Agreed Travis. Thank you for your insight and help.

Having worked for PSA in the distant past, I know what you speak of when you talk about under the gun with a time limit.
I am sure that Ron Gordon and Jim Stinson will remember being rushed to do our jobs and the one time we asked to stay over another night to do the job properly and we were turned down by the powers that be.

If you guys are interested in helping me gain some more insight into this signature please PM me. I am willing to compensate you for your time.

Richard, you know it!

For regular auction lots in a huge auction, they have a few minutes, then they will move on to the next item. if it is a blockbuster item, maybe they will spend more time on it.

if their time is worth 250 dollars an hour, then a 25 dollar submission is worth about 6 minutes of their time. if they spend more than that, they are losing money. so they will go with their best guess. what they should really do is give a no opinion most of the time if they don't know.

but they dont like to do that for 2 reasons.

#1. they don't get paid for it if they give a no opinion.

#2. they think that the collector thinks it is a sign of weakness. if they give a no opinion, then the collector sends it to the other company, which gives an opinion, they think the collector thinks that the first company doesn't know what they are doing because the 2nd company certed it, so the first company kind of feels pressured to give an opinion one way or the other so not to be seen as wishy washy.

what they don't realize is that an honest no opinion is nothing to be embarrassed about. not every autograph in the world can be figured out and it is honest and ethical to give a no opinion.

a no opinion does NOT mean the autograph is bad. some collectors think that this is what it means, but it doesn't. It simply means they cant give a definite opinion one way or another. it still might be good, might not be. but a no opinion is not a death sentence.

??? I didn't say anything about the Leyland's example. I'm glad that some good examples have been found that are almost certainly legitimate, that show the pointy-bottomed 'W'.

If you and I had spoken before you bought this photo, I would have said, "The 'W' looks weird - it's pointy-bottomed, and that's not how Williams normally signed. If you really want this photo, go dig around and find examples with pointy-bottomed 'W's, and let's compare them very carefully and decide what the odds are that they are legit."

I misunderstood. My bad. Thanks.

another collector had posted his 1939 signed photo of ted williams signed front and back on another thread. another pointy bottomed W in each signature, for what it is worth.

I nearly bought this in Boston last year. I appreciate the post Travis. A truck load of variations in his 1939-1940 signatures. Who the hell knows in the end.

Yeah, it's odd how many things are different in Ted's autograph during that period. Last night I placed four examples next to each other and there were some very odd differences that would not have come naturally for him - concerted effort to change the direction he moved his pen, or some of them were not done by him.

Looks like the Ted Williams auction brought in $3.5 million

It was a kick-ass auction - Hunt seemed to do everything right. I feel extremely lucky to have come away with three lots.