Autographs
Longtime autograph expert Steve Grad serving hobby as mentor for new autograph authenticators, card graders
There are only a handful of names known as authentication pioneers in the hobby.
Steve Grad is one of them.
After spending 24 years combined as an authenticator at third-party grading and authentication leaders PSA and Beckett, Grad is stepping away from the everyday grind.
On March 1, he moved into a consulting and advisory role through his Grad Collection and consulting business and will be training the up-and-coming generation of authenticators at Beckett Authentication Services (BAS).
“That’s something I’ve always wanted to go into on some level,” Grad said. “I’ll just preface it by this, after 24 years of that grind, and I really had made a conscious decision a few years ago just to start pulling back a little more and more, because it just wears the hell out of you. I applaud the people that can get out there and do it daily. But after a while it’s like, geez, I can’t keep up at this pace anymore. It’s just wrecking me.”
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Beckett went through a major shakeup recently when it was acquired by rival Collectors, which owns PSA and fellow grading company SGC. During this change, Grad, who lives and has an office in Las Vegas, was contacted by upper management.
“This presented itself and it seemed like a viable option for me to be able to continue kind of working with the brand that I helped start with Beckett Authentication Services and also bring in a new breed of authenticator. It’s not easy to find them,” Grad said. “It’s easy to find guys who have a passion for autographs, that’s no problem. I could do that all day long. But finding someone that can take that passion and turn it into a deduction skill is pretty difficult, and we’ve struggled.
“Whether it be at PSA years ago to find people, whether it was at Beckett, it was a very hard task. Thankful to say, we figured it out and we’ve got some guys in house right now that are going to hopefully be able to fit that bill and kind of be the next generation. That’s what we’re hoping at least.”
A GOOD RUN
Grad, a Chicago native, earned his street credentials by being an autograph chaser in the 1980s. He would frequent Chicago Bulls games to acquire Michael Jordan signatures and hit up hotels opposing teams stayed at to chase autographs. Grad was one of the OG autograph collectors in the Windy City.
He started his career in the hobby when he was hired as an authenticator by PSA on March 1, 2002. He started his new consulting and advisory job on March 1, 2026—24 years to the day after getting into the profession that he loves.
“This is kind of like a nice ribbon for me to wrap around all this, and call it a good run,” Grad said. “I’m not saying I’m gone forever from being an authenticator, because, truthfully, I’m not. Well, I don’t think I am. You know what, I might be. This is something that I think will give back.”
PSA opened its autograph authentication arm of the company in 1998. When Grad came aboard four years later, PSA wasn’t even slabbing its submissions yet.
“Authentication when I started was way different,” Grad said. “There were no small certs, there were no little COAs (certificates of authentication). It was all just letters. So, if you submitted a Jim Belushi or a Bob Feller photo, it was $50. Things have really changed and evolved lately.”
What are some of the biggest changes in the last 24 years in memorabilia authentication?
“I’ve seen, obviously, the demand. That’s No. 1,” Grad said. “It’s completely bonkers. We didn’t start slabbing autographs until I’d say sometime around the end of 2003, maybe even the beginning of ’04, but it was in that range. That has been a huge change. I still have some of the earliest ones we ever did. I got a dozen things done at PSA a long time ago. They are some of the first they ever did.
“It was a cool experience to be part of that, because I helped develop that with Jim Spence and Joe Orlando over dinner one night. Joe said, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’ And we got into that and started developing that. It was a no-brainer, and that’s evolved. Obviously, the witness program and how that’s changed. But just the insane, constant demand. It’s always there.”
While at PSA, Grad took over as lead authenticator in 2005—after Spence left to start JSA, his own authentication company—running the program until he left on Sept. 30, 2016. Just two and a half weeks later, Grad was brought on board at Beckett to help roll out its authentication business. BAS worked its first event, the Chicago Sports Show, in November 2016.
Grad is proud to have been one of the early authenticators at PSA to shape how this important part of the hobby is run. He also feels grateful to have helped start Beckett’s authentication program, and as the principal authenticator build it up to how successful it has become.
“There’s other guys who have been authenticators and they talk about their legacy and all this. I’m not truly worried about a legacy or anything. I want to do right. I always have since Day 1,” Grad said. “I just want to do right, and I want to find the right guys that fit the mold of an authenticator. You have to have the right aptitude, and you’ve got to be able to learn and understand the stuff. I’m excited. It’s going to be a challenge and it’s going to be something new for me.”
A NEW GIG
Grad will continue to run Grad Collection, where he sells autographs and memorabilia from his personal collection with his wife, Stephanie.
The 55-year-old will work from his home base in Las Vegas. That will allow him to continue appearing regularly on the longtime hit TV show “Pawn Stars.” For the last 13 years, Grad has been an expert authenticator who gets called in by Rick Harrison and his staff to look over items the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop is considering buying. It’s a job Grad absolutely loves.
He is excited for his new gig and to work with young authenticators to help shape the future of that segment of the hobby. He plans to travel to Beckett headquarters in Dallas every few months for hands-on training sessions.
“I want to be out there enough to where I can sit with the guys and be able to test them in person and get a good feel for where they’re at and then go through orders with them,” Grad said. “Big part of what we do is submissions and I want to see where they’re at.”
Those submissions that come into the Beckett office can be a hodgepodge of items.
“A submission might come in that has a ’62 Tiger ball and a ’68 Cardinals ball. It might have a Johnny Carson 8-by-10 and a Clint Eastwood 8-by-10. Then it might have a Jeff Bagwell photo, and it might have a Rickey Jackson card. It might have three index cards from Hollywood, so these guys have to be well-versed to be able to tackle stuff like that,” Grad said. “And at least get to a point where they’re able to offer their opinion and then, obviously, ask questions, that’s important, too. ‘Hey, what do you guys think of this? Am I right on this? Am I going the right direction?’”
Grad said the biggest challenge these days when it comes to authentication is combating forgeries. That’s become a serious issue in the hobby.
Grad hopes to teach young authenticators how to spot forged autographs and try to make sure they don’t slip through the cracks and into the mainstream.
“The stuff I see on eBay every day where they just duplicate the certs, the autograph—all fake autographs,” Grad said. “But they go through the system and they check out. You pull up a Brad Pitt photo and there’s a Brad Pitt. It shows that we’ve certified it, but it’s fake.”
Despite the uptick in forgeries, Grad is confident the authentication side of the hobby is in solid hands.
“I can speak for just Beckett and the team there, I don’t know a more experienced team,” Grad said. “No one can come close to Beckett in terms of hobby experience.”
And for new-to-the-hobby authenticators that will be joining Beckett in the future, Grad will be there to mentor them and point them in the right direction.
