48-1 is John Henry Johnson (Rangers, Red Sox, A's, Brewers)
48-2 looks like Billy Rohr (1967 Red Sox, 1968 Indians)
48-6 is Deron Johnson
48-8 is Ron Clark (Twins, Pilots, A's, Brewers, Phillies)
Steve

#1 John Henry Johnson pitcher not the fullback

#48-1- John Henry Johnson (baseball, not football)

Ooops, only saw page 1 responses....3rd place for the bronze....:o

Again, many thanks.

I'm happy to decipher the Deron Johnson signature, as he's been gone for some time and so the autograph is not all that easy to find.

The ID's on the Pat Neshek and Matt Young signatures are perfect examples of why I started this thread. There is just no way I could EVER have figured them out. Those autographs might as well be runes.

Here's another bunch, and while you're at it, most of the signatures from post #45 remain unidentified. Perhaps a second look will yield - something?

Alan

#54

#6 Gary Jestadt
#7 Tom Burgmeier
#8 Dick Mills

#1. Sandy Alomar Sr
#5. Rich Wortham

54-9 is Dick Berardino, career minor league player/mgr; coach with the Red Sox 1989-91.

Steve

Again, thanks for the info.

There do not seem to be as many football/basketball/ice hockey signatures as I'd anticipated. We'll see if that holds up.

Here's a bunch for today. Don't be shy about looking over the last couple of groupings one more time, as a few seem to have stumped everyone.

Alan

59-2 Don Demeter
59-3 Herschel Walker
59-5 Billy Conigliaro
59-7 Jimmy Wynn

Again, many thanks for your inspired ID prowess. My box of ???? items is growing emptier by the day.

Here's another grouping. I continue to keep my fingers crossed that you can figure them all out.

Alan

60-1 is Cecil Butler (1962 and 1964 Milw Braves)
60-2 is John Leister (1987 and 1990 Red Sox)
60-5 is Kevin Collins (Mets, Tigers, Expos)
60-6 is Dick Manville (1950 Braves; 1952 Cubs)
60-7 is Harry MacPherson (1944 Boston Braves)
60-9 looks like Bill "Spaceman" Lee
60-10 is Bruce Bochy


Steve

#8 looks like Tom Butters

Wow. You guys show no signs of getting tired of this parade of illegibility.

If anyone out there also owns index cards of these players, I'd like to hear about it. I'd hope that this thread has benefited someone other than me.

Thanks again to everyone who's been doing the detective work. I genuinely can't thank you enough.

With that in mind, here's more:

Alan

First is minor league pitcher Eric Ackerman.

Blue sharpie above the one in red is Jackie Gutierrez.

Next to last is John Koronka, pitcher briefly for the Cubs, Rangers and Marlins.

Above Koronka looks like Horace Clarke to me and below that one Clyde King.

63-3 is Jim Proctor (1959 Tigers)

Steve

Okay, another day, another batch of unreadable signatures. I'm going to keep doing this until I run out, or until someone begs me to stop clogging up the bandwidth.

I know I'm repeating myself, but many, many thanks to those of you who've stepped up and attached names to some of these chicken scratchings.

By the way, when the time comes that I run out of mystery autographs (at the current rate, that will be in about a week), I'll do a recap of the ones that defied identification and will repost them. One last shot at figuring them out. After that, anyone is welcome to take over this thread and post their own puzzling signatures.

Alan

From post 67

Second is Ted Schreiber
Next to last is Leon Durham

#3, is Herbert Hermann "Toots" Naegele. I have no idea who he was but Googled what I could make out of the signature and found the link below. His birthplace is listed as Frankenmuth, which matches the inscription.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...ermann-naegele

#4 Charley Ferguson football
#5 Guy Charron hockey

I was out most of the day today, but I wouldn't dream of letting half the weekend go by without another contribution. You guys continue to amaze me with your ability to make sense out of all this. I remain consumed over the issue of who the heck Herman Toots Naegele was. :confused:

Here's more. Note: I have a feeling that #9 might be actor Henry Hull.
If you agree, please confirm this. Hoping, as always, for the best.

