Stop the insults. Period.

Or if you want to joust with me, I'm in.

What now? Are you channeling the Bruces?

Joust?

Why don't you challenge me to a duel?

You want to criticize me, David, that's fine.

The insults will stop.

Actually, David, I'd prefer we settle this in a 6X6 room, but even with my two hands tied behind my back, I'd be at an advantage.

I'm serious. Stop the insults.

Are you threatening, now? You are the new Bruces!

The consignor says that he's had it in his possession for 20 years and never had it authenticated. H&S had it authenticated for their auction. What information do you have that PSA rejected this?

Can we stop the pissing match and get back to the issue here. Why is this Ruth bad?

But it's nit bad, Dan.

th3re is no insults, we just want to know why you think its bad, the old "trust me" i am a secret agent, isnt cutting it.

And these aren't, David, as you posted ""Nice pickup, the autograph book looks good."


http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...autograph+book

There you go again!

You're gonna hafta do better than pointing out two mistakes I made, and freely own up to. You see, Chris, most everybody here--I daresay everybody here--has made mistakes. Mistakes they're well aware of. You're the only one who is never wrong--who has never, ever, been fooled.

It's hard to relate to such God-like perfection.

If you keep bringing up other's mistakes--the same mistakes--over, and over, and over, it's just gonna alienate folks.

Just a friendly little tip.

And in my opinion, and Spence's opinion, and the opinion of others here, the Ruth is good.

Dude, stop it...the issue at hand is this Ruth autograph, not anything either one of you said or did in the past.

You claim this Ruth sig is bad...you said it in your second post to this thread, why you didn't say it in your first is a mystery, but anyway. You also say that you think it was rejected by PSA...why do you think that? The consignor says it has not, is he a liar? Is he the mystery man from Michigan?

Dan I am many things, a liar isn't one of them. As I have said previously, I have had the ticket for twenty years and never attempted to get it authenticated before this auction. Any indication otherwise just is not true

For the record I don't believe you to be a liar. I would like Chris to answer my questions though. And I don't think that's too much to ask considering he started this thread.

Richard, did you ever send or hand your Babe Ruth Signed Ticket to Heritage for examination or possible consignment?

I spoke to Rob Rosen at the same time I spoke to Josh. I have an email (Dated 1/7/13)from Rob saying he would send me an info packet to put my item in the auction. I can forward you the email if you like. I did not go with Rob because of the $'s. But NO the ticket was never sent to him!

Thank you, Richard.

Hopefully, I will speak to Josh tomorrow.

Oh man this thread is fascinating. So many of the intricacies of this autograph board (and the current state of the hobby itself) are writ large.

Great stuff.

Blecch. I've only seen two of these autograph 'mystery' threads so far, but that's two too many - I'm surprised you all put up with it.

Later.

Scott,

It's like the car wreck that you can't keep from slowing down to look at.

I am not even sure why I am poking my head into this discussion, but from an observers prospective, or even a potential buyer I don't understand why if there is something that is clearly evident about why the autograph is or isn't authentic, in someones opinion, why that can't be clearly pointed out. It's not even necessary to go into detail about how or why one knows that, just what it is they see. There are some autographs that I know very well and when I see ones that either are or aren't authentic, I will readily offer up what I think is right or wrong about them, from my experience. I won't go into a diatribe about why the "n" in a mantle signature needs to be approached from a hoop downward prospective usually, etc...but I at least state what it is I like or don't like.

Stop, you're trying to make sense of this.
I agree with you.

It has been my observation that autograph experts will not go into detail because they believe this will give the forgers a heads up about what they are doing wrong. In the meantime the forgers keep on forging away. Also the experts are making money left and right either approving or disapproving of your autograph so it's really in their best interest to keep the forgers in business as well.

Also the experts are making money left and right either approving or disapproving of your autograph so it's really in their best interest to keep the forgers in business as well.

An oft missed point.

Above is my original post.

Of all of the auction houses out there, how did I know that it was Heritage that Richard contacted initially about consigning that Babe Ruth Signed Ticket?

Think about that.

When I first read that Sports Collectors Daily email about the Babe Ruth Signed Ticket, something wasn't right about that Babe Ruth. It was the same feeling I had when I looked at David's avatar of his "1927 NY Yankees" team-signed baseball.

I trust my "autograph eye" more than anything else. Some of you like to make fun of that, but except for one person here, everyone wrote "it looks good." Forgeries are meant to have the appearance of "looking good."

