Authenticity question
 

About 20 years ago, Home Shopping Network had their distribution warehouse here. Employees were allowed to buy things at a discount and often would resell them to a shop I operated with my partner. They had lots of Mantles, Fielder (who was hot at the time), Jackson plaques, etc. They also had a living (at the time) 500 HR ball. I am in the process of liquidating my partner's collection for his family. As much as anything, I am sure where this came from and what it's backstory is, but I wanted to know if it looks ok to people who have more expertise in this...Don't want to sell something for a reasonable amount of money there are any questions about.

This looks pretty much like a ball that is being offered by a dealer on the internet.

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...1/IMG_0812.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...1/IMG_0812.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...1/IMG_0814.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...1/IMG_0816.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...1/IMG_0813.jpg

They look like they were all signed by the same person...and I'm not an expert, just making an observation.

I'm with Barry. Looks like he worked real hard on his 'Mantle' and should have stopped there.

edited to add: only added my comment because the 'Williams' has an odd 'T' that would have kept me away from this item.

FWIW, I am sure that it came from The Scoreboard who was working with HSN at the time. While there are a lot of problems with the SB, I am not sure fraudulent autos were among them.

There are an awful lot of fraudulently reproduced Scoreboard COA's out there that Scoreboard had nothing to do with.

In recent years, I watched the late night HSN sports autographs show starring Kenny Goldin, former President of SB. The autographs were all way overpriced but appeared genuine. So I have no doubt the HSN could be a source for genuine autographs.

We should also note that approximately $750,000 in forgeries were sold by the home shopping shows back in the 1990's.

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Attachment 48457

Correct. There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding Scoreboard. In the late 80s - mid 90s, Scoreboard was the Steiner of its day. I bought several items with ScoreBoard certs through a shopping show and they are as good as gold.

In later years after Paul Goldin (the father died), Ken Goldin (the son) took over and the business started to struggle. They got into a bad deal with DiMaggio for a relatively high fee. After completing his Scoreboard obligations, DiMaggio really screwed them over by then signing a ton of balls at a lesser price for other dealers... completely devaluing all the stuff he signed for ScoreBoard.

In their decline, there were rumors of some questionable stuff coming from Scoreboard, but I have yet to see one iota of evidence other than rumors.

Unfortunately, the ScoreBoard COA was s simple piece of paper that was easily replicated. Chances are bogus material with a "ScoreBoard COA" isn't a real ScoreBoard coa.

I will also echo Richard's comment about the Scoreboard cert; it has been edited and copied over the years in an effort to sell forgeries under the Scoreboard COA.

A good example is a Mickey Mantle autographed bat with a Scoreboard COA; Mantle never signed bats for Scoreboard. Never.

I find it interesting that, just as with the AJC dag, rather than using our eyeballs , we are first examining provenance.

Backward, my friends.

Please explain exactly what you mean.

I think that Scott is trying to say that everyone immediately saw Scoreboard, and just wrote it off as a forgery without really looking at the item. While with the AJC Dag, many people looked at it's provenance, rather than the photo itself, and just assume it's AJC(which it still may or may not be)...

He may or may not be right. Anyways, while Scoreboard originally did sell legit autos through HSN. On top of the countless number of reprinted COA's, you also had the problem of people keeping the ball that they received and returning forgeries for a refund, which were assumed to be the original ball and then re-sold by HSN with the original Scoreboard COA..

I myself have a small handful of Scoreboard balls, but I only purchased them after closely examining the signatures.. Some great deals can be gotten on the bay, simply because people assume ALL Scoreboard items are bad..

Hell, one of 'em was a Ripken that I got for under $20...Surprisingly when it came, it had an MLB authentication sticker and one of Cal's stickers as well. I'm sure glad I took a chance on that one, and that the seller mistakenly forgot to mention these stickers in his listing.. Same thing happened with a Feller ball and Bo Jackson ball(neither of which were Scoreboard though). Took a chance, got a dirt cheap price, and then arrived with unmentioned MLB holos.. Lucky me, I guess..

When I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy something, I look at the item first. If it doesn't look right, all the LOA's or COA's in the world aren't going to get me to buy it. I'm not knocking people for taking the backward approach, but I think it's why there are so many forgeries on the market (autographs, game-used stuff, etc.). The forgers know what stock we put in COA's and LOA's - even if 'we' (not me) know an item is likely fake, we know we can sell it because of its associated documentation, so we'll pay for it.

As I've mentioned previously, I had a major auction house take a semi-pro cap of mine and sell it as an authentic Cleveland Indians hat, and I had another offer to sell an unauthenticated football helmet as an authentic Notre Dame one. Both items would have had the LOA's that you all covet so much. Same for trimmed and altered vintage cards with the coveted encapsulation of major grading companies. And we all know about Barry Halper's collection.

All I'm saying is - use your eyeballs first. This ball might be fine, but I wouldn't make that determination based on a LOA or COA.

