Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I think you guys are giving way too much weight to the fact that he was illiterate. How difficult could it possibly be for an illiterate person to learn how to write their name? It's not like he needs to learn how to read and write. He just needs to learn his name. I'm not buying this idea that he was borderline incapable of signing it. I also don't buy the idea that he never signed baseballs for anyone either. I bet several of the balls in circulation were signed by him but just never get authenticated because it can't be proven.
I cannot read, write, or understand the Chinese or Japanese languages, but I guarantee I could learn how to write my name in both Kanji and Hanzi in about 5 minutes, and everyone in this thread probably could as well.
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Joe couldn't write in Chinese or Greek or Russian or Arabic. Teaching someone how to write is different than teaching you to write in a different alphabet. I think you are not giving enough consideration to Joe's lack of education. In particular the JAC of Jackson is too well formed to be in the hand of someone who couldn't write and it isn't similar to other early signatures.