The following is not meant to inflame this thread, but why did David's eye think that the autographs in that autograph book "looked good?"

I immediately checked my exemplar files to examine that particular style sig. I have numerous exemplars (one of which I posted).

Then I started to do my research and posted this thread. I posted this thread earlier then I wanted to, but I felt I had to because the auction was live.

Then everyone got impatient. In the meantime, I continued to do my research on that Babe Ruth Signed Ticket. And still, everyone continued to be impatient.

Research takes time. A lot of time and work.

Scott Garner, commented on the ticket itself. A generic Tigers ticket that was stamped with a date of July 13, 1934 on the day that The Sultan Of Swat slammed his 700th career homerun?

What also piqued my curiosity about the ticket is did The Bambino sign it on a flat surface? The Huggins & Scott auction description reads:

Following that game, her and her father were at The Fisher Building in Detroit where Babe Ruth was doing a radio interview and the woman was sitting next to Ruth's wife. They got to talking and the woman asked if Ruth would sign the ticket stub from the game that she attended where he hit his 700th home run. He obliged the request. The woman held the ticket until 1992, where she gave it to our consignor, as a gift.

I will have more later.

Just for the record, I stand behind my thread 100%.

I contacted Heritage and H&S at the same time (I have emails to prove this). Mr. Rosen, after seeing an email of the ticket offered to send me a package to put the ticket in his auction (I have that email as well). After my conversations with H&S I felt more confortable with them simple as that. And just for the record I stand behind my story 100%.

Chris,

Thank you for the info.

Yet you posted that you knew already it was bad in your second post in the thread. You posted that while you were still doing research.

he just wants attention and to feel relevant, "i have some secret information, and no you can't have it". i dont know if the autograph is good or bad, but he believes it to be bad, the onus is on him to show people, its not for the other people to just believe him because he is a member of the secret order of the water buffalo, the secret agent stuff grows old.

if it were john l sullivan or bob fitzsimmons, i would show people right away just WHY it is bad, you don't need to do any more research than comparing it to known exemplars and passing it or failing it that way.

chris can't do that because i believe there is a dearth of experts on babe ruth that really know his signature.

Rob Rosen at Heritage is baberuthautographs.com maybe he knows babe ruth, he goes with jsa and psa opinions. And if PSA rejected it, let's get some proof of that.

i never saw williams credentials on babe ruth, cy young or any vintage baseball. let's put up that resume on vintage baseball. are you consultants with any auction house, any authentication outfit? It's more than fair to ask someone for his credentials.

I think that it would be extremely telling to compare the 1934 signed Babe Ruth ticket to other known exemplars from 1934 or very close to that time period.

Do any Babe Ruth checks, or letters (this may be wishful thinking) exist that could be used as exemplars where a date could be nailed down?

If the answer is yes, can someone please post these exemplars?
I would love to be able to do my own analysis just for grins...

Thanks!

is it fair to say if the tix is good, then the sig is good? and if one is bad, then the other is also bad? or can you have a good tix/bad sig scenario? the least likely is a good ruth sig on a bad tix.

I believe the ticket is bad and your post above is why i can't believe the signature is authentic.

Is the condition of the ticket the only reason you think it's bad? I have tickets from the 1940s with 4 sharp corners and no creases...tickets weren't flipped, traded, or put in bicycle spokes. This one was signed by the greatest ballplayer of all time...who wouldn't put that in a scrapbook or in a safe place? It's not like this stub was walking around in a wallet for 40 years.

Condition is one of the primariy reasons, mainly because of the story and who held the ticket. It wasn't held by a collector per se. The idea that this thing was placed directly into a case and put in a safe for 20 years is not believable to me.
That coupled with the info Scott has provided and other examples I have come across in the past...it just doesn't add up.

Sometimes you need to go with your gut and my gut is telling me no.

I would love to believe it's real and would love to see it be real, I just can't believe it.

I'm pretty sure that none of my ticket stubs in my collection were held by collectors...most of them (all of them?) came from people who went to the games, kept a few programs as mementos and stuck them inside the program that was put in a drawer, on a bookshelf or a box for 40+ years. Like I said, people aren't trading, flipping or organizing ticket stubs like they do ball cards. And I'm not so sure it's hard to believe someone would treasure a Babe Ruth autograph enough to keep it in good shape.

