Would you buy this ball?
 

Here's the description that goes with it..."Joe Cronin single signed baseball. Very clean Wilson Florida State League ball is signed on a side panel by Cronin in blue felt tip pen. Signature rates 8-9 out of 10. Ball itself is unused and bright white throughout. Includes LOA from JSA: NM"

No, I wouldnt personally. It doesn't look right, and has a "start/stop point" which bugs me some too, tho that doesnt always mean a fake, does it?

Things I don't like about the ball - The ball is too white compared to the area between the stitches...there is white (polish?, paint?) on some of the red stitches...and it appears the J in joe was started in ink and then written over with blue marker. Just a weird looking ball.

The "C" into the "r" in Cronin bugs me too.

Dan,

You're correct. This ball does look like it's had quite a bit of work done. The signature is fine, however. Keep in mind that the description you have quoted is not the writing of JSA, but rather the auction house. It's a safe bet that the word "removals" appears on JSA's review notes for this item, and that the seller/auction house was made aware of this fact.

It's also of interest to note that it appears that the resulting signature appears to be Cronin's second attempt at signing the ball. You can see a faint "J" in a different pen underneath the bolder "J". [Dan: Sorry, I didn't see that you had already mentioned this. It's just the result of a faulty pen, however--nothing overly unusual about that aspect.]

ball
 

Here is the auto from my cronin day pin.:eek:

I won't comment on the signature because I don't diddly about that kind of stuff, but the ball looks to have been altered in some way and this is not mentioned in the auction writeup. Can we be certain this was a single signed ball and that other signatures weren't removed?

It looks pretty obvious from the scan.

Very scary, It's Frankenball!

It doesn't look like an official ball. Sometimes, depending on the type of leather that was used, the leather around the stitching will appear darker due to the rolling process after the ball is stitched. If I had to guess, I'd say that's a Wilson baseball. On a cheaper ball the white coloration is on the top surface as opposed to a quality ball that is dyed through. That can become obvious around the stitching.

Just a quick update--

I have spoken to the auction house regarding this, and have been assured that no "restorative efforts" were ever undertaken on this item.

While, judging strictly from the scan, it's understandable that some of us may have raised questions here, I have no problem admitting my error in this case. I just wanted to clear the air on this matter.

Thanks Jodi. It's a strange looking ball to be sure, but it's out of my area of expertise...just wanted to comment on it since it stood out so much in the catalog.

edited to add: I think Hunts is top notch....I emailed them a few days back with an error in one of their listings and they got back to me in one day and fixed it.