The Corner Penthouse

On Sunday September 28, 2025, I went to a "collectibles yard sale" in Valley Stream, New York, where I purchased five fake autographed photos, each with a Certificate of Authenticity from Fan Mail Direct (one from Andso PR). I purchased them in the interest of documenting these fakes, and warning others about them. Read on to find out more...

A few days before, I saw a sign posted at the corner outside the Valley Stream post office for a "Collectibles Sale!" at a house at 136 Clearstream Avenue. It advertised vinyl records, comic books, autographs, trading cards, and model kits. This sounded right up my alley.


The seller is either a dealer, a collector, or both. He had lots of trading cards (sports and non-sport), comic books, records, DVDs (mostly priced at $3 each), and autographed photos (sports, actors, musicians, wrestlers, political figures). Most of the stuff I saw was in good shape for decent prices. Nothing was vastly overpriced. I walked away from the yard sale with everything seen in the photo below, which was priced at $95 total. The seller gave me everything for $80.


The Topps New Kids on the Block (1st Series) card & sticker set (from 1989), and WWF Royal Rumble 2002 DVD (Koch Canadian release), are both legitimate items. The five autographed photos are fake and should be discussed further.

The seller had all of his 8x10 autographed photos stored in binders with the COAs (Certificate of Authenticity) behind the photo. As I was looking through the binders, I was sure that none were legit. The first obvious sign was that they were all priced WAY too cheaply. I doubt a real Jack Nicholson signed photo would go for $20. I doubt that real cast photos of The Sopranos, Dukes of Hazzard, M*A*S*H, and E.T. (with Steven Spielberg) would be going for a mere $70 each. Of course, considering they are all fakes, they should be priced no higher than $10 each. I wasn't stupid enough to spend $70 on any one photo, though I did spend about that much on five of them. In hindsight, I shouldn't have spent as much in order to have something to write about, but I can't change the past, so lets just look at what I bought and what it was priced at.

A Batman (1966) photo "signed" by Adam West (died in 2017) and Burt Ward priced at $30.


A Freddy Krueger photo "signed" by Robert Englund priced at $15.


A Wonder Woman photo "signed" by Gal Gadot priced at $10.


A Harley Quinn photo "signed" by Margot Robbie priced at $12.


A Wednesday Addams photo "signed" by Jenna Ortega priced at $15.


Putting the signatures aside for a second, it should be noted that the underlying photos were clearly sourced from small digital photos that were enlarged and printed out on 8x10 photo paper. In this close-up of the Freddy Krueger photo, artifacting can been seen around his edges. From far away, these artifacts aren't as easily noticeable.


At the yard sale, as I was looking through the binders of photos, I noticed that nearly all of them had the same Fan Mail Direct COAs. Some had eBay listing printouts, and a few had other COAs, such as "Andso PR" for Robert Englund. The COAs all looked super suspicious given that they don't even have numbered hologram stickers on them. When compared to each other, it seems pretty obvious that the same person wrote the celebrity names on all of them, even the one that ISN'T from Fan Mail Direct.


Reading the details of the COA reveals another red flag of fraud. All of the Fan Mail Direct COAs state that the photo is "an authentic signed 8x10 that was obtained TTM Through-The-Mail signed by [insert name here]". This makes me laugh. By their very nature, autographs obtained through-the-mail are near impossible to legitimately authenticate. A proper authentication service - such as JSA, PSA, or Beckett - would have to know a history of the celebrity, such as if they actually sign through the mail or have secretaries sign for them, and then have legit examples of their signature to compare it to in order to do an authentication.


The Robert Englund "Andso PR" COA could, in theory, have been provided by a public relations person Robert hired to help him at an autograph signing somewhere, since the COA states that it "comes directly from [insert name here]". What makes the "Andso PR" COA look fraudulent, aside from no numbered hologram sticker (not that that guarantees authenticity), is that the celebrity name handwriting 100% matches the same handwriting on all of the Fan Mail Direct COAs; especially being written in black marker. I actually think the yard sale seller IS THE PERSON WHO WROTE OUT ALL OF THESE UNAUTHENTIC CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY DOCUMENTS. The black marker handwriting on each of them MATCHES THE BLACK MARKER HANDWRITING ON HIS OWN YARD SALE SIGN! For easy comparison, I'm going to put the photo of his yard sale sign (from the top of this article) here again. You can't tell me that the handwriting on the sign seen below doesn't look the same as on the COAs shown above. I asked the seller if they were legit autographs. He told me that they are all unsold inventory from a seller at San Diego Comic Con that he bought in bulk years ago. That didn't exactly answer the question about legitimacy. I'm sure that the yard sale seller was bullshitting me.


