lajoie opinion
 

can anyone else weigh in on this lajoie letter? i really want to like this (so i can buy it), but there are a few things that don't line up with the examplars i can find even tho it's close...neat handwriting, elongated j, the atypical "e" when he signs full name. am i just crazy? i am by no mean a lajoie expert, just a big fan!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125584973115

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/mrUAA...WL/s-l1600.jpg

While admittedly not a Lajoie expert, it looks too good to me. I just get a bad feeling in my gut.
I also don't care for the language of the listing. Not guaranteeing a return for failing exam is a red flag. Even though I don't use them, not being afraid of them is part of being comfortable with that something is real.
Maybe someone with more expertise will chime in and contradict me, but I would not buy it.

Looks like a Coach's Corner special to me. Ink looks watery and appears to have been applied yesterday. Slow, heavy-handed, deliberate. Lots of stops and starts in strange places, too.

The oddest part is that there was a Merritt P. Durkee in upstate NY at the time; a very quick look shows that one census record finds him living in nearby Ostego. Makes me wonder if this letter may have been based upon an authentic example which was used as a template. Far from the first time something like that has happened. Think of the famous Abraham Lincoln forgery to Mrs. Bixby.

thanks guys i also think this was forged from a similar style examplar, i just couldn't locate it through google.

billycox3 has probably forgotten more about autographs than i'll ever know so consider this thread closed!

Lajoie
 

NO chance this is good.

I’d also be put off by using war bonds stationery three years after the end of the war

No good IMO. Way too neat, and the formation of the N in Napoleon looks lousy too.

Coach's Commode

Scott nailed it.

My parents still had a drawerfull of random stationery that came in letters asking for donations for various causes. They were using stuff at least a decade out of date.

Yes, it's a red flag on something like this, but maybe not a huge one.

The big red flag is it is not signed by Nap Lajoie.