Due to what Leon and others have said. I think we may see a big drop in values on rare, vintage signatures. There is just too much "risk", compared to say, pieces of memorabilia, tho some like programs, have been reprinted/faked.

Altered Cards is still an issue, but as most have said on other threads, I don't think thats near as big a problem, as forgeries, esp w SGC, PSA, Beckett and your REPUTABLE grading services.

Perhaps we will see a rise in value in rare, vintage signatures that are not authenticated. :rolleyes:

As far as doctored cards go, "if a card is doctored and you can't tell, is it really doctored", I say this in jest, but there's some truth to it.

Makes about as much sense as 'If you are on vacation and don't know your house is being robbed, is your house really being robbed?"

The answer for both questions is Yes.

But if your house is robbed while you are on vacation, you will be able to tell as soon as you get home.

Unless they only stole 1 sock, that you seldom wear...

Doug

The defendant's argument in court will be, "The house was robbed, but it wasn't really robbed."

You see the same scenario in comic book collecting.

Has a microscopically thin sliver been taken off an edge to sharpen an tiny abrasion? One expert says maybe, another says "can't tell." Some collectors make the decision to not lose sleep over something that is so minute that 999 out of 1,000 people would never know the difference anyway.

As much as I love autograph collecting, it is riskier than most hobbies in that a forgery is worth zero. In other hobbies, if something has undisclosed restoration or some sort of alteration, it can be worth far less, but it is still worth something.

The real question is 'If a card is doctored and no one knows, does it matter?"

Clearly, the card has been doctored. Even the question says it is.

But if you have an autograph forgery encased in a plastic tomb or with some chemical smeared on it, it is not worth zero.

However, if you have a forgery encased in a plastic tomb, and the forgery is discovered, then it is back to being worth the plastic it is encased in. (I realize many, if not most, don't get corrected or found out about)

i agree, a forgery in plastic is impossible to undo. its not worth zero , it has alphabet soup certification, and many people collect the certs, not the autographs.

So cynical, Richard! :D

I see the point. However, the same could be said for non-TPA autographs that have been deemed forgeries. Nothing is stopping an unethical owner from passing it along to an unsuspecting buyer.

True Zip, but if it is in a plastic tomb it most likely won't even get questioned by most.

exactly right, if it is encased with a cert label, people wont question it, because it has been 'deemed authentic' by the worlds experts, and since they most likely arent a world expert, they wont question it.

if it is not encased, and it is a forgery that is loose, people might ask questions, have skepticism, which is good. If you encase it with a cert label, it better be good, you had better have done your homework, which they don't do in my opinion. several wife signed sonny listons in holders selling for 1000 dollars apiece. with no refund coming from the company that certed it. that's real money.

forgeries encased with a cert label are bought, sold, traded as authentic without question, except by a few people like me who question them but are labeled as troublemakers. That's why this whole system needs to be reformed.

If it does turn out that the FBI forensics experts deem the pristine Ruths on Hauls of Shame as forgeries (which I firmly believe they all are), that will pretty much be the end of sports autograph collecting. PSA will be tarnished beyond repair, and the lawsuits will likely bankrupt them.

From a common sense perspective, it seems unlikely that such a large quantity of Ruths in that condition would have survived. Also, why did they all surface around the same time (late 90s/early 00s)?

Be pretty funny if PSA ends up out of business and Coach's Corner survives. :eek:

Seems the only way to be sure of your Ruth is to build a time machine, go back to pre-1948, and have him sign it in front of you. Short of that, there will always be questions, which kind of sucks all the fun out of it.

The end of sports autograph collecting? Hardly.
How many of those Ruths would have sold for such extraordinarily high prices had they not been vetted by the TPAs? How many would have been rejected by buyers or even the auction houses had they not been given that TPA imprimatur?

If those balls are found to be fraudulent--and I, too, believe they will--it is the TPAs who (hopefully) will disappear. Sports autograph collecting (at least for those who educate themselves) will be better for it.

