Collecting Autographed Letters
 

Good afternoon, in efforts to finally breach the 200 HOF mark (196) I finally broke down and stepped outside of baseballs, 3x5s and HOF plaques to include letters from managers and executives. I picked up the attached Harridge letter recently and felt pretty good about the autograph (I hope??) but when I got it today I was a little surprised by how much lighter the signature appeared to be in person. Almost a greenish gray that doesn’t really show up in the photos.

This raised two questions for going forward I was hoping for help with. 1.) Im not really familiar with the tendencies of different inks/utensils so is this something you generally tend to see with fountain pens or is this something else entirely? 2.) Part of my hesitation with getting into letters was a fear of copies of originals. Not something I’ve seen talked about much, so I wondered if that was an irrational fear or something you guys can just generally tell very quickly due to poor quality of the copy. I know that may seem silly for many of you who I know can pick up many very specific characteristics of signatures, but for an untrained eye that is still trying to have those things pop, I continue to doubt. I figured on this particular Harridge I wasn’t out much money either way and it might be a good learning opportunity for me.

Thanks for your time. You guys are great.

I collect hand-written letters, not signed typed, because it gives me more handwriting to study; however, yours looks good - I'm basing that on the ink at the end of the signature which has the characteristics of a fountain-pen signature and doesn't have the generally tell-tale signs of a stamp. But it's not a clear enough scan to be certain.

By good, I mean actually hand-signed by 'someone' - I know nothing about Harridge autographs.

Definitely fountain pen

Thanks guys, appreciate your help with this!

Here is a PSA/DNA certified "Lee Macphail" (Yes, I know it is Larry, but that is what PSA initially classified it as before I called them and they changed it) stamped signature. PSA falsely certified it.

https://i184.photobucket.com/albums/...acphailPSA.jpg

Here's a good example that shows how fountain pen ink fades in the middle. I bought this particular example because of the fountain pen ink characteristics that made it easy to validate.

Have to be careful with autpens too...on letters or books. They are not too hard to pick out, but I have been fooled once (a Billy Graham auto).