Quote:
Originally Posted by JimStinson
If one is to rely strictly on things like "slant", "Formation", etc. etc. in determining an autograph's authenticity. You'll likely succeed in avoiding the crude, average to slightly above average forgers on the ladder.
The especially talented ones have NAILED the above mentioned characteristics because they are ...to quote Mick Jagger "Practiced at the art of deception".
Master counterfeiters whos deception is to produce fake currency can draw a twenty dollar bill FREEHAND is it not then conceivable that someone can produce an exact replica of a BABE RUTH autograph or anyone else's using known examples ?
In the book "The Art of Making Money" the story of a master counterfeiter ..I quote
"Art Williams. took to crime almost immediately, starting with petty theft before graduating to robbing drug dealers. Eventually a man nicknamed "DaVinci" taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeiting. After a stint in jail, Williams emerged to discover that the Treasury Department had issued the most secure hundred-dollar bill ever created: the 1996 New Note. Williams spent months trying to defeat various security features before arriving at a bill so perfect that even law enforcement had difficulty distinguishing it from the real thing. Williams went on to print millions in counterfeit bills"
My point being that there should be other factors at play in determining an autograph's authenticity than just what it LOOKS like. Subtle things that take years to learn because the REALLY, REALLY talented elite are not cranking out Rube Marquards, George Kellys or even Thurman Munson's or Roger Maris. They are doing SINGLE SIGNED mint to near perfect sweet spot signed baseballs of Ruth, Gehrig, Mathewson and the like that upon completion are going to command 6 figures or more.
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jim@stinsonsports.com |
I'm about half-way through "The Art of Making Money" and it really is instructive to understand that forgery is really one of the oldest professions and those who are SERIOUS about it succeed often before being caught. I recently finished another excellent book on the topic, "Caveat Emptor" by Ken Perenyi. The same applies. People want to believe something is real even when alarms should be going off in their head saying that it's likely otherwise. People don't write much any more or read other's hand-writing so it's getting even easier as time passes to find your dupe.
I can easily see why Babe Ruth is the most prevalent high-dollar forgery. There are only four letters in each name. The signature doesn't seem hard even to a novice. Examples are numerous. He was known to sign a lot. Etc., etc. I'm pretty sure that practicing this one 500 times a day for a few
weeks would lead to a pretty good result for even a semi-talented forger. Get some old paper, old ink (easily done BTW) and you're there.