I am not an autograph collector so I have no dog in this, but I missed the part where Nash presented any evidence. I am not doubting there are forgeries out there - just saying Nash does nothing here but try to set off alarms IMHO. I take everything that guy says with a grain of salt. Hasn't he been accused of some of the largest memorabilia fraud in the hobby? His Hall of Shame website seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
JimB
P.S. I have not read through this whole thread so excuse me if anyone has already said this.

It's reasonably obvious that no fewer than three distinct hands were involved in signing those baseballs. Thus, regardless of what Nash has done in the past, at least 2/3 of them are forgeries.

that first photo where it shows three distinctly different styles, that says it all for me.

Good points Jim. I too have some issue with the "pot" here but, as has been said, if the forensic experts deem (prove) the signatures bad it won't be who turned them in but what they are, that matters. Actually, I feel most bad for the collectors in all of this. They are the ones falling short on the leap they made, all the while relying on experts to help pave their way. I have a feeling PSA and the other TPA's will rely on their wording in their certs to not be legally liable though. I would guess there will eventually be some court cases about this so the lawyers might be the winners in the long run. It will be interesting how this plays out.

Pots, kettles ... whatever.

Forgers, authenticators and auction houses have been profiteering for years and it's about time they are held accountable.

An organized criminal ring? It could be possible in an industry where everybody knows your name [insert Cheers theme song] ... but that will be up to authorities to determine.

There are forensic examiners who do excellent work.
Ten years ago I was the instigator of an investigation by the NYC Dept of Consumer Affairs into bogus autographs on ebay.
I filed a formal complaint with the Dept of Consumer Affairs.
A DCA attorney and investigator were assigned to the case.
Two autographs were purchased from ebay sellers upon my direction (both purported autographs were of Christy Mathewson).
The autographs were submitted to the forensic examiners of the NYC Police Dept. along with exemplars which I supplied.
After their examinations they concluded that the autographs were indeed forgeries.
The findings were forwarded to the FBI (they were in the midst of Operation Bullpen at the time) and to ebay. About a dozen ebay sellers were removed as a result of this investigation.
My feelings are that Peter Nash will be working with forensic examiners who can also do excellent work. I look with interest to their findings.
-
I am happy to repeat this from an earlier post: that I feel ebay is doing excellent work now in having the site policed and that they are promptly responding to reports of forgeries and crooked sellers.

With all due respect...

that made me laugh out loud.

It will be the end for people who collect pretty plastic cases, maybe.

Doug

I don't feel bad for anyone who drops 50-300 grand on a Babe Ruth "Blazer" just because some dude at ABC Authentication said it was good...same way I don't feel bad for the guy who wrecks his Ferrari while driving 50 miles over the speed limit..it's reckless. Without ROCK SOLID PROVENANCE why would you ever spend that kind of money of something that can, has and always will be faked?

Pertaining to the collectors I agree with you Dan but those guys are still passionate collectors. They have only made mistakes and I think it's a shame when honest people get defrauded, even if they did make a bad decision. They should still get what they paid for and they aren't. As for the guys that are driving expensive cars over the speed limit and crashing them, they are doing something illegal. The guys buying the fake autographs aren't.

I feel bad for anyone who gets defrauded out of their hard-earned money.

That said, all the evidence is not in yet and there seems to be a tone of Monday Morning Quarterbacking taking shape here. One would almost get the impression that it's "obvious" these Ruth balls are fakes and "only" the TPAs thought they were good.

Prior to this development, has anyone else been consistantly identifying these balls as forgeries?

Many people have been questioning the proliferation of high end Babe Ruth ss baseballs, for quite some time now.
But when certain auction houses gets a potential $50,000 in, what do you think can happen?

I tend to think that more money than brains have led to the proliferation of fraud in our hobby. People need to be more careful and more questioning... With that said it doesn't mean that I don't think the fraudsters should be dealt with harshly...I won't go as far as Br*ce and say they deserve the death penalty, but I think millions of dollars in forgeries deserves a good long prison sentence.

What specifically are you implying Richard?

Of course it's obvious.


