Jason,
The Mantle Maris photo Joey has been asking about is mine. When I go home to my parents home, I will usually rummage through boxes of my stuff that I collected starting back as far as 1978, through the 1980s, when my father and I were dealers including having a store, up through around 1992 when we closed the business as I no longer had time for it. Everything was boxed up and stored. Many of the items that I post have not seen the light of day for 15yrs. The last 2 batches of items I brought out included the Mantle Maris and the group below. That is the history of the photo in anutshell.
As I told a couple people that I asked opinions from, this was obtained in the 1980's. While I have seen Mantle at shows maybe 75 times and am sure of it's authenticity, I don't remember when or where specifically I got the Maris. Because I am not as comfortable with Maris, I did ask for some opinions and so far, prior to Joey posting, I only had one negative opinion on the photo from the people I asked. That person's problem was with the Maris and not the Mantle. The one thing that does strike me is why would a forger signed Maris' name on Mantle? Wouldn't a forger want to create one with the best eye appeal possible?
