Email Us 01634 830062

Autograph and Signature Authentication

Autograph Authentication Services

Welcome to the UK's oldest established autograph opinion and authentication service.  Garry King offers over 35 years of professional experience to help you quickly and accurately verify your items after you have used the Quick Opinion service.

🛑 Step 1: Check Our Exclusions Before You Start

Please review our strict criteria below. We CANNOT accept the following items for full authentication:
  • Modern-day football signatures (of any kind)
  • Items sent from outside the UK
  • Framed items or 3D memorabilia
  • Funko Pops or footballs
  • Slabbed items of any kind.

🛠️ Step 2: How the Process Works

With 75% of items submitted via Quick Opinion proving non-genuine, that service may save you money, so all items must go through that before we can accept them for full authentication. Providing they pass, they we will let you know the exact cost and you may send them in for full authentication and a COA. 
  1. Submit Quick Opinion Payment: £14.95 per signature (max £29.90 for multiple signatures on one item). Payment is required before sending images.
  2. Email Images: You will eceive our email address post-payment and full details of what we need to see. 
  3. Get Your Verdict: If it fails, you save shipping costs and we will were possible suggest how you might get a refund from the seller; if it passes, we provide a quote for Full Physical Authentication which will then provide you a full COA for the item.

📜 Step 3: Full Physical Authentication

  • Pricing: Starts at £29.95.
  • What you get: A detailed Letter of Authenticity with an item image and matching numbered security holograms.
  • Auction Acceptance: Widely accepted by major UK auction houses like Propstore, Chiswick Auctions, Omega Auctions, Excalibur Auctions, and Bishop & Miller.

⚠️ CRITICAL WARNING REGARDING FRAUD

A fraudulent company using the misspelt name "Gary King" is issuing fake COAs for signed football shirts. Garry King does not authenticate signed football shirts. Report suspicious claims to 01634 830062.

Please note that we will not issue any kind of certificate based only on a scan due to various possible frauds, and we will only offer the authentication service after an item has been through our "Quick Opinion" service first.


WARNING!  There are now almost as many websites offering "Autograph Authentication" services as there are websites offering fake autographs. The reason? you can't get prosecuted for giving a wrong opinion, but you can get locked up for selling a fake autograph !  Many of these websites make all sorts of claims about how good they are, how many years they have been in the business, or how many Associations they belong to, but few if any offer any evidence to prove the claims they make! In some cases they will try and suck you in with a "free" opinion first but then when they have told you its "authentic" they will want money to issue a worthless COA without even asking to see the actual item with their own eyes!


A page worth reading is this one! (look under certificates of authenticty) It lists a whole stack of dealers and "forensic document examiners" that have been banned by eBay. And lets be honest, you need to be pretty bad to be banned by eBay! And note that One of them is based here in the UK!


The Universal Manuscript Society, The International Association of Autograph Dealers,  and The Institute of Forensic Examiners, are all associations you may have seen mentioned by these so called "experts" but if you do some simple Google searches, you will find that none of those associations actually exist, except of course in the minds of those that have added them to their websites as proof of their expertise!


The only trade associations that are accepted as being of any worth are the UACC (as a Registered Dealer only, and not just a member* CollectorApproved,  PADA, and RACC.  All of these have a full list of their members on their website, and every member will have had to pay a fee to join, offered references, and very possibly had their stock checked as well. Every other Association is simply a 'pay your money and join the club' so those associations, although very worthwhile for a collector, offer no benefits to you as a dealer.