These balls have sold over a dozen different auction houses over a period of 15 years or longer. No one has catalogued them lilke this before. It takes a lot of effort to catalogue these and show the different distinct styles. Now that they are side by side, it is pretty obvious. The bottom one is most neutral as far as slant some parts almost straight up and down, and some parts with only slight slant to the right, the second one has an acute right slant, the top one only a slight right slant and the small e in ruth even slants the other way.

Almost all of the balls are advertised as 40's balls or late 30's. With a substantial part of them advertised as 45' - '48, where you would expert a pretty consistent signature, but you see balls 'deemed auithentic' that look very much different.

Nobody has been consistently identifying these balls as forgeries previously. Thats why this is groundbreaking! a big deal! its a bombshell and i think the tpa's wish nobody would have done the work to go way back and catalogue these and show them. Let's hear their defense. If they are confident in all of these dozens of snow white balls being legit, let's see their study to back it up. they do studies on mantle, williams, dimaggio, let's see them do ruth!

Why is it monday morning quarterbacking when someone wants to get to the bottom of this? Unless people just want more and more of these to continue to be sold at auction with the precious LOA and auction loa, and precertification, and coa, and ... aw forget it.

Remember, these go for 50 k to 300k. Anyone questioning them are monday morning quarterbacks?

Only to the people who don't want any investigation and anybody to get to the bottom of this so the hobby can be cleaned up and this mess straightened out. What is Nash suppose to do with this information, just sit on it, and do nothing?

It's a ten part series, if part 2 is getting peoples hackles up, just think what part 10 will bring?

Auction houses want the high priced items to be authenticated by TPA's.
A lot of money is at stake.
They earn zero if the authenticators deem an item to be not authentic.
When a lot of money is at stake perhaps pressure is placed on authenticators to authenticate things that maybe should not be authenticated.

I thought that's what you were getting at...anyone ever put pressure on you to pass something?

I worked for several auction houses over the years. Phillips, American Memorabilia and Guernsey's.
The only one of those three who put pressure on the authentication team (3 of us) was American Memorabilia. Screaming, shouting matches used to break out as we refused to give in to the pressure. Eventually we were asked to leave their employ and they switched authenticators. Apparently they get along a lot better with PSA.
The negative reports about American Memorabilia did not come to light until long after they changed authenticators.
But I see autograph auction items where the players name is misspelled and I wonder why the TPA's would authenticate such items and how could they not even make a note of that misspelling in the COA. I see TPA's authenticating items (very rare boxing) that have no known exemplars and wonder in astonishment how their ethics could allow them to do that.
Pressure from the auction house??

Go to ebay, and look at every single one of the 'authenticated' babe ruth signatures, all of them, and look at them and compare, and you can see there is a problem here. Go to all the auction houses, look at the all the ruth sigs that have been authenticated over the past 10 years. It's amazing.

Not just the baseballs, but the flats, cuts, etc. so many differences but many are cited as being signed in the same era.

How many babe ruth's were there floating around signing stuff? I always thought there was only suppose to be one. i have spent hours and hours looking at them on ebay and auction houses, and i suspect the people who say there is no obvious differences or problems with the autographs uncovered at the haulsofshame investigation haven't looked at too many.

Richard mentioned the rare boxing signature with no exemplars.

It was 'deemed authentic' by two companies, then the certs were pulled after people complained and called them on it. But instead of pulling the item from the auction, the auction house mentioned that although due to a lack of exemplars, these companies both feel this piece is authentic. Based on what?

The auction place still wanted to sell the item. And they kept the listing up, and sold it. No exemplars, still sold it.

Based on what? We are looking into a crystal ball now? Why were the certs issued in the first place? They didn't have exemplars. They knew they didn't have any, and this auction listing should be investigated to figure out what is going on with these authenticators.

People want answers, because if they issue certs without exemplars in this instance, what other signatures have they done the same thing, only it went through undetected? The free pass has expired.

