[sports-rings]

The ring in the Huggins and Scott auction has the fake Balfour markings.

I am posting three photos, one showing a real ring and the fake ring in the auction and the last two photos showing fake Balfour markings, and authentic Balfour markings from the 1950s and 1960s (note, modern Balfour stamping is very different and not shown).

If you look carefully at a real ring and the fake ring you will notice the Stars in the real ring are much sharper and crisper. Balfour made the original rings with a rough surface on the right side of the baseball and the fake ring fails to reproduce it. The inner circle on the bottom of the top hat is also of much better quality on the real ring.

Irv will say the ring is worn, and that's why is looks different, yet the top of the ring is in pristine condition. Also notice that the word "Yankees" looks like some effort went into making it look correct on the fake ring, while the word "Yankees" flows better on the real ring.

Irv loves to say, "Balfour" lost the molds when they moved so the rings are not exact, yet why is the markings trying to mimic vintage markings? And when did Balfour start making shoddy replacement rings?

The last picture shown in the fake-markings photograph is the Balfour stamp from the current Huggins and Scott auction. It clearly looks identical to the other fake ring markings shown above in the same photograph. The crooks that stamped these rings tried to use old-style type and tried to capture the look and feel of vintage Balfour marks.

The tell-tale sign is that on every fake salesman sample ring the "14" is always either touching or almost touching the word "Balfour". Additionally, their stamps are always very deep and rarely show imperfections the way a real Balfour stamp does.

Now look at the picture with real Balfour Markings. These photos all came from real rings (not salesman samples) with very clear paperwork from the original owners and/or their families.

Notice that the "14" is never touching or almost touching the word "Balfour" and notice that there are imperfections in the stamping techniques.

It's uncanny, that there are so many Balfour salesman samples around, yet they never, every have the proper Balfour markings. It's also uncanny, that a real Balfour ring, with unquestionable lineage and documentation never comes to the market place with a "14" touching or almost touching the word "Balfour".

How can this be?

Also, these rings are very easy to reproduce so making a fake is easy.

I will be reaching out to Huggins and Scott and relay what they say.