[the 'stache]

Since I now know we have an autograph forum (I think in the back of my mind I may have previously acknowledged that we had one, but I'd never really thought to explore it), if you will please excuse me for a third post in this month's thread, I'd like to ask the opinion of our board members on this autograph I received a few months ago.

This was given to me as a gift by somebody on Facebook who was involved in a baseball discussion with me. He wished to thank me for the time I'd put in constructing my supporting documentation, which ultimately helped to prove a position he'd taken in a friendly discussion about WAR relevancy in comparing players from the golden era. I was told it was a Willie Mays autograph acquired within the last couple of years. I graciously accepted, and after doing a cursory look up of his signature online, I set it aside to research more in the future. While there are certainly some characteristics of the signature that closely resemble those demonstrated in other examples, I am about as far from being a forensic document examiner as there is, so handwriting analysis is not my forte. I admit, however, that I would love to be able to collect signatures of the great baseball players, but before I'd ever spend any serious money on that pursuit, I'd want to make sure I had the requisite tools to do so safely.



I am vaguely familiar with the methodology involved, but I do not know which exemplars should be employed when examining Willie's autograph. Obviously, his signature now could appear altogether different from his signature given out during his playing days. So, I will provide this scan, and defer to the judgement of you fine folks.

Thank you!

Bill

PS. This scan has was originally done at 600 dpi, and then reduced 6 x. That is how I've always done my vintage and pre-war cards, because it creates a large scan that I can always pull up at original size.