograph.