Alan

You're correct on the Henry Hull.
#2 is Oland A. "Dixie" McArthur (1914 Pittsburgh Pirates)
#4 is NBA HOFer Richie Guerin.
#5 is 1970s California Angel, John Doherty.
#6 is NHL player Richard Mulhern.

Regarding "Toots" Naegele, go to the below link and you'll find information about him:

https://www.bavarianinn.com/wp-conte...10/Naegele.pdf

Steve

Regarding "Toots" Naegele, go to the below link and you'll find information about him:

https://www.bavarianinn.com/wp-conte...10/Naegele.pdf

Steve[/QUOTE]

Here is a facebook page with information about him

https://www.facebook.com/Frankenmuth...6823370100410/

He was manager of the Carling Brewing Plant in Frankenmuth. The town has a lot of Bavarian architecture. Home to Michigan’s Military & Space Heroes Museum

Interesting!

#3 is Gary Sutherland

Another day, another batch. Shout out to my regulars who've stuck with this exercise in frustration since the early days (last week). For what it's worth, there's only a few more days left to come.

Re: the last grouping - how did I miss Gary Sutherland? :confused:

And extra thanks to those who uncovered the story of Toots Naegele. This is now officially the oddest autograph in the thread (barely beating out "Dick-Lane-in-beach-clothes.") :eek:

Here's the next grouping. Thanks in advance!

Alan

74-2 is Pat McLaughlin (1937, 1940, 1945 Det Tigers, Phi A's)
74-4 is Mike Bruhert (1978 Mets)
74-8 is Paul Doyle (Braves, Angels, Padres)
74-9 is Jim Lentine (1978-80 Cardinals, Tigers)
74-10 is Merv Connors (1937-38 White Sox)
74-11 is Hank Ruszkowski (1944-45 Indians)


Steve

#74-6 - "Fat Freddie" Scolari - NBA

Running late today again, but I haven't forgotten about all of you.

Remember I mentioned that I'd posted a bunch of team sheets a few years ago, and had been similarly helped by all of you? I looked into my posting history and found that it's been five and a half years since I started that thread. The title of that thread? "Need a little help." I guess I don't get any points for originality. Also, the person who was my main source of signature identification in that thread? Steve D. Thanks again!

Here are some more illegibles:

Alan

77-1 is Jim Bronstad (1959 Yankees, 1963-64 Senators)
77-2 is HOF tennis player Dennis Ralston
77-5 is Tony Robertson (1977-79 Atlanta Hawks & Golden State Warriors)
77-6 is Mike Stenhouse (1982-86 Expos, Twins, Red Sox)
77-7 is Joe Cunningham (1956-66 Cardinals, White Sox, Senators)


Steve

Many thanks again to one and all (and to Steve D. in particular) for your help.

Today's batch begins the final phase of this little project. Going forward, the autographs will consist of mounted cuts, many with tape or glue stains (unfortunately), all or most of which come from a very large collection I picked up almost twenty years ago. This was the same collection that contained those team sheets I posted in my earlier thread. Notable is the fact that the signatures all date (I believe) from the 1961-1963 era.

Off we go!

Alan

Believe the 1st is Al Luplow. Last is Mel Harder. There's another Don Demeter in the middle.

79-11 is Georges Maranda (1960 SF Giants; 1962 Twins)


Steve

Duplicate deleted

Under Maranda is Frank Torre

79 #7 Marv Breeding

74-7 is Dave Watkins baseball

78-8 Ron Hansen baseball unassisted triple play July 30, 1968.

2nd is Dallas Green
3rd is Bruce Ellingsen

Still unidentified from your last post:

Jake Gibbs
Sam McDowell
Jim Hearn
Marv Breeding
Ron Hansen

Today marks the final posting of new unreadable signatures. As with yesterday's batch, please pardon the tape and glue stains. Note that the last one is an album page that isn't necessarily confined to the 1961-1963 era as are the others.

Tomorrow (Halloween), I will seek to frighten you all by re-posting all the autographs you haven't figured out yet. Everyone gets a second chance!

Seriously, the generosity of this group in giving their time, effort and eyestrain in order to puzzle out these signatures has deeply impressed me. Once the dust settles, I invite other people with accumulations of unknown autographs to parade them past the group. You just never know what treasures might be hiding in that cigar box you use to store these things...

Here's the final installment...

