quote:

Originally posted by Scifi Cards:
I wonder if they would grade the autopen?

It IS an officially released card. If they aren't grading the sig, then the card should get a grade.

Ed

I would think that they SHOULD absolutely grade the autopen card, provided that the label indicates that it is the first version. Of course that's applying common sense and the card grading scene is a little low on that.

First of all the card is licensed and was distributed through official channels. The maker has acknowledged the mistake of having a facsimile signature instead of the guaranteed hand signed one. The autopen is extremely easy to pick out now that the examples are quite public. Grading of the card for condition has nothing to do with the autograph, which in this case did belong on the card, just not a pre-made "copy" of an autograph.

To my mind these are now two separate versions or variants of a licensed card that should be eligible for condition grading. Of course the autopen would fail signature verification, but it doesn't require verification because it is the acknowledged "fake" autograph variant. It would be as easy for a grading service to put that on the label as it is for them to put the card name on any slab label.

For those Panini autograph autopen cards that some graders refused to accept, remember that Panini has never acknowledged them or replaced them. So where that might be seen as appropriate to protect collectors from getting stuck with those "authorized fakes", what happened at RA is very different and created a real variant. I think it would be fine to condition grade the properly labeled card.

So what if that legitimizes it, it is a legitimate mistake. Just MHO.