Senior Grading Expert

Mike Baker began his professional career in the numismatic business in 1989 as a coin processor at the age of 20 for Professional Coin Grading Services (PCGS). In 1991, Mike became the first employee of Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), a sports card grading and authentication firm. He soon became the Director of Grading and over the next 10 years personally trained and managed the PSA grading staff, which at one point had a day and night shift operating. Mike helped establish an industry wide and accepted grading standard, applying a 1 to 10 scale based on the condition of a card, with over 10 million cards graded under this standard. He was appointed the youngest member of the Senior Management Team for Collectors Universe, the parent of PSA. He has been a pioneer in his field identifying a variety of counterfeit, altered, trimmed, and re-colored sports cards. He has personally graded 90% of the most expensive cards within the industry.

In 2002, Mike left for a newly formed authentication company, Global Authentication (GAI). Global Authentication opened its doors in February of 2002 and he currently serves as Director of Grading and Authentication. Mike is the longest serving professional grader in the country with over 17 years experience as a grader and authenticator of trading cards. He has personally graded millions of trading cards and is considered to be the best in the business. Mike has traveled extensively across the United States meeting and educating thousands of collectors on how to identify counterfeit and altered cards. He is the only professional card grader recognized as a court certified expert witness. He has been featured on ESPN, Fox News, KTLA, and Internet radio interview, 97.1 KLSX and recently on The Judge Judy Show as an expert witness. Mike has authored many articles on counterfeits and altered cards for collectible magazines and publications. His passion for his job and the business is amazing; he is a great asset to Global Authentication and the industry.