Look for help in identifying if items are legit and for direction on how to authentic

[TheCatenacc]

Hello everyone.

Long story short, my wife's step father passed away recently and apparently had been sitting on quite the baseball memorabilia collection. Story goes that he sold off most of it pre-pandemic for somewhere around 150-200K but hung on to a few things.

My wife went down (we live in Toronto and her family is in Oklahoma) shortly after and brought some stuff back but some of it is still down south. So I haven't seen it all in person.

Below you'll see some photos. There's a Mantle signed ball. Some other mantle signed cards. Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig signed ball (the only one of the bunch im skeptical of bc of the ink). A Lou + Elanor Gehrig signed baseball. And a Joe DiMaggio signed jersey.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DKV...ew?usp=sharing

Unfortunately, i have no COAs at the moment. But he did get his stuff insured in the past. And there is listed values of 4 to 6 figures on some of them. Would an insurance company not validate before giving off the value?

Anyway, I'm hoping any of you can possibly help in identifying if they look legit or not and what is my best option for authenticating? JSA? PSA? Another auction house? Is there a way to do it in person? etc.

**I'm hoping the uploaded link works...** I could only throw on my google drive as the upload options aren't very good.

[swarmee]

The Mantle signed cards would all be submitted to PSA/DNA for authentication. If the Score one is numbered on the back with a marker, it was a factory issued autograph.

I'm not a fan of some of the balls, but I am not an auto authentication expert.

Mantle spent a lot of time in Oklahoma City, so having hand-signed items there make sense.

[Jim F]

If these are the items that you have brought back to Toronto and would like them authenticated, all the companies will be at the Toronto Expo in November.

[glchen]

I took a look at the items also, and most of them are autographs, and I definitely am not an auto expert, so I can't give much guidance there. The only thing that I can say is that besides comparing the strokes to a genuine auto, what authenticators often do to confirm that the autograph was possible. That is, for example, if the player died in 1975, there would be no way that he could have signed a 1982 baseball card. Also some baseballs are attributed to certain years that they were manufactured, so those players that signed the balls must have all been alive during the earliest year that the ball as potentially manufactured.

The cards do look authentic, however. (Not commenting on the authenticity of the auto's of course)

[rand1com]

None of the pictured autographs are authentic IMO. Sorry

[Bpm0014]

The Ruth and Gehrig are 100% no good. I believe they are Coaches Corner specials....

[jingram058]

Well, the Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio signatures don't look good to me based on others I have seen, including my own signed baseballs. I am by no means an expert.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by TheCatenacc

Unfortunately, i have no COAs at the moment. But he did get his stuff insured in the past. And there is listed values of 4 to 6 figures on some of them. Would an insurance company not validate before giving off the value?

My experience is that the insurance company doesn't do any validation, even for high value stuff.

[Republicaninmass]

Low dollar items mixed with "high value " forgeries.

[Vintagedeputy]

All of the signed balls are fake. I’d bet my next paycheck on it.

[Michael B]

The Ruth and Gehrig 'single signed' baseballs were done with a calligraphy pen not a real fountain pen. You can tell by the wide flat strokes.