Removing ink from baseballs
 

It took only 2 years to research and test, however last week " GONE WITH THE STAIN" past the test. Removed ball point pen on the sweetspot, ball looks great with no markes or indents.:) I have already checked with a top man who grades baseballs, he said, he could care less what is removed, as long as the signature he grades is real.

If anybody is out there and we can help, please email me at rtowle1@twcny.rr.com or call 315 375 8542 EST zone.

And the point is what? To deceptively create the illusion of a single signed ball?

Exactly. Even with full disclosure of any work done to a baseball, many collectors turn away from such items due to the correct perception that they are marred and no longer in original condition. I'm sure that Dick has no malicious intent on his end, but this service will be used by people with deceit in their hearts and dollar signs in their minds.

I would be interested to see examples of your latest work, Dick, although it would be much better to see in-person. Just remember--things like this do not get past a VSC. I would also assume that, when held to a light at a certain angle, ballpoint pen impressions where ink was removed are still entirely visible.

What's next? "Gone with the Crease?"

Again, one of the top grading company's said " as long as the autograph they are looking at is the one to grade, it would make no difference. Also like in this case a man bought a ball with Mantle and Maris on it- mantle was real, Maris was not, now he can have the mantle graded- and yes, crease, like a dent in a car, can be removed also.

Maybe a good person like the one who sent me the ball can now enjoy it, I would just love to remove fraud from a ball. Maybe there are a lot of honest people out there who were cheated- now I can help. Thank you again Pete.

In my judgment, it's deceptive, regardless of what the person you spoke to says. Taking out creases, without full disclosure, has no justification in my book.

There certainly are many fake Maris balls featuring genuine Mantle signatures.

PSA and JSA will still authenticate balls with signature removal(s), but will make mention of this fact in a full LOA. With small cert items (those that come only with a card/sticker with matching numbers), both companies will make mention of any removals on their respective websites.

Just to clarify, Dick--will you only be removing fraudulent signatures from baseballs, or will you remove anything the customer requests (such as removing a Milt Pappas signature off the side panel of a ball that also has a blazing Nellie Fox autograph)?

I'm not offering judgment, but believe what Dick says about autograph grading is accurate. I believe PSA/DNA's grade for an autograph is for the autograph itself and not the overall item. If you send in a Sandy Koufax single signed baseball or scrap of paper, the grade is for the signature not the ball or scrap of paper.

But the most valuable form of a signature is a single signed ball. So now you will have people looking for mixed signature balls that they can buy reasonably, and then use this product to remove all the signatures except the valuable one. It will create a cottage industry of people buying balls only with the intent of changing their appearance. And that will be the sole use of the product, to make that change.

That's not a good thing.

"now" is probably not the best word to use here, as it implies that this isn't happening already. As I understand it, it is.

I like team-signed baseballs, BTW, and have a number of them. I'd be horrified if someone took the sigs off my '48 Yankees ball and kept the DiMaggio. It's the Charlie Keller and the Tommy Henrich along with the DiMag that make it such a cool item, IMO.

-Al

Signature removal has already been a problem for years. There is a fellow out on the west coast whose artistically-gifted daughter actually paints over unwanted signatures. She is able to match the exact hues (including various toning/staining issues which are unique to each ball). A regular Sherwin-Williams. Pretty incredible, and very scary. This man offers complete disclosure with his service, but it's up to the customer as to what he wants to do next. The authentication staff at PSA and JSA (at least when I worked there) could spot the majority of these "white washes" with the naked eye, and VSC examination never failed to actualy display the signatures that were painted over.

Self-education is the key here. If you are interested in buying, say, a Mel Ott single-signed ball, there are all of these things to consider:

-Familiarize yourself with Ott's signature using verifiable exemplars

-Study every Ott-signed ball you can find, to include single-signed, multi-signed and team-signed variations (watch out for the rubber stamp he sometimes used as Giants manager!)

-Notice where Ott most often chose to sign a ball. It's not on the sweet spot, but rather the side panel which he favored.

-Familiarize yourself with how to date official baseballs. I believe articles have been written about this.

-Early on in Ott's career, he was apt to sign horizontally on a side panel. Later on (circa mid-1930's-onward), it was more common to see Ott sign vertically on the side panel (usually towards the top stitching).