I was composing my post while you posted :)

I was actually thinking the opposite (thought it was real because of the documentation), but either way illustrates my point. It's just a discussion point, no big deal. I think legitimate authenticators sometimes get it wrong, and I think crooks sometimes sell authentic stuff. I've seen examples of both.

Personally, I don't know if this ball is real or not. If I had to guess, I would say the signatures are real. The McCovey and Mantle look great. The odd 'T' in 'Ted Williams' is probably just an aberration. The fact that they look like they were signed by the same person is probably just a coincidence.

I knew what you meant, I just wanted you to explain it in detail. When did anyone here state otherwise?

I have never made a decision on a autograph based on a COA; that would be sloppy of me or anyone else to do that. Even if a authentic Mickey Mantle signed bat was accompanied with a COA from Scoreboard, I would know one thing for sure; it didn't come from Scoreboard, even if the Mantle was authentic.

Please explain exactly what you mean.

All coa's are screwed up. I wouldn't trust any coa from any company, we have seen them all faked, forged, doctored up, and misrepresented no matter what company they are from. There needs to be a foolproof coa.

verify any coa from any source that you want to buy from if it comes with a second hand coa. if it cant be verified with photo proof, then it's really worth nothing.

I'm not in the market for a signed baseball and I wasn't offering a judgment on the authenticity of the signatures-- so I was allowed to focus on whatever I wanted to focus on

Scott,
In post 9 Chris reported very demonstratively that Mantle never signed bats for Scoreboard. If that is true then any Scoreboard COA for a bat signed by Mantle has to be fake.
If you ask why someone would do this, well, perhaps someone has a real signed Mantle bat but can't sell it for as much as they think they should. They could try to add a fake Scoreboard COA and increase the final sale price.
That's how I took it.
Mark

Mark, it was rhetorical. I completely understand this thread and I think I explained myself perfectly in my first post; however, I thought there was a small chance that his question was based on a genuine failure to understand my post, so I responded honestly and thoroughly.

This isn't my ball, I don't bid on such things, and I have no skin in this game. My posts aren't going to affect the purchasing behavior of those of you who are into such things, so I'll respectfully visit other threads.

Scott,
Sorry, my bad. Didn't get the rhetorical part.
Mark

In other words, if someone was selling a Mantle signed bat with a COA from Scoreboard, and even if the autograph was authentic, the bat didn't come from Scoreboard.

Also, I have never seen an autograph with a COA from Morales that is authentic, but just because the COA was issued from Morales I'm not going to assume it is a forgery. I will always examine the autograph first and foremost, because you never know, Morales might get lucky and get one right.

I don't think it's so much that Morales might get lucky and get one right. It's more like someone else got it wrong by sending him a real signed item.

Good point, imagine that happening.

No one really knows if Morales physically examines autographs. My vote is "no."

This COA has always cracked me up. The Mantle is an obvious forgery, but read the COA:

"YMC reserves the right to only recognize an "Opinion" rendered by a Board Certified, Court Qualified, Forensic Document Examiner, with a substantial, verifiable, and Court recognized exemplar file."

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantl...item4ab043c88a

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Attachment 48598

Christopher, Thanks but I was quoting a previous response to one of my posts - I guess I needed to telegraph my intent.

Originally asked in the very first post: "I wanted to know if it looks ok to people who have more expertise in this."

The conversation took a turn from 'LOOKING' at the signatures, to evaluating the legitimacy of the paper documentation. I think that's a backwards way of doing things. I might have missed something, but after Barry and I posted the first two responses, I don't think anyone else ever said anything about the actual signatures. On the other hand, there were several who have much more experience than me in evaluating signatures, who chose instead to evaluate the paper. Curious.

The classic forged Scoreboard COA was for a Babe Ruth autographed "signed in the presence" of SB staff. Someone posted a photo of it on this board once.

The problem for SB is their real COAs were these cheap pre-printed paper certificates, not hand signed, serial numbered or anything. Very simple to copy. In recent years Goldin has attached holograms to the signed items, either his or the players', so it's a different verification story. I've even seen the MLB hologram on some of his offerings. Though I believe he still uses those generic cheap COAs.

I've seen Goldin hologramed items later given LOAs by PSA, JSA and Mike Gutierrez, and he really did represent folks like Ripken Jr, Barry Bonds and Shaquille O'Neal-- for what that's worth.

And, no, I own no Goldin or SB items. Just observations for an observer.

But, yes, about the cheapest, easiest to copy COAs ever.

To the original poster.... I think the sigs are legit. Just my opinion.

Travis, I couldn't agree with you more. EVERY COA or LOA should be imaged in the authenticator's online database, but only a small percentage are. PSA/DNA only images LOA'd autographs and I don't think JSA puts images of anything online--am I right?

