Robert Edwards preview is up
 

The autograph category is the strongest I've seen in a single auction in years. Several VERY tough HOFers on single-signed baseballs, as well as pretty much every other medium.

http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/....aspx?catid=40

Wish I had more money...

nose ready
 

My nostrils await that wonderful smell of the REA catalog....

love that ink smell...
 

My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I love the smell of a fresh catalog in the mail, too.

Matt

A Dan Brouthers signed baseball. :eek:

And a Frank Chance. And a John Ward. I've never seen these single signed.

And Babe Ruth's galore....:eek:

Now I am the only skeptic?

Whats this forum coming too :)

I actually was thinking that when I saw the Brouthers ball. I know nothing about authenticating autographs, but I know he is one of the toughest HoFers.

There are also several Christy Mathewson autos, including an autographed copy of "Won in the Ninth." I know in the past there has been much conjecture over whether or not Matty himself actually signed those books.

Yeah, there are a few Mattys, including a hard-signed book in addition to the bookplated controversial copy. Interesting to put them side by side.

As to Brouthers, I have no knowledge. One would have to be skeptical of anything with his purported signature, but those who can afford it can research it (or not) accordingly.

I prefer to drool over the spread of items for a while before skeptically inspecting any individual items. Plenty of time for that.

No Rhys, you are not the only skeptic.

Never got to the Brouthers - my bursitis was killing me, just paging through all the new Ruth autographs. And of course, I don't mean 'new' as in freshly-inked.

Quote from Ron K's book:

"Many well executed forgeries exist in the market. Just about 100 percent of Brouthers signatures in the market are forgeries."

I know nothing about Brouthers autographs and I certainly do not have the experience to give an opinion, but I will add that the signature itself looks nothing like the two exemplars in Ron's book. Heck, the two exemplars don't even look like the same person.:eek: 27 year difference between the two...

The Brouthers is tough to authenticate, no doubt. There are two exemplars in Ron K's book, and the REA ball doesn't really resemble either, though they are fairly different fom each other as well. They are almost 20 years apart, whereas one of them is only two years from the purported signing of this ball. Further, the exemplars are both flats.

I'm intrigued by the inclusion of a LOA from "legendary handwriting expert Charles Hamilton," which was part of REA's original sale of this ball in 1995. Never heard of the dude, but I wasn't buying autos then, just getting them IP. Anyone know what makes that guy so legendary? Morales is pretty legendary around here as well...

Wayne,

Glad to see we were on the same page. :)

By the time the catalog arrives, my ceiling bids will all be history :p

Yes, quite literally. I love Ron K's book.

He authored several books about autographs.
His NY Times 1996 obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/13/ar...ndwriting.html

Fyi
 

Lot #913 = http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=149708

It's not mine and never will be, but for those who expressed an interest the ball is now up for auction.

Does a letter from him carry any weight for you at all?

Hamilton is pretty much the godfather of autograph collecting in the second half of the 20th century. Widely respected and admired.

Given his reputation, I'd presume he thoroughly researched the ball before authenticating it.

For the most part, Charles Hamilton didn't deal with sports autographs. Nor did any of the top autograph professionals.

I used to go to his shop often, just to be amazed at the framed stock on the wall. Lincoln, Washington, Dickens, Einstein, Darwin...

Not when it comes to baseball.
I put a lot of weight into opinions when there is familiarity with the autograph for the authenticator or dealer.
Who is really familiar with an autograph of Dan Brouthers?

Yikes, please don't take this the wrong way, but if you're going to collect autographs it would really pay off in the long run to learn a little history. Hamilton literally "wrote the book" (several, in fact) on autograph collecting and while he certainly was a self-promoter, his writings, passion and his catalogs certainly had a lot to do with fueling the fire that led people like me into this fascinating (and frustrating) hobby.

Get a copy of "The Book of Autographs" or "Great Fakes and Forgers" each about $10 used on Amazon. Great reads and highly educational.

"They say the acquisitive desire, strong in a magpie and even stronger in a human, is nothing more than a savage instinct, an uncontrolled desire to seize upon a treasure and hoard it away."
----Charles Hamilton in Auction Madness*
(kind of sounds like everyone on this board) :):)

*Reference:Auction Madness by Charles Hamilton, Everet House, New York, NY, 1981.

