Dealer trustworthiness question

[cluskillz]

I asked a similar but broader question a while back, and I thank everyone that responded.

This time, I'm inquiring upon two specific companies:
There is an item on thesportsmix.com that I have my eye on, and they have an eBay account as well. Their website looks pretty legit, as they appear to hold public signings at times. Do you all think a COA from them is pretty rock solid?

Then this gave me pause. The exact same item, the exact same picture of the item actually, popped up on sportsmemorabilia.com, roughly the same time it did on thesportsmix.com. There is no mention of thesportsmix on the sportsmemorabilia site under product description. What does this say about sportsmemorabilia.com? Can they be trusted? Some of their items have PSA/DNA or JSA authentication, but not all (the item I'm looking at does not have any authentication aside from their own guarantee). Or would it be thesportsmix that I need to be wary of? Both? Or are they sister companies of some sort?

[jyosi]

sportsmemorabilia.com is a mystery to me. I don't know what their business model is, but they have so many things that I think they are consignment or just allow other companies to list on their site for a fee. Maybe call sportsmemorabilia.com and ask how they are showing the exact thing from a different site. I would bet it is the same item and the sports mix is paying sports memorabilia to list it since they get a lot of traffic.

[Postal]

I too was wondering about sportsmemorabilia.com, I started a thread on them a few weeks ago as well. I personally have never ordered from there but they deff do have allot of items. There are a few 10% off codes out there for them as well. Just do a search and one should pop up. Let us know what you decide to do.





http://www.sportscardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1472156

[cluskillz]

So I contacted their sales rep, and he says that most of their signings are done in person but also deal with buying from private sales and auctions. I don't know if I like that last part (but their FAQ page says they only buy from large suppliers with direct access to athletes). I forgot to ask if their own COAs are issued only when the item signing is witnessed by a company rep.

When I brought up that their picture was the same as on thesportsmix.com, they claimed that they do lots of joint autograph sessions with other companies, sometimes up to 20 other companies. I can see that, but it's still weird that the picture is exactly the same.

As for myself, I'm going to decide whether to buy from thesportsmix (at the very least, they are cheaper) or a similar item from Palm Beach Autographs.

[Vegas]

I have purchased one item from sportsmemorabilia.com (a Rickey Henderson signed baseball) but it came with both a MLB hologram and a Mounted Memories hologram, so I had no doubt about it's authenticity. I know that sportsmemorabilia.com does its own signings and has its own COA, but personally I would only purchase something from them if it was accompanied by a more well known COA like Mounted Memories, PSA/DNA, JSA, UDA, etc. I have never heard of sportsmix.com and you would have trouble getting top dollar for an item with their COA since they are not well known in the industry.