[JimStinson]

Seriously..the feathering referred to in regards to the Babe Ruth ball on this thread would have likely occured as a result of the forger , either using sandpaper or emory to remove any markings that would ID the ball as being POST 1948 (when Ruth died) ,
So simply put ..under magnification the area around the signatures would look like small rivers (or feathers) due to the rate of absorbtion of new ink applied to a recently reconditioned surface.
On OLD items the ink absorbed would appear more like a Halow around the signature when looked at under a "scope".