Alan

Come on, man! You don't have a handle on Don Demeter by now? ;)

Johnny Sain
Billy O'Dell
Phil Cavaretta
Gene Freese
Frank Newhouser (perfectly legible, but I'm unfamiliar)
Hank Izquierdo
Bob Oldis
Don Demeter
Earl Francis
Happy Chandler

It isn't that I don't have a handle on Demeter; rather, I seem to have formed some kind of mental block! Lord only knows why...

A lot of these are entirely obvious once identified. I should have recognized Oldis, certainly, and Chandler is pretty obvious as well. I still don't know how I missed Gary Sutherland a few posts back.

So, that leaves only 86-7 and 86-8 as mysteries. Hopefully someone will chime in before tomorrow, so they don't get reposted in my final, farewell posting.

Thanks again for all the help!

Alan

I don't blame you for missing Oldis. It wasn't instantaneous for me. The Oldis and Sain were a touch atypical due to a few different factors. With Oldis, I immediately saw the "Bob", but the B in Bob is scratchy due to a poor ballpoint, so not fully formed. The surname is messier than normal. It was Oldis' rather unique angle of writing that turned the light on in my head.

86-7 is a messy, slightly atypical, very early Willie Davis. He changed his autograph numerous times, so you'd never know it was him if you were comparing to later examples.

It's hilarious how I figured this one out. It's the only one I had to use my exemplar files for, and we can be glad it came to that.

I was looking at the thing, and started to wonder if it may be a messy Willard Hunter. I'm just not used to Hunter ever being messy, but that's as close to a player's name as I could make out by staring at it. Hunter debuted with the 1962 Dodgers, so the first thing I did was pull up my 1962 Dodgers team-signed items. In scrolling through them, I found an autograph strikingly similar (especially the "W" in Willie and the "a" in Davis). Almost as messy as your cut in question. It took me a few seconds...it was Davis. It's not a style he employed very long or that is encountered very often, so no wonder I was thrown for a loop. Also, yours has an inconvenient pen skip in the D, making it indiscernable as that letter! How odd that my erroneously reading that scribble as possibly being one player ended up leading me to his teammate and the eventual solution!

You're right about Davis. Most striking was the signature he adopted not long before his death. It almost looks Japanese. I've never talked about this, but I got a by-mail return on a couple of photos where he not only signed them with that very distinctive and odd signature, but he scribbled all over the cardboard mailer and seemed to ramble on about something or other. I've wondered if he was suffering from some mental problems during that time.

Alan

Okay, with the dawning of a new day, I'm taking stock. I threw almost 190 illegible signatures at you guys over the last couple of weeks, and you generously identified all but 36 of them. That's a batting average of over 80%, good enough to qualify for any All Star team. And it's not as though you're getting paid any free agent money. :D

So, I'm re-posting the 36 signatures that have stubbornly resisted begin figured out. Maybe a second look will click with some of you. Maybe some of you have joined this thread late and haven't looked over the previous postings.

Once all is said and done, I hope that someone else will scan all of their mysterious autographs and throw them in our faces, hoping someone will unlock the key to their identity.

Again, many thanks.

Alan

And here's the next twelve of the stubborn mysteries:

And finally:

#10 is Jeff Bailey, 2007-09 Red Sox
#17 appears to be Wally Bunker
#20 appears to be Terry Hughes, 70s Red Sox

Guess I didn't read every post.

93-9 Johnny Logan
93-12 Ed Roebuck

94-1 Clint Conatser
94-3 Don Leppert (the 1961 debut)
94-8 Terry Hughes
94-9 Herman Reich
94-10 Bob Cremins

95-1 Joe DeMaestri
95-2 Con Dempsey
95-3 Derek Sanderson (NHL)
95-9 John Smrke (NHL)

I know a few more of these, but they're not coming to me.

#94 #9 Herman Reich 1949 Cubs

94-5 is Wally Bunker (Orioles, Royals)


Steve

Looks like things have died down, and everything that can be identified has been identified. A final thanks to everyone who helped out.

Fair warning: I have a few large lots of 3x5's in sight that I might be acquiring in the coming weeks. So there's a chance that this thread might be revived in a month or so.

As they say on Halloween: Boo!

Alan