MusicGoldmine.com Record Award Authentication
MusicGoldmine.com offers record award authentication for RIAA and CRIA awards. These types of official record awards are very collectible and can be quite valuable. As a result, the unfortunate reality is that there are some fake awards* out in the marketplace. These have been made by unscrupulous parties who have no licenses from the respective organization (RIAA or CRIA) to make these awards. Most of these fake awards were manufactured very recently, but made to look like real vintage awards, i.e. those that are supposed to be 30-50 years old that are valuable to collect.
Note that any award you buy here at MusicGoldmine.com is guaranteed to be authentic and comes with our official serial number hologram Letter Of Authenticity and a lifetime guarantee. You can find full details of our guarantee here.
However, if you have an award or are thinking of purchasing an award from some other company or person and are unsure of its authenticity, we offer an authentication service. We also offer detailed guides to help collectors determine authenticity (see them here) but if you want an official review of authenticity from us as record award experts, you can utilize one of our services as follows:
OPTION 1: MusicGoldmine.com Quick Opinion Service
We can provide our "quick opinion" service as to the authenticity of your RIAA or CRIA award at $25 per award or $100 for up to 10 awards. To order, please provide us full front, back, and one side photo of each award (please ensure photos are in clear focus) along with your name and email and we will invoice you. This service expresses our opinion only and we provide a response consisting of one of the following two simple statements:
- A photos-only examination of this award indicates, in the opinion of MusicGoldmine.com, that the award is likely authentic. An in-person inspection is required for us to make a full determination.
- A photos-only examination of this award indicates, in the opinion of MusicGoldmine.com, that the award is likely not authentic. An in-person inspection is required for us to make a full determination.
If we cannot form a quick opinion based on the photos provided, we may request additional photos. While we will reply as quickly as possible, it may take us up to five days to provide you a response with this service once purchased.
OPTION 2: MusicGoldmine.com Letter Of Authenticity
We can also provide full authentication services for RIAA or CRIA awards. If found to be authentic, we will provide our MusicGoldmine.com Letter Of Authenticity with serial number hologram and photo of item stating that, in our opinion as a retailer and specialist in record awards and music memorabilia, the award is authentic. (See sample of letter provided above). If we determine in our opinion that an award is not authentic, we will provide a list of reasons why we reached that finding. In rare instances, we may be unable to make a determination and in those cases we will refund the authentication fee in full.
Here are the other details of this service:
1. Awards must be shipped at customer's expense to us in Las Vegas. We recommend that customers pack their awards carefully and insure them while in transit. We can recommend best practice packaging procedures upon request.
2. We will ship awards back to customer insured at the customer's preferred fair market value amount and utilizing one of our discounted commercial account shipping rates.
3. We will analyze the awards within 14 days and provide the results via email to the customer. Certificate(s) issued will be sent in the return package with the awards.
4. This service is only available for RIAA and CRIA awards.
5. The fee is $150 per award. Three or more awards in one order are $125 each.
6. Customer must pay for order prior to sending awards to us and must pay return shipping costs prior to awards being sent back.
7. International customers should note that they should determine if they may encounter import fees regarding the return shipment. We are not responsible for any such fees and cannot provide you estimates of whether they will be incurred or, if so, how much they will be.
8. Orders left unpaid for over 30 days from when authentication determination email is sent may result in awards being considered abandoned property.
Let us know if we can help you with either of the above services. To get started, or for any questions, email us at support@musicgoldmine.com with “Authentication” in the subject line.
*When we use the term "fakes," we are not referring to "grey area" awards that were made legitimately for music industry entities by "grey area" manufacturers. For more information about grey area awards, which were mostly made from the late 70s to the 90s, see the grey area section in our guide article here.
