1927 Yankees
 

This baseball was posted to a Facebook group and supposedly is consigned to REA auctions for their November auction. Does anyone else think this looks like one of those replica balls? The ink and just the look of the ball just doesn’t look natural. Also based on the post REA don’t have the ball yet, so I’m guessing it hasn’t been looked at by the third party authenticator.

Tough to see without the ball in hand, but almost every autograph on there....the ink looks like it’s bleeding. You typically don’t see that.

That is most certainly a replica, the stampings always are a dead give away. I see them on etsy and eBay from time to time. A little digging and you could probably find the exact ball.

In fact, I just peeked on etsy, looks the same as this replica one?

I think it's different. The signatures on the flap above the Ruth are parallel to it in the original image, and perpendicular on this one.

I will say that the original ball looks like an authentic OAL to me, so if it's stamped, it looks like it's been stamped on an authentic ball. I could certainly be wrong, though.

Could it be that the signatures were stamped on flat panels and when stitching the ball together, the non-Ruth panel was rotated 180 degrees?

Would need to see the panels on both balls to tell.

It's the exact same ball. They can just flip which signatures appear on what panel and also turn them during the printing process to make it seem different. You can see the side panel with the Lou Gehrig and the one above it is the exact same as well. It's really quite a shame these are out there everywhere and with so much in sales happening via scans online they get passed around way too much and too many folks losing big money on thinking they are real.

Here you can see they turned the signatures and used the same middle four and inserted different ones on top and bottom. They are still the exact same signature just cut and pasted into a printing program. Also you can tell by the way they curve onto the ball as they are printed on a round surface they just don't come out quite right.

Crazy, I had no idea. Thanks for the info!

1927 Yankees
 

Excellent detective work by JEFF. Indeed a "slam dunk" The first thing that caught my eye was Walter Beall on the ball he only pitched in one game in 1927 on May 30th and is the toughest autograph from the team. I've only seen one in my life and it was on his 1927 Yankees paycheck. Some of those made to order team balls (and single-signed) are so well done that it's almost impossible to detect them from scans alone.
Although I've never seen one in person I'm guessing that under magnification there would be "stress marks" from pen to leather and a black light might reveal some "tells" too. Again all a guess. But indeed another reason to be careful.
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Some other very easy giveaways that you're dealing with this type of reproduction/forgery:

--Look how flatly the signatures lay on the ball. Even when the ink is supposedly bold, there's an overall washed-out appearance. Absolutely zero oxidation of the ink which would have been haphazardly formed as part of the natural aging process. Outside of an odd signature placement switch, these balls are all so comedically uniform in their appearance.

--The white dimples of the leather pop out from under the signature. Funny how boldly they stand out, and how you don't see this with authentic examples. The sheer uniformity of the dots proves that all of the ink was applied with the same even pressure. All the pretty little dots. Guess we can call these "Dot Balls".