A ticket stub from 1947...nearly pristine, from the first ever Lincoln A's game.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1947opener.jpg

As far as it being an "emergency" ticket I'm not so sure that's hard to believe either. It was the middle of the Great Depression...ball clubs didn't print a ticket for every single seat. It's not hard to believe the Tigers thought they better print up a few extra tickets for the possibility that Ruth might hit his 700th homer while in town.

Couldn't he have gotten the 700 HR the day before? or 2 days before? or day after?

Dan,

I am relying on my own instinct. All I got for ya man...

I would guess they printed up emergency tickets for the series.

Dan,

Like I have said...I would love for it to be authentic just to know that one exists. I hope I am wrong.

But at the same time, the stub is now at $4k...knowing what you know/see/have read here, would you be comfortable buying it?

I have seen NOTHING in this thread that leads me to believe the autograph is not authentic. The ONLY thing we have is Chris saying that it is not good which leads to a domino effect of others who respect his opinion agreeing with it. He has not shared one shred of evidence that this is a forgery. He claims it is no good in his second post on this thread..the same day he started the thread yet later claims he is still doing research on it. He had no idea it was certed by JSA, and he seems to recall it being rejected by PSA (although I'm not sure how he can recall something like that unless he actually works at PSA...does PSA have public records of rejected autographs?). He apparently believes that Heritage rejected the autograph, the consignor disagrees with that assessment.

Why am I supposed to take Chris's word over JSA? If this was on ebay with the JSA letter would the EMR team boot it?

I know if I were the consignor I'd be pretty pissed off about this thread.

And, not a shred of evidence has been presented supporting the claim that the ticket itself is bad. Nothing but a "gut feeling" based on sharp corners.

Post #50 in this thread pictures an auction lot of (older) Detroit tickets, some overprinted, none representing an important game (so that the ticket would have been carefully preserved), and yet all are near mint, with sharp corners.

Ordinary ticket stubs from 1954...all sharp corners.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...stubsSmall.jpg

Pissed? Nah just confused why you guys call this a hobby :) I have an email from Rob Rosen on 1/3/13 asking for photos of the ticket and signature (which I sent on the same day) and an email from Rob Rosen on 1/7/13 asking for my address so he can mail me the contract. I had made the decision to go with H&S on 1/4 based on my conversations with Josh. If seeing copies of these emails helps please let me know and I can attach them.

Right I get all of that and Chris and I went back and forth about that, but the question is.....

David/Dan,

Would you buy it?

I used to save every ticket to every sports event I went to. Each was tossed in a box. I take a look at them every now and then when I'm looking for a particular ticket, but I haven't taken special care of them. Some are over thirty years old - all look basically brand new. Tickets hold up fairly well.

Also, some have a rough edge where they were torn at the gate. I had an urge at one point to cut off the rough edge on a few of them, but resisted. Perhaps the holder of this ticket couldn't resist?

As far as autograph authenticity - I have no idea. But I do know what Chris' opinion was on the green-ink '27 Yankees ball, so, with all respect to Chris, as anyone can make a mistake and this autograph could certainly be bad, just having Chris say it's bad isn't enough.

No, James. The question is...

"Is it real?"

(And the answer is, with very little doubt, "yes.")

I haven't seen anything here that disproves the authenticity of the ticket or the autograph, nor even anything that casts doubt on the authenticity, and thus if I could afford it, I would be bidding too.

The only autographs I buy are ones that no one would even think about forging so no I wouldn't buy it...if I did collect Ruth autos this one is certed by JSA, we have public statements that Spence looked it over again and still gave it a thumbs up and it's in an SGC slab. What's not to like other than the purely manufactured cloud of mystery?

Here is a 1934 ruth autograph from Hunt auctions
Attachment 95109

1934 babe
 

1934 BABE RUTH exemplars

Not a single one of those signatures looks identical. I wonder how anyone can do an "eye test" on a Ruth sig?

But Dan, Chris said above (and I quote):

"I trust my "autograph eye" more than anything else."

exactly!!!!

I think that any time an 'expert' gives thumbs-up on a signature that you ('you' meaning anyone on this forum) are certain is a forgery, you no longer pay much attention to their opinions. Especially when they never give a good reason for the opinion - and unfortunately, this is true of almost everyone on this forum. We'll say 'good' or 'bad', but if we give a reason we know that there's a likelihood that we'll get slapped around, or lose credibility. So no one likes to put themselves on the line.