-If the Ott signature is in a very odd place for a single-signed ball, be very careful. For instance, if Ott is at the extreme top or bottom of a horizontally-signed side panel, that is a great cause for concern. It seems as though Ott favored the middle of a blank side panel if he was signing on the horizontal. It was only if the panel had been signed by others that he would squeeze his signature in at the top or bottom. The same rule applies if you see Ott's sig signed at the bottom of a vertical side panel. And, actually, many clubhouse versions of Ott's signature could be found at this location. Thankfully, nobody in the Giants organization could effectively mirror Mel's six-letter stroke.

-Ott was NOT a fan of signing on the sweet spot. He did hit the sweet spot periodiacally as Giants manager, but note that this was also the area where the rubber-stamped version would be placed. Unlike other Giants managers, Ott was not particularly fond of employing the rubber stamp on a regular basis.

I suppose the most important hint to be offered is simple: If a signature found on a single-signed baseball is situated in an area and fashion that doesn't sit right with you, hold back on purchasing it until more research can be done. Unless you know some eccentiricity to be a consistent baseball-signing habit of the player in question, it's best to hold off.

Is there any single area of the baseball card and memorabilia hobby where nobody is doing anything illicit for the sole purpose of a fat profit? Is there anything left?

Your right Jodi about Mel Ott not signing the sweet spot or at least not a fan of it. Just my opinion but wonder why Stat Authentic and Chris Morales don't know that, cause every Ott ball I've seen over at the auction company they work for always has an Ott autograph right on the sweet spot and on a nice white ball.

Exactly Barry. It is a scary time to be a collector.

NOTHING SHOWS, GET A BASEBALL, SIGN THE SWEET SPOT AND SEND TO ME i CAN SHOW YOU BETTER. DR;)

correct if the signature is not real, that is the plan.

bARRY, YOU MAKE A GOOD POINT, IF SOME ONE SAYS TO ME THE AUTOGRAPH IS BAD, PLEASE REMOVE- THAT IS THE VERY PLAN SIR

Barry, I don't think there's any part of LIFE where people aren't doing illicit things for profit.

But I think there are tons of places in this hobby where you can have an enjoyable experience.

A year or so ago I picked up a vintage glove from the 1930s. Vintage gloves close every single night on eBay, for very reasonable prices. This particular glove cost me something like $10.

I won the glove and then I consulted some of the glove collector forums to find the best way to clean up the glove and recondition the leather. I then took a Saturday afternoon and cleaned the glove, got it looking fantastic.

Then I brought the glove to the baseball practice of the team I coach - 9 year olds, mostly - and let them each have a turn trying to catch a baseball with a vintage glove. They were fascinated, and the few that actually managed to catch one got a round of applause from their teammates.

Finally, I boxed up the glove and shipped it to another collector friend of mine, hoping to turn him on to collecting gloves. He received the package and fell in love with it.

Best ten bucks I've spent in this hobby in years.

Sorry to hijack your thread, Dick, I just wanted to inject a little positivity into the discussion.

-Al

I have spoke with Dick on several ocassions about purchasing some of his collection. It seems he is a very honest and open person and cares about the hobby as much as most of us do.

It does not draw much concern to me that he as well as others are removing the graffiti from balls and restoring the values back. I think the grading companies should make a comment though about this. Such as where the sig was removed from, who it was, why it was removed, and any other info that pertains to the ball and signatures on it.

I do believe that I have read here on several occasions though that there are some people offering to remove ink (no names they know who they are), marks, paint, ect.. from cards which draws GREAT CONCERN to me. If the card was written or altered 60 yrs ago or 1 day ago it is part of the card. If ink was added to recolor so be it. When you start removing stuff like this from cards it only a matter of time before you get an "Old Mill Black Bar Overprint card". It makes me very wary about buying from people like this also. The cards were altered and then realtered. So what am I getting then??

Dick, you are on a roll, may we also hear your justification for removing creases?

My guess is people are not cleaning up Salada Coins?

Exactly. Even if Dick's intentions are good, he must know his services will be used by people to perpetrate deception, just as "Daniel Paul" (not his real last name) surely knew that when he discussed his card restoration talents in the VBCC 7 issue.