Richard, what I don't get is how badly collectors can "wish" a signature into being authentic. I once threw away a Mickey Mantle signed postcard because I didn't think it was authentic, and couldn't stand the thought of having a forgery in my home. It might have been real - not an obvious forgery - but this was long, long ago, when he was still alive, so the value wasn't huge. If I'm not 99.9% sure it's authentic, it can't stay in the house - no exceptions.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have people paying amounts that I could almost retire on, to have a forged baseball sitting on their mantle. I'm sure that some of them are either a bit under 90% sure, or possible certain that it's fake - I just don't get it. And we could all cite examples of board members who are in this latter category - far too many who want something to be real so badly that they become incapable of telling the difference.

As long as it has that piece of paper that so many promote then everything is kosher.

Interesting. I pretty consistently read about the history of baseball, as that is my love. Further, baseball and autographs have always been intertwined for me, though the history of autographs is something I have not really considered. I do know, that in many years of perusing high end baseball autos, this is the first time I've seen Hamilton's name.

Charles Hamilton was highly regarded but he was not infallible. Here is a brief summary of a very fascinating story, you can get more details on Wikipedia.

"Mark William Hofmann (born December 7, 1954) is an American counterfeiter, forger and convicted murderer. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, Hofmann is especially noted for his creation of documents related to the history of the Latter Day Saint movement.[1] When Hofmann's schemes began to unravel, he constructed bombs to murder two people in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is serving a life sentence at the Utah State Prison in Draper since 1988.

In 1983, Hofmann bypassed the Historical Department (of the LDS Church) and sold to Gordon B. Hinckley, a member of the First Presidency of the Church, an 1825 Joseph Smith holograph purporting to confirm that Smith had been treasure hunting and practicing black magic five years after his First Vision. Hofmann had the signature authenticated by Charles Hamilton, the contemporary "dean of American autograph dealers," sold the letter to the Church for $15,000, and gave his word that no one else had a copy"

I don't think anyone really could be 100 percent on a Brouthers auto that wasn't on a legal document. It seems to me that if a collector wants (and has the money for) a Dan Brouthers auto, they will never get one with perfect provenance.

It has long been said here that the only 100 percent certainty is seeing the person write their name. Outside of that perfection, you just seem to have slightly higher standards of certainty than others.

"Slightly" compared to some, "massively higher" compared to others.

Someone could slip into your home at night and switch the 'real' ball with a forgery. Aliens could descend and implant new memories in your brain while you are sleeping. Granted, these things are unlikely, but given the care I've taken to avoid doing so, so are the odds of my purchasing a forgery.

I disagree with using the logic that unless you see it signed, it could be fake - it's an excuse that a lot of people use to collect items that have a high chance of being forgeries.

No offense intended - I realize that my response might seem confrontational, but it really isn't intended that way. Your view probably represents the majority on this forum, and I completely understand it. If you didn't use that logic, you could never feel comfortable buying single-signed baseballs.

Do you think that the Brouthers signature on that ball is legit? I realize that a renowned TPA said it is, but it's hard to get past that 'B'.

I have no idea and almost refuse to think about too much unless I was considering buying the ball. I know I would never be 100 percent certain, but I was trying to say in my last post that if I had to be that, I would own half of the autographs that I do, because that is impossible for me if I didn't see it signed.

Let me ask you, do you think you COULD ever own a Brouthers autograph? What would it take, a legal document? Because it seems to me that the scant evidence we have of his auto (and Rochard's seemingly rhetorical question of who actually has any expertise on Brouthers) that the writing itself cannot make us 100 percent.