But research is a different thing - if Chris does 'leg-work' and determines that this can't be a good Ruth, then I'm sure it isn't.

Thanks to Shelly and Ben for providing different 1934 exemplars.
Ben, I can't believe that you have some many exemplars from 1934. Wow!

I'm glad that I'm not the one being asked my opinion about the signature on this ticket. I find it extremely challenging to tender an opinion, even with all of these terrific exemplars. Yikes!

How much legwork was done? He claimed in his second post that it was bad yet at that time did not know it had been certed by JSA, believed it was rejected by PSA and I think we can tell from his posts that he believed that Heritage rejected it. Then claims that someone from Michigan who forged some other Ruth item that we are not allowed to see more than just the signature on also forged this Ruth ticket stub, yet the consignor is here and refutes all of that.

Dan

It's a big "if". Chris says he's been doing research - he just needs to show it to us.

Off to the game.

Does provenience really mean anything now adays useless you could prove it 100% to every detail? You see alot of fake items with provenience or a so called history and then the item is fake. Just talking in general, not referring to this item.

If someone is going to great lengths to fake something, they wouldn't give a second thought to faking the provenance. At the end of the day most provenance comes down to word of mouth and faith in the storyteller anyway.

Speaking of MICHIGAN....GO BLUE!!!! Lets take a break to watch a great game fellas.

I won't hold my breath.

just spent 4 lousy hours watching the Tribe lose to the damn yankees, so I missed a lot here...

Chris, it's nice of you to finally post something!

From what I read into Chris' words, I'm wondering if perhaps he's checking into the fact that maybe Babe never did a radio show that day??

Ken

BTW, all this would take longer than the short time an auction runs.

Still, the story could have gotten garbled over the years and the ticket/autograph could still be good.

I think that ultimately you have to verify that the ticket is legit, then decide whether or not the autograph is real. The first part can probably be done, but no one here ever seems to be in agreement as to whether or not a Ruth is real or not.

I just read through 23 pages in this thread, and not one person thought to ask Chris the one question I've had for like the last 6-7 pages.


Chris - how long has this Michigan forger you speak of been knowingly forging?

He has knowingly been forging for a long time.
A number of dealers know of his existence.
There have been attempts to bring law enforcement into action in this matter.
As far as I know nothing has happened, yet, with law enforcement.
Proving something in a court of law is very different than just having some people know of the existence of this man and his activities.

Long time, meaning > 20 years? > 10 years? Thanks Richard.

I have known of him for many years, probably 10-15 years.

i thought about that to try and match up with the consignor's story...but it won't make a difference. the consignor states he's had the sig for 20 years, and before that the lady friend's had it for the 50 years prior to that. doesn't matter if the michigan forger been around for 10yrs, 20yrs, or 40 yrs. you either buy the consignor's story or you don't. just like you're either on JSA side, or you believe chris judgement.

What's your opinion on this Ruth ticket? Is it the work of the Michigan forger?

Yeah, yeah... Same old, same old. "We know about him, but it's very hush hush."

Well, Richard, here's something you can talk about: This Ruth.

What's your take?

I have not seen his work in person since I was doing shows, which is about 7-8 years ago. I have had several stories told to me about him and his work.
There is a tell in his work, which I will not reveal, when it comes to Ruth sigs.
The tell appears in the signature on the ticket.
My opinion on the ticket is that I would not buy it.
I would like to reveal the tell but that would be foolish of me as I believe there are many lurkers on this board and for all I know he could be one of them.

Well, then. Have you been in touch with H&S? Don't you think you should explain to them what this "tell" is?

Good stuff, Richard - thanks for posting.

You are welcome Scott.

Is it safe to assume that since you guys know this guy has been forging for over 20 years now and you know his tell that you don't know his identity? Otherwise to allow this to continue for 20+ years is a bit silly is it not?

Where did I say I don't know his identity? I know his name.
He has been reported to law enforcement, we are autograph people, we are not the FBI and we are not the police.
What do you want from us? Should I just go and shoot the guy?
So many people in the forgery business can operate with impunity because law enforcement won't do anything.
I have reported much to law enforcement, occasionally there is a good outcome, more often than not there is no outcome.
What would you suggest Dan?

You don't have to shoot him, maybe break his fingers so he can't forge anymore. Lol

Dan, that is by far one of the most pointless question that I have ever read on this board. Here is my question. What would you do that Richard didn't do?

Good one Brock, I am booking airline tickets to Michigan now :D.