Peter you would be wrong. I was an avid Salada collector in the day and still have a bunch.
In the days when I was buying them to complete my set, a fellow told me that
the 1962's w/ the paper insert can be lifted out and put on a cleaner coin disc. May not be a big deal on a Ruben Amaro, but it would be on a Mantle.

Barry, I'm going on the record to say that I will NOT have any restoration work done on my "Henry The Home Run Chicken" card.

I stand corrected. There is no refuge from the great guys.

Are you saying the area of the removed signature would not show up under a black light?

What if its a personalization that's removed? Most collectors prefer baseballs without personalization.

Anyway, seems like team balls would be tough with the overlap in signatures.

Richard,

Here I am going on about the VSC! Yes, a simple black light test would prove extremely interesting. If chemicals are involved (which they most assuredly are), picking up a $20 black light would likely do the trick.

Dick,

I beg you to reconsider offering this service, which will ultimately prove to create more problems for an area of the hobby which does not need any further negativity cast upon it. Stain removal and signature removal are two vastly different concepts, and thus both subscribe to a different set of mores. Signature removal will only inevitably serve to pad the wallets of scam artists, despite your good intentions. If your motives are purely for the betterment of the hobby, then it should be easy to understand my standpoint on this (and I make my living selling autographs).

VERY GOOD POINT- QUESTION-- THE ISSUE IS TOO REMOVE FRAUD ON BASEBALLS. A PERSON SPENDS A LOT OF MONEY ONLY TO FIND ONE SIGNATURE IS BAD AND NEEDS THE OTHER TO BE GOOD- WOULD I NOT WANT TO HELP HIM OR HER TO HAVE THE AUTOGRAPH THEY WANTED. :confused:

Dick - you did not answer my question about the black light.
--

In addition to his other talents Dick is showing an aptitude for evasiveness and answering by misdirection. So let's try again.

1. Will you remove a legitimate signature at a client's request to create a more valuable ball?
2. If you will only remove bad signatures, what sort of proof will you require that the signature to be removed is bad?
3. Will you do work for dealers?
4. Do you take creases out of cards?

Because you're "solving their problem" by doing something that, when placed in the wrong hands, could turn into yet another fraud. Say your customer decides to sell the Towlefied ball somewhere down the line. He sells it with full disclosure to somebody less reputable than himself. That person immediately sells it as an unblemished single-signed ball to an unsuspecting customer. The new owner takes it to PSA or JSA for authentication, only for them to find evidence of removal. Now Mr. Unsuspecting Customer is potentially out several hundred dollars because of the signature you removed. To reiterate from my previous posts, please don't add fuel to the fire. This hobby hardly needs another avenue to funnel future deceit.

Question: What if a big slab of goo is plastered across a Mantle signature, are we saying that it should not be removed?

Restorations, removals, replacements, legitimately happen all of the time with paintings, furniture, etc.. Should these services not be offered as well or are we saying that baseballs should be excluded from this category?

Lol...
 

J Birkholm "Quote"-Just to clarify, Dick--will you only be removing fraudulent signatures from baseballs, or will you remove anything the customer requests (such as removing a Milt Pappas signature off the side panel of a ball that also has a blazing Nellie Fox autograph)?

I almost fell off my chair laughing, since when has Nellie Fox's auto become blazing.

There really is nothing wrong with removing autographs from a ball if a person does want them there. If someone has a problem that the auto's were removed then do not buy or bid on the ball.

If someone went up and signed their name on the "Mona Lisa" ahhhhhhhh.....i think it would be removed and no one would say oh welll it is devalued now because the signature was removed.

I say great work Dick and forge on, just put on your hip boots to wade through the sappy spew from these guys.

The problem Reginald is that single signed balls of certain players are always going to sell for more money than multi-signed balls....and not all sellers are going to disclose removal of signatures. All this service will do is further muddy the already murky waters.

And what sort of equipment do you suggest one should wear in order to effectively traverse through a sea of ignorance?

This thread has established that there are some good uses for Dick's product, but also many bad ones that unscrupulous sellers will take advantage of. Why are some of the posters here only seeing what they want to see, and not looking at the whole picture?

Barry,

I am consdiering this topic from a panoramic perspective and hope that this is understood. The problem is that the current good (I use that word loosely) is far outweiged by the future bad. I've been as clear as possible in my opinions and can't think of anything more that can be added at this time.

