2001 Fleer Tradition Baseball Forum

I came across this card on eBay today. It's 2001 Fleer Stitches in Time Willie Mays "autograph"

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144747002854?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m43.l1120&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=975035b986be41ac936a29735212cd88&bu=43185089472&ut=RU&exe=102357&ext=240832&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20221002015249&segname=11021

I put "autograph" in quotes because, according to BaseballCardPedia.com, all Mays autos on this card are fake . From this page:

"NOTE: Collectors should be advised that Fleer was unable to get Willie Mays to sign any of his Stitches in Time Autograph, as Mays refuses to sign anything depicting him as a Negro Leaguer. Unfortunately, Fleer did produce the card he was to have signed, complete with Certificate of Authenticity on the reverse side. These un-autographed Mays cards began to emerge on the secondary market shortly after Fleer's 2005 bankruptcy and some of these cards with Mays' forged signature have been known to appear on eBay from time to time.

Any and all 2001 Fleer Tradition Stitches in Time Willie Mays autographs are fake!"

So did PSA/DNA authenticate a fake Mays autograph?

I know nothing about this specific card, but to answer your question generally - most likely they did.

It would not be the first time they have graded faked or reprinted  (or trimmed) cards as genuine. I know in basketball they have had all sorts of problems with many of the counterfeited high-end 90s inserts (think PMGs) as well as early '80s Star cards.

There was a long-running thread on one of the forums (Blowout maybe?) highlighting their many errors.

For a while there, his secretary was signing cards for him , so you got the Mays auto, and the Mays secretary signed card-