Saturday, December 21, 2013

The debate over COAs

A Certificate of Authenticity, commonly known has a COA is extremely important in the world of collecting. Bobbleheads are no different.  The Twins included COA's with all of their giveaway bobbleheads thru 2009. I'm not sure why they stopped, but I don't believe any bobblehead since has had a COA.  The Timberwolves also produced COAs with their early bobbleheads.  Below are a couple different COAs. The first is for Kirby Puckett's first Twins giveaway and the second is Kevin Garnett's first Timberwolves giveaway.  Typically COAs will include a picture of the bobblehead along with the date it was given out.  On the back there is usally a number which indicates the production number.  There is a total production run, but I've read multiple times that number is skewed because the teams typically make plenty more in case they run into any issues when giving them out.  Sometimes they offer season ticket holders, sponsors, and employees the chance of buying these bobbleheads too.  One can never be entirely positive of the true production run of any bobblehead.  




The major question I've ran into concerning COAs, what is their value?  I've heard a variety of opinions on the subject.  Some people say they are just as important as the bobblehead while others say the COA doesn't decrease the bobbleheads value much at all, if anything.  I tend to lean towards the latter.  For example, I certainly would pay $20 for a Puckett bobblehead, but I would never even think about paying $20 for a Puckett COA.  The bobblehead is ultimately the bigger prize.  There are some COAs from the early bobblehead giveaways that are pretty rare and hard to find, those are worth a bit more than their counterparts of the mid to late 90s.  I have plenty of COA's but also have plenty of bobbleheads without the COA.  I've never made it a point to collect the COA and probably never will.  

But, to each their own!  

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