For anyone who doesn't realize it, my viewpoints are not to be misconstrued as a personal attack on Dick, who I do not know personally. I just do not encourage such processes.

Jodi- I was defending your point of view, maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been.

Nobody is disputing the better uses of the product. If you want to clean a stain, or if you prefer to remove an unimportant signature for display purposes, I agree that's fine. But the bigger issue is there are people out there who will alter some balls to make them more valuable, and that is the bigger concern to most who have posted here.

I was referring to those who only see the benefits of the product, and don't want to admit there are some negative things too. There are enough ways collectors are being ripped off in this hobby, and we don't need yet one more.

Barry,

I figured as much, so thanks.:)

I fall on the Jodi "with an i" side, but I also know that no one is going to shut down a legal money making venture because some people deem it harmful, so everyone might as well add this to the list of things to look out for in collecting autograph baseballs.

I can see the damage this can do, but as it has been said restoration has happened in many other fields why not sports stuff.

I do agree it could be bad down the road but if Dick isn't doing it, someone else will.

That being said I have a Mays/Mantle/Snider ball and one of the signatures was traced over. IMO this becomes worthless, but Dick could fix that and at least make it a "real' piece.

It's tough because there are moral issues as well as dollar issues to deal with. I think if I paid a ton of cash for a Mantle/Maris ball to find out the Maris was bad then I would try to cut my losses, however if I was going to buy a ball like that I would learn enough to not buy one with a bad auto.

Tough spot I think because no matter what you do a ball can be untracable and therefore could be resold down the line as something that isn't altered, when in fact it was.

James G

Dick's client list might be very revealing -- is he helping collectors or fixing items for dealers and auction houses. Dick?

I don't think he will be sharing his client list.

I agree that once the ball leaves Dick's hands all bets are off as to seller disclosure. I have a proposal that might help mitigate the damage.

We all know that major league baseball puts a special marking on baseballs when a major record is imminent (Barry Bonds HRs, for example) in order to validate the authenticity of a ball caught by a fan. It can be very unobtrusive; it might even be invisible to the eye but visible under the blacklight. I don't know if it's a hologram, but whatever it is...it works.

I wonder if Dick would consider "marking his territory" via such a marking that wouldn't interfere with the display of the refined baseball, but nevertheless would stand as a permanent way of identifying that work was done?

Imagine if Dick were subpoenaed? YIKES!!!!!

Hidden text that identifies hidden text, interesting idea Rick.

Great idea, think of it like an artist signing hos work and that would solve many problems if you could see it under a black light. Doesn't PSA use some such system to mark the balls anyway?

James G

I would guess you could identify the removal with a black light. Richard Simon used a black light to test out another company's removals and it worked.

OK, it is time I stepped up to the plate, I threw this out to see what the response would be, just like 15 years ago when SCD did the story about my business of removing stains, tape and much more. Then, like now, 50% of the worlds population agreed what I did, 50% did not, gosh, one of the people who did not agree what I do was from ASA grading many years ago. I have only done 1 ball, and yes we already used a black light, nothing shows, and yes, I have already talked to a chemist, and yes we can put a watermark on the ball, and yes it won't make a difference because the ball grader is going to grade the signature, not the watermark.

I have done all this already. I hope this can help all, and yes Peter, I can also remove fine creases on anything, and you ask" should there be a disclosure- sure you can tell the customer the crease was removed- however allow him to find the crease- he can't because it is gone. I ran test 16 years ago for PSA, Mike Baker and Rocky on cards they handed me to try- I did the job, and they found nothing-- case closed- I ran 15 cards for SGC before they did the story, they found nothing- story went live.

We are very proud to have helped 100's of dealers and customer over the 15 years, and God willing will continue" to do so. So I say the people who don't like what I do, I 100% respect that, but please don't try to sell me a card with a slight crease, or stain, or anything and expect to be paid like there is little wrong with card- For the other 50% who have used my service, please continue, as you will see the benefit of a outstanding looking card for your collection. As I said a few months ago when a man bought 2 T205 collection 30 years ago and that was his 401 K- finding out 343 of the cards were tipped with gold paid, rendering these cards as what they are, and removing the paint and all graded- every darn one of them- that was outstanding for the gentleman. This was a great experience to here from the best, thank you all 100%