You should be able to confirm you've got the right piece before you pay for it, or you're at risk of being scammed big time by unscrupulous sellers. Not imaging autographs is short-sighted.

you are correct, thats why these coa's are in deep trouble. so many times i see on psa;'s website, "no photo available" might as well say " buy at your own risk because we dont know what it is suppose to look like either. whether or not they actually have the picture available to them, i dont know. but that is the impression they are giving off.

EVERY authentication, 5 dollars or 50,000 dollars should have a photo to go with the cert number. Encapsulations arent photographed at all, unless you pay extra and specifically ask for an loa with the encapsulation. The company says that the fact it is encapsulated is proof of it being genuine.

Once someone figures out how to bust open the holder and switch out autographs (think wiwag card grading scandal only with autographs), then what?

What kind of "Forensic Investigator" issues this ridiculous COA. There is nothing contained in this COA that mentions the signer, the item; and no photograph of the item. Just a matching hologram number. And this coming from someone who calls himself a "Forensic Investigator." His name, of course, is Chris Morales, Forensic Investigator.

Attachment 48807

Attachment 48808

...or Moral less might peel off stickers of "ABC, XYZ" companies and affix his own beautiful shiney gold hologram :D for purposes of a sting operation to show how corrupt ABC, XYZ is? which I don't doubt they are.:eek::eek::confused: Knowing full well he has NEVER authenticated an Authentic Mickey Mantle:eek::eek::D...Despite problems with ABC & XYZ, Moral Ass continues to be the largest Festering Boil on the autograph industry to date in this lowly mantle collectors opinion.:D

Todd Mueller & Koschal (The dynamic duo) et al at ANL would probably say "someone must have forged Moral less's COA. LOL:D:D Travis would say it's not as big of hazard to the industry as ABC, XYZ....:D Fudd, the lowly Mantle collector says "That's one of the worst Mantle Forgeries known to exist and that Moral less is still allowed to go on authenticating pure garbage like this and even supported by a website of knuckleheads that refuse to acknowlege just what a horrible authenticator.... or worse a crook Moral Ass is. At this point, Moral Less needs to at least update his forgery exemplar file that he got from his one time partner and mentor, "The Donald" ,Mr. Donald Fryingpangianni.

Some day the fog will lift and everyone will be shocked except me and a few other people who figured it out a long time ago.

yeah, someday, when the fog lifts.... everyone will see that the Moral Ass certed Mantle depicted here will be real

Is that what you mean?...or after Moral Less is done suing everybody in the litigious world of autographs, he wins a judgment and then......miraculously, every Mantle he ever certed becomes real? Is that what you mean about fog lifting?

All the fog in the world and smoke screens at ANL will not change the fact that every Mantle certed by Moral Less is a known forgery. I’ve said it once and I'll say it a million more times..... The only authentic Mantle this lowly Mantle collector has seen with a beautiful shiny Moral Less gold hologram in 6 years is the ones used in the JSA sting where the original stickers were peeled off and a Moral Ass sticker affixed....is that the fog you speak of? Enlighten Fudd about the Fog? It's not that I have a bone to pick with anybody, I just call them as I see them and right now Moral ass is a boil on society in general for continuing to do what he does even after he knows it's wrong.....and that is just plain wrong. I think the fog bank is clearing

Modern autograph collecting and game-used collecting seems to really bring out the best in people.

Anyone who was wondering the ball in the first post was authenticated by James Spence without any reservations. I am very nearly out of the autograph business and will not mind it when I am.

Question, Ali Signature Piece Can I get Help
 

Back in the 80's and 90's my Dad and Grandfather did a lot of memorabilia business. They commissioned a lot of the tops stars to autograph items. I myself have gone in same direction less the hiring of players. It's just not as easy now as it was back then. They hired the artist and athlete to sign the Original and 550 limited litho's. I'm going to start selling these now but need a few expierenced collector opinion. The item is of Muhammad Ali Litho/transfer titled "The Greatest". The biggest problem is it's a Angelo Marino was the artist they hired back in 1993. I know immediately this piece would be scrutenized if I didn't have proof of the signing session. I do know they made most of their cash back by selling the original painting Marino did of this piece. Fortunately I have photographs of Ali signing these litho's. Due to opersation bullpen every Marino piece is thrown out as junk. So, I ask the members to take a look at these. This piece was broken down into two limited litho's. The one I'm showing is limited to 50 and has an original mock-up of the champ with original pencil auto's of artist and Ali on all 50 pieces. The other 500 were signed in pencil by both with no mock-up.

you got mantle on the brain and everyone else is gropo the robot. you are in the fog and when it lifts you will see clearly, but not before then. 10 dollar autographs arent the big problem when there are 10 grand, 35 grand, 50 grand, 90 grand , 150 grand and 300 grand items out there.

how many people on this board would buy a morales? how many would buy an abc, xyz certed item? There's your answer. keep tilting at the windmills.

I know this thread went way off on tangents, but to the OP, the Reggie and Willie Mays look spot on to me, FWIW. And I collect both of those guys.