One of these companies recently certified a James Jeffries (boxing) autograph at a sunday memorabilia show and they listed the name as 'James Jeffers' on the certificate. If you look at the sig, the last name does look like it is signed jeffers, only because that's how his signature sometimes looks to the naked eye. They had no idea who this guy's name was, they went with what they saw. It's gone beyond silly now to crazy.

But they know Babe Ruth, and don't ever question them or you are a Monday morning quarterback!!! They can't get James Jeffries, Luis Firpo, John L. Sullivan, Robert Fitzsimmons, Joe Louis, Jack Sharkey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Battling Nelson, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Max Schmeling, or Mike Tyson correct, and those screwups were no brainers, but let's trust them with one of the most expensive autographs in the hobby because these world experts must know something we don't.

Travis Roste-boxing expert

Now the TPA's must be using crystal balls to authenticate the signature of someone who could not write (boxer Tom Sayers).

"Both PSA/DNA and James Spence believe this piece to be authentic, but are unable to issue paperwork due to an absence of exemplars."
-- from the Heritage Auction catalog. and this after the TPA's issued COA's and then withdrew them, when the auction house was called to task on a handwritten piece, allegedly written by Tom Sayers.

Oh, they believe it to be authentic. Well, considering that we are in a hobby that is free of fraud :rolleyes:, who can blame them for their beliefs?
The Sayers item sold for over $10K, I guess the person who bought it has the same beliefs as the TPA's. In this case I think I would be an atheist.
Is this just ridiculous or am I being too much of a cynic?
I can accept the fact that mistakes can be made, we have all made them, but this instance cannot be described as a mistake.

That Sayers mess is VERY disturbing. This has got a lot of steam in a real hurry. Again. at some point, this is going to blow up in some people's faces. For those that like Drama, or don't like Certain "authenticators", it'll be kinda satisfying.

For collectors/other dealers who relied, often to the tune of thousands of dollars, on "expert" opinions and got taken, its simply AWFUL.

Oh, BTW, a friend of mine has a handwritten copy of The Gospel. signed by St. Matthew. Should I "send it in". I mean, hey, no reason to NOT believe its real, just because nobody has seen his signature?:rolleyes:

I will be sending in my Adam and Eve signed Fig leaf.

Travis,

This is a complete mischaracterization of what I wrote and you know it. It's quite clear my reference to "Monday Morning Quarterback" was in regard to people who are suddently acting like this potential Ruth situation was so obvious and "they just knew it all along." Maybe Richard did. Maybe some others did. But if it was "so obvious," why did it take 10 years to put together a study? In all your previous rants and diatribes, where did YOU provide any evidence and comparisons of Ruth signed balls? If it was "so obvious," it should have been easy, right?

Th truth will be the truth and I will watch as the situation unfolds. There is nothing wrong with questioning as I have done it many times myself. I won't comment any further in this thread other than to note that your happy schadenfreude dance is unseemly and sickening.

It IS quite obvious, These questions have been raised before, but fell on deaf ears, it is just now picking up steam. I brought something up over 2 years ago that most people still don't know about but will know about soon. It not babe ruth baseballs but is related to all of this. It's hard to break through the defenders and protectors of these companies who keep telling people to be quiet, because these companies are doing a great job. That day and age has passed and people are waking up. TPA could be such a good tool to use if it was done right. I am not against TPA's in theory, but don't see any value in the way it is being done now. I wouldn't even have a problem with a serious mistake made here or there. But with the plethora of incredibly ridiculous mistakes, one after another after another, when a coa is issued for jack johnson signed on a card produced a few years after he died, and the back of the card even states that johnson died in a car accident, there is something seriously wrong here.

I have made a mistake and given a refund to a customer for 75 dollars when it turned out not to be legit, so I am not perfect either, but holy cow, let's get some perspective here on the gravity of this situation. It is dire.

Richard, you are not being too cynical. Some of this stuff is just being shown the light of day, and they desparately don't want it to be shown, because it shows how they operate internally. Is a piece authentic based on how they feel that day, or are there objective standards they follow?