Anyway... Fan Mail Direct seems to have gone out of business. There is no longer at website at FanMailDirect.com. An archived copy of the site from July 2023 only shows minor B-list and C-list celebrities (including Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson!); no one on the level of Gal Gadot, Margot Robbie, or Jenna Ortega. It really makes me wonder why all of these photos have COAs from Fan Mail Direct.

A quick search for Fan Mail Direct shows four Reddit threads - here, here, here, here - in which many users have stated that they sell fakes. I don't doubt it. Sadly, photos with Fan Mail Direct COAs are being listed, right now, on eBay and elsewhere for much higher prices than what the yard sale seller had them priced for.

With all of the evidence that these photos have fake autographs on them, there really is no need to see how they compare to online examples. I do like to be thorough, so I'll do it anyway. The hard part is finding examples online that I believe to be authentic. I'm going to look for signed photos sold directly by the celebrities, have come from reputable sources, or are accompanied by COAs from a reputable authenticator (JSA, PSA, Beckett). In the comparisons below, the fake is on top and the authentic is below. The fakes aren't even a close match for the real thing!

First, let's look at the dual-signed Adam West and Burt Ward photo. Although Adam West died in 2017, his estate still has a store section on his official website which lists some autographed items, including a $450 photo (on a plaque) signed by both Adam and Burt.


Taking this one step further, I e-mailed Burt Ward through the e-mail address (burt@gentlegiantsproducts.com) listed on his pet food company website (also this one). Within minutes I received a reply confirming that that is NOT his signature on the photo I bought. Can't get any better authentication than that!


Robert Englund also sells signed photos on his website (for $125 and up!), but he really doesn't have any good examples of his autograph in the item photos. From what I can see, there are variations in his autograph, particularly with "Englund". Some have the "G" in fancy script (with a loop that hangs down) and some have it in upper case print. Some have an "L" that comes down and underlines the name. None of them look like the fake I bought, especially the "E" in "Englund".


The three ladies don't have official websites through which they sell autographed photos, which makes this a bit harder to compare. For Gal Gadot, I read that SWAU sells legit autographs. That seems to be true as they, apparently, do autograph signings with various celebrities. All of their Gal Gadot photos go for $350 and up. None of them look anything like the fake I bought.


Jenna Ortega isn't listed at SWAU, so finding (what I hope to be) a legitimate autograph of hers is a little tricky. I found only a few that were authenticated by JSA. One was listed by eBay seller "ronscolt1911" for $800, and the others are on Zobie for $650 and up. (I know nothing about Zobie, but they look similar to SWAU).


I'll use the JSA-certified autographs at Zobie for Margot Robbie, though the ones at Celebrity Authentics seems legit, too. All of them look much better than the little scribble that is the fake I bought.


Finally, the yard sale seller also had a Ghostbusters photo "signed" by Bill Murray for $30. I didn't buy it, as I already have (what I hope) are two legitimate Bill Murray autographs, but I did snap a photo of it at the yard sale.


A quick comparison with a JSA-certified Bill Murray autograph at Palm Beach Autographs (priced at $1,200.00) shows this to be a fake. It's close to the real thing, I'll give the forger that much credit, but the "LL" in "Bill" shows a difference.


So, despite seeing all of the red flags, I still bought the five photos for about $70. I really don't know why I did. Maybe I wanted to hope they were real, maybe I wasn't thinking properly, or maybe I wanted to have something to write about... which I just did. I guess sometimes I'll "take one for the team" in order to educate and warn everyone. The guy at 136 Clearstream Avenue will have another collectibles yard sale some time in May 2026. If you live in the area and plan to go, he has lots of great stuff; just avoid the autographs (unless you want a value-less display piece).