Unfortunately, Mr Pickles, your math analogy is flawed because authenticity is a yes or no, not a degree. In your formula, the authentic number can only be 0 or 1, with 0 being not authentic and 1 being authentic. If the item is not authentic then (0) * (anything) = 0. A perfect ball with perfect signatures that are all not authentic is worth nothing to an autograph collector. It might be worth something to someone who just wants a ball to display, as that person doesn't likely care if it's real or not.
If the autos are real, then the price is a function of many variables including sig quality, item signed, who sees it when it comes to auction and how much money they have available to spend at that moment, plus a bunch of others.
If an item is not real, it may still have some value in some circumstances. For instance are rare early American League ball with a fake auto is still a rare ball that ball collectors might want, etc. Another variable is a multi signed item, like the team ball you posted. Having fake sigs on a team ball will lower the price proportionally based upon who is fake in relation to the price of a fully authentic copy of the same ball. As an extreme example, a 27 Yankees team ball where all the sigs are fake except for Giard, still has quite a bit of value. Same ball, but only Koenig is real is worth much much less.
BTW, I also think the Ruth is good.
Mark
Last edited by Lordstan; 12-26-2014 at 10:17 AM.
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