What Is a COA? Certificates of Authenticity Explained

COA stands for certificate of authenticity. In sports memorabilia it's the document, and usually the matching hologram, that says a third party examined a signature and certifies it's real. If you buy a signed helmet, jersey, ball or photo from anyone, the COA is the thing that separates a collectible from a guess.

That's the short answer. The longer answer is that not all COAs are worth the same, and knowing the difference is the single most useful thing you can learn in this hobby.

What's actually on a COA

A modern COA from a major authenticator has a few parts that work together:

• The hologram. A small tamper-evident sticker applied to the item itself, printed with a serial number. Peel it and it destroys itself.
• The card or letter. A card (or for high-end pieces a full letter of authenticity, an LOA) with the same serial number, a description of the item, the athlete's name and any inscription.
• The database record. The serial number is entered in the authenticator's online database, where anyone can look it up and see what it was issued for.

The hologram ties the cert to the physical item. The database ties the cert to the authenticator. Take either one away and the paper card by itself proves nothing, which is why "COA included" in a listing means nothing until you know who issued it.

Who issues the COAs that count

Four companies dominate the hobby, and a cert from any of them is accepted everywhere: at auction houses, on resale sites, by other dealers.

PSA/DNA. The autograph arm of Professional Sports Authenticator, the card grading company. Started authenticating autographs in 1998. Look up a cert at psacard.com/cert.

JSA (James Spence Authentication). Founded in 2005 by James Spence Jr., one of the best-known autograph experts in the country. Look up a cert at spenceloa.com.

Beckett Authentication Services (BAS). Launched in 2016 under Steve Grad, the authenticator you've seen on Pawn Stars, and backed by the Beckett name collectors know from price guides. Look up a cert at beckett-authentication.com.

Fanatics. Fanatics holds exclusive signing deals with a long list of current players, so a big share of new signed memorabilia comes with a Fanatics hologram from a company-run signing. Look up a cert at fanatics.com/fansecure.

You'll also run into league programs, like MLB Authentication, which holograms game-used and signed items at the ballpark, and older names like Steiner, Upper Deck Authenticated, TriStar and Mounted Memories. Some of those have been folded into Fanatics. Their holograms are still legitimate and most of their databases still work, so verify the same way.

There's no "best" one for a buyer. What matters is that the name is one of these and the number verifies.

Witnessed vs examined

This is the part most people miss. There are two ways a cert gets issued.

Witnessed. A representative of the authentication company is physically at the signing, watches the athlete sign, and applies the hologram on the spot. There's no opinion involved. They saw it happen. JSA calls these "Witnessed," Beckett calls them "Witnessed," PSA/DNA calls them "In the Presence," and Fanatics items are witnessed by design because Fanatics runs the signing.

Examined. Somebody sends in an item after the fact and an expert compares the signature against exemplars and gives a professional opinion. From the big four that opinion is very reliable, but it's still an opinion, and every so often one gets revised.

Both count. Witnessed is the gold standard, and if you're buying anything expensive it's worth checking which one you're getting. The cert card usually says.

How to verify a COA

1. Find the serial number. It's on the hologram and repeated on the card.
2. Go to the authenticator's own site (the four links above), not a link the seller sent you.
3. Enter the number.
4. Read the record and compare it to the item in front of you. Right athlete, right item type, right inscription.

That takes about ten seconds and it's the whole game. A number that isn't in the database is a fake hologram. A record that describes a different item means the hologram was moved. Either way, walk.

What a COA doesn't tell you

• It's not a grade. A cert says the signature is real. It says nothing about how bold it is, where it's placed, or whether the item is in good shape.
• It's not a value. Two certified signatures of the same player can be worth wildly different amounts depending on the item, the inscription and the market.
• It's not a guarantee if it came from the wrong place. A certificate from the seller, from a dealer you've never heard of, or from an "authentication company" with no database is decoration. Forgery operations print official-looking COAs on purpose, because they know the paper reassures people. This is the whole subject of our post on the risk of buying uncertified autographs.

What if my item has no COA?

You've got two options. If you watched it get signed yourself, you know it's real, but a future buyer doesn't, so if you ever plan to sell it, get it certified. If you didn't watch it get signed, you don't actually know, and neither does the person who gave it to you.

Either way the fix is the same: submit it to PSA/DNA, JSA or Beckett. All three take mail-in submissions through their sites and set up at major card shows for in-person review. Fees start around $25 to $35 for a common signature. Before you pay, run through our guide on how to tell if an autograph is real so you're not paying to have an obvious fake rejected.

How it works when you buy from us

Every autographed item we sell carries a COA from PSA/DNA, JSA, Beckett or Fanatics. That's true of the pieces in our marketplace, everything inside our mystery boxes, and every item pulled in our live breaks. The hologram is on the item when it ships and the number verifies in that company's database. If you want the longer version of how that works, and what we do about the impersonator accounts that pop up in this hobby, our authentication page has it.