Steve Z., just tell us how you feel about these companies and these disparities. Please, I want to know. Are they doing a good job? Is 50k, 100k, not enough money to warrant a serious introspection on these balls? Or should it just be swept under the rug? Shouldn't we also hear from the companies that certified these? shouldn't they give us their explanation as to why they certed these balls that are all over the map? Will we ever hear from them? I seriously doubt it because they believe in the silent treatment, hoping it will go away.

A question I have is why does it take someone from the outside to scour through hundreds of auctions over a dozen year period to figure this out, when the TPA's had images of all these balls all along right there in their database, and they couldn't put two and two together? They had it right there. There wouldn't be any need for Monday morning quarterbacking if the PAID Sunday game time quarterbacks were on the stick.

Here we have a guy doing it for FREE and taking flak for it? Can't wait for part 3.

Remember it is Ron K's opinion in contrast to the TPA's opinion who don't put the name of the authenticator who looked at the balls on their COA's. I will take Ron K's word first and foremost over authenticator X hiding behind a company banner. He has the guts to put his name to it and say he is the one who believes these balls not to be in the hand of Ruth. You have to respect that.

Leon, I would love to own a signed Babe Ruth baseball. I have looked at many of them on auction sites and almost pulled the trigger more than once. One thing I noticed: the ones that I feel the most comfortable bidding on end up going for a lot more than the ones that I don't. When looking at high-$ autographs, I never look at the COAs - I instead look at the ball and the signature, and I compare the signature to others that I find that appear to have good provenance. Wouldn't you do a little research if you were about to drop such money on something like an autograph?

The people who didn't are idiots. They don't deserve to be defrauded, as that's an illegal act committed against them, but they do deserve to have to put up with the bullshit of trying to get recompense. It's a life lesson that will hopefully be a good one for them.

Travis:

I've clearly stated the truth should come out and there should be a reasoned examination and discourse. Just because I'm not running down the street with a pitchfork and torch, you equate that with sweeping something under the rug. Rubbish.

This is one reason why I became "The Lowly Mantle Collector", not an elitist that collects Babe Ruth :p\

After not being able to tell a Mickey Mantle from a Fakey Fantle, I sought out to learn myself and not let the Alphabet soup companies or FDE's dictate to me what's fake and what's not. I cut my teeth on the Autograph Forums then putting in years of study on Mantle. I realized from the beginning of my Autograph journey, the power collectors give to the Soup companies. I participated in Autograph Alert which only bashed soup companies and not the FDE's like Moral ASS, Drew Max, and the boobs at STAT Unauthentic (TTA) rubber stamping every damned forgery in sight???? The Autograph industry is so sickening I can taste the throw-up in my mouth.

Pretty much continued to collect only Mantle because he was the only one I could see the differences myself between forgeries & the real McCoy. Never would I buy a Soup company certificate, I always bought the autograph. Some did have soup labels on them. Most do not, which I preferred.

This Ruth DEBACLE & that's what it is, has the potential to hurt the Autograph industry further. I'm glad I have collected only Mantle and didn't try to obtain anyone any higher on the food chain, like Ruth. I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THE DAY COMES WHEN I GET TO SELL THE WHOLE LOT OF GARBAGE and be done with the whole autograph mess......yet again.

I was determined to collect only what I know. I knew the day will come when the soup companies would go the way of the GAI GLOBAL Dodo Bird...EXTINCT!

Much like I knew in the 80's that GM would go Bankrupt. It took a while but it happened until bailed out (LOL) It is inevitable as long as those 2 soup companies refuse to address GLARING & INHERENT issues & weaknesses with their business models. They are on a similar path, too big to fail?????? I think not.

+100;)

Could you please help me out, then, Chuck? I posted a Mantle ball I'd love to get opinions on. Thanks!

I know exactly what you mean, you don't have to massage the meaning, I got it the first time.

The defenders will go away once this gets too hot even for them to defend.
Then they will act like they never knew the company existed. But we will know who stood for accountability and transparency, and who defended them and almost went down with the ship, jumping off at the last moment.

