I just came across a highly-rated eBay seller (more like a bait & switch - he posts on fbm but then directs you to its ebay listing with already like $900 in bids). His 400+ active listings of rare Pokemon cards, are almost exclusively (1) PSA graded and (2) autographed by Mitsuhiro Arita.
I checked out some of his Arita signed cards and immediately noticed a huge discrepancy indicative of forgery. A large subset of his Arita signatures incorrectly display dates in the “dd/mm/yy” format (ex/ 14/2/22). This is NEVER used in Japan (or Asia in general), which uses the mm/dd/yy format (2/14/22). His other Arita listings do show dates in the correct “mm/dd/yy” format, which is customary for Japanese signatures.
The wrong date format (dd/mm is used mostly in Europe) contradicted by his other Arita signed cards showing the correct “mm/dd/yy” date format, to me is conclusive proof that all the dd/mm auto listings are likely forged, which in turn raises doubt on the authenticity of all his autograph listings, which are currently heavily bidded in 3-4 figures rnage
Are there Arita fans/collectors with more insight on how he signs dates? I just cant see a Japanese person signing dates like “14.2.23,” especially when his other autos show “2.14.23.”
Which has the dd/mm/yy format, that OP says is fake . It is complete and utter conjecture and clearly nonsense.
E: clicking the provided examples reveals even more nonsense, in the “correct format” is one that could be legit date in either format and one that has the European format (so even an example of “correct” has the “incorrect” format).
It seems his last signing in paris wasn’t well advertised and so people were getting 4/5 autos a day as there wasn’t a big queue.
Those are all dated the correct* way to do a date - dd/mm/yy or more accurately he has probably switched to doing them in the way the country he is in does the date.
just making fun of anyone saying it’s right and wrong
Very interesting, I wonder if Arita has a set date style based on the Country he is signing at.
@kijamon, that’s really amazing and lucky for those folks in Paris. I would have loved to have that happen, unfortunately Paris is a bit far for me.
On a side note of fake autos, have you folks seen this Midori Harada Eevee that looks like it was signed in the future? The month and date seem to line up with one of her events, but the year is definitely off as we are still in 2023. Do you think Harada might have signed this card first thing in the morning and accidentally write 24 instead of 23? If I was an artist, I would have probably redone it on a different card and take it if it wasn’t a card of value. I can’t believe PSA authenticated it as well. Like if someone had a video of their signing experience and sent that then ya, I would authenticate it. But to see something dated in the future and get the stamo of approval…I don’t know…
The fact that most of them are cringy af signed “宝へ” (to Treasure) also reeks of reseller behavior. Which ironically and sadly is an indication of authenticity.
Yes this is what I think happened with the card in question. There were plenty of small mistakes this weekend, some people got cards without personalization. She was signing 5 cards per person so it was a huge volume and some small mistakes were made.
I don’t think PSA cares except checking if the autograph is authentic. They aren’t going to check historical accuracies of whatever someone writes.
Ah ya it would be a little too much work on the grading service’s half. Plus they wouldn’t know if it was signed outside of an event. It’s kind of neat that Harada would sign 5. Although, I’m not really a fan of some of her autos But if she ever made an effort to come to Hawaii, I would definitely see her.
I don’t see the purpose of this thread, its like saying all the copies on PWCC are fake as they’re multiple listed every week. Just because Nathan wants to consign all his gold stars doesn’t mean they’re forged. It just sounds like a baseless conspiracy, if the autos were not graded and had no provenance behind it maybe an argument can be made.
The point of the thread is to confirm or reject the claim made on Reddit. It was done in the first post. It’s still a useful discussion to someone who may be new to autographs and haven’t thought deeply about how you would respond to this claim.
. It is complete and utter conjecture and clearly nonsense.
But if she ever made an effort to come to Hawaii, I would definitely see her.