JimStinson
 

I haven;t seen the Dan Brouthers ball so my comment is not directed at it , and instead is a general overview of this thread. and my personal experiences... Charles Hamilton was highly regarded in his day as an expert on historical autographs..Not Sports, Toward the end of his life when baseball autographs stated booming he became involved in that area too but only briefly.
I recently purchased a collection of vintage autographs , the original collector was meticulous about keeping invoices etc. One of the items was a Joe Jackson autograph with a bill of sale/Coa from Charles Hamilton. I didn't like it but to cross check myself as I often do I sent scans to several collectors who's opinions I trust , the consensus was unanimous and I returned the Jackson signature.
With regards to Dan Brouthers autograph I have been an active baseball autograph dealer for well over 30 years specializing in 19th century and dead ball era autographs and I have never once bought or sold a Brouthers signature.
Lastly I have seen notorized legal documents and even personal checks of various tough to find Hall of Fame signatures that had been mocked up to appear genuine but were not. So even those documents in and of themselves do not guarantee authenticity.
_______________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

If you do some study on Brouthers and his life, its hard to imagine anyone would have

a. Known where he was in the 1910's to ask for his autograph

b. Cared about his autograph (people were not really collecting sports autographs in 1919, let alone those of former players)

c. Has the foresight to get his signature on a ball

etc. etc.

You basically just have to assume that every single signed ball from before about 1925 is fake until proven otherwise. People just were not getting autographs on baseballs like that back in the day unless it was a "Trophy Ball" such as the last out or whatever and they almost all come from the family. Even team signed balls back then were basically trophies and that is why so few of them exist. There are exceptions to every rule, but not many.

I knew Hamilton as a highly respected non-sport autograph expert, focusing on Presidents and the like. You'd expect to see his LOA with an Eisenhower sign baseball. But, if you see his LOA or hear his name, he was and is a respected autograph guy.

JimStinson
 

There was a collector named James Armstong who lived in New Jersey, and he actively collected signed baseballs most of them single signed from around 1930-1950. He died in the 1960's and his family sold His collection which was so massive it required a pair of big rigg tractor trailors to transport it.
A news article was written before his death and he claimed to own something like 250,000 signed baseballs in addition to rooms full of other autographed items and memorabilia . Much of what he had still turns up on the market today.
____________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

My thoughts and yours are completely in line.

No, unfortunately I could never own a Brouthers unless it was a handwritten letter that had what I considered unquestionable provenance (not even sure what that would take).

Also unfortunately, I might never own a Ruth. I don't like signed checks or most legal documents, wouldn't trust a single-signed ball, most signed photos or any Ruth cuts. That only leaves hand-written letters and certain balls and photos, all of which would cost a fortune. But you have to ask: why would these latter items cost a fortune? Because we feel much more certain they are real. So why would you buy a Ruth that is on the other end of the 'certainty scale'?

Man, I love this board.

I know a couple of you guys posted examples of Brouthers' autograph from the Ron Keurajian book. When I did a google search on Brouthers' auto, the Keurajian section on Brouthers came up. Keurajian wrote that there are less than five genuine specimens of Brouthers' autograph in existence and there are no known signed photos, baseballs or baseball cards.

http://books.google.com/books?id=e3s...=0CCwQ6AEwADgK

love
 

Nuggets like this is why I love this board !

I wondered about this as well. Did Ron see this ball for sale when REA put it up in 1995, and he is therefore saying it isn't real, or is he unaware of its existence? I guess we can't know.

Surprised no one has brought up the signed Hamilton and Ward Balls. Again, I believe Ron said in his book that no known signed baseballs are known to exist, at least until now (maybe)

I forgot the Hamilton, which is incredibly rare if real, but I did bring up the Ward and Frank Chance balls. Never seen any of them on single signed balls before.

Just remember. Hamilton defended the Kennedy papers till the day he died.

There is also a sweet single signed George Wright jubilee presentation ball and a Hank O'Day ball (not single, but pretty nice).

FWIW, the O'Day is real. Umpires are a different story, they would sign baseballs as a crew and give them away as presentation pieces or gifts. The Umpires signatures were there to show where the ball came from and not because of the "signatures". What I mean is that a group of Umpires (or a single Umpire) would keep game balls as souvenirs from World Series or Last Outs and write on them or sign them to show where the ball came from, so they are "signed" but mostly for presentation, not for the sake of autographing a baseball for a collector.

Players didn't really "sign" baseballs before about 1920 (or only for presentations), especially old timers without a current connection to the ball they were signing or the team involved.

Oops. Wrong thread.

Can't wait to get my catalog. HOURS of joy and drooling.

Far as the Brouthers, Cockroaches Corner has one this month too. haha.

I would think it would be tough, and I can sure see some skepticism is warranted. Never a dull moment in our great hobby.

That 'Boston sports photographer' find is unbelievable