The defunct company GAI was once equal to these companies. And people used them. But you currently can't find anyone who proudly still thinks GAI did a great job. Nobody wants to be around their name. They have switched hat, jacket, sunglasses and moved on.

But during GAI's existence there were some that swore by them, out there defending them, stickering all their photos with the GAI sticker.

Someday that big sucking sound you hear will be thousands upon thousands of these still-in-business company stickers being peeled off of photos and cuts simultaneously as the big purge will start to commence.

Then maybe somebody can provide a careful service that puts the authentication first.

Go to the autograph alert website and read about the latest story. What do you think of that. Mr. Z? Did these comapnies do a thorough job, or justing printing off the certs? And why should it continue?

What makes these Ruths so unlikely to be authentic isn't the sig itself, but rather that utterly pristine condition of the balls themselves. I could see maybe 1 or 2 surviving in that condition, but not the quantity posted on Hauls of Shame.

It was common practice back then to coat signed balls in shellac. I believe some of the letters Ruth sent along with signed balls (when he anwered & fufilled such requests) even noted "cover this in shellac and it will preserve my signature" or words to that effect.

Couple that with the fact that, at the time (and for a long, long time thereafter) the balls had no tangible monetary value. Even in the early 80s you could buy a signed Ruth for a hundred bucks or less. My argument is that these kinds of items would've occasioanlly been "pulled out" over the years to show friends and such, and as such would show more soiling/handling that evident on these examples. Hard not to imagine some guy at a cocktail party in the 1960s not whipping out the Ruth ball and passing it around, or letting his kids play with it a bit, bring it to school for show n' tell, etc. See what I'm getting at? Here are some other thoughts:

A.) A large number of people must have presumably presented pristine balls for Ruth to sign, rather than balls that were game-used (fouls, bouncers etc) or balls they themselves (or their kids) had "used" a bit beforehand. New baseballs were relatively expensive at the time for the average Joe, and the idea you'd buy a brand new ball, take it to Ruth, have him sign it, and then put it away where it wouldn't fade or acquire the slightest bit of soiling/handling for 50+ years is just too hard to swallow with respect to the QUANTITY of them out there in the auction circuit.

B.) Ruth did sign a great deal for his era, but nowhere near the amount of a Pete Rose or other former MLB'er out on the autograph circuit. A full 40 years elapsed from the time of his death to the time his autograph became a big-$$$ collector's item. That's a LOT of time for stuff he signed to get soiled, played with, lost, tossed in the trash, etc. That's to say nothing of fading- presumably, those who possessed these artifacts for the 40 years before they became $$$ didn't all keep them in a safe deposit box or home safe. Many must have been in bookcases, on mantles and such where they'd have faded/aged much more than these examples.

I wouldn't be surprised if the balls that are verified to be authentic to the period were 'cleaned up" a great deal before the sig was forged. That's assuming that many of the balls have a marking that does in fact date them to pre-1948. I'm sure the FBI has a way to test the composition of the balls themselves to determine if they are indeed made of pre-1948 materials. If not, then no further analysis is needed, similar to the bogus $1 Ruth/Gerigh bills with the wrong Treasurer on them.

One final thought is that I believe several authentic Ruths have surfaced on Roadshow over the years, some with the old geezer bringing a photo of them having Ruth sign it for them, thus supplying an impeccable provenance. None of these balls looked anywhere near as good as the Haulsof Shame examples, and most were in downright crap condition, as you'd expect for a 70+ year old item.

"If God didn't want them to be sheared, he wouldn't have made them sheep."

YESSS!! I've always wanted to use that line! Now I need to go watch the movie again.

Ken

And if he didn't want them to be eaten, he wouldn't have made them out of meat!

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!

I am a logical person, so think about it
Babe Ruth is famous for hitting Home Runs and he was also famous for having an insatiable appetite for food and drink. He ate hot dogs during games.
All day long where ever he went people wanted to be near him, shake his hand, buy him a drink.
So if that is how he lived his life, His hands were always dirty.