1958 Banquet Program signed by Cobb and Aaron

[scooter729]

Hey all - a friend has a dinner banquet program from a baseball writers dinner from 1958. It's got a dozen signatures, but the Ty Cobb is the best one. Looks good to me, but happy to hear any other thoughts.

Also - there's an early Hank Aaron on the program. I'm not as familiar with early Aarons, but have seem some that compare favorably to this one.

It's actually been in my friend's family all along - it was his grandfather who apparently was the one who got the signatures, so this isn't a recent purchase or anything like that. So I have no reason to doubt the signatures, but wasn't very familiar with this style of Aaron.

Can I get some thoughts on the Aaron and Cobb from you fine gentlemen? Thanks in advance!

Scott

[tazdmb]

I assume this is the Manchester Baseball Dinner, in which they both attended. While the signatures make sense as they were both in attendance, I am not a fan of the Aaron since it was rare (not impossible) to sign that upper case "A", plus the ending "n" usually loops up instead of straight up.

Even with Cobb, yes he is noted for using a green pen to sign things at home, but not really sure if he brought it with him to a banquet in New Hampshire to sign items with. Usually you see the last "b" falling down more than this.

There were a lot players there, are there any other signatures on the program? Could it be real-yes, however, I would be curious whom else signed it.

Curious what others have to say.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

It's fine.

1958 was a big year for Aaron employing that style of A. What's really interesting is that it really doesn't appear with the same frequency in even 1957 or 1959 examples! It reared its head from time to time, but he loved using it in '58 for whatever reason. It's like the autograph that DiMaggio used in 1941. It features that really nice, stylized J which he made almost no use of before or after his historic season. It's my personal favorite of his variants, made doubly attractive that when you find one, you're almost assured it's a 1941 example!

Cobb using his own pen makes far more sense at a banquet table where he could simply pull it out of his jacket pocket, rather than at a different type of event, such as at a game, where fans would be handing pens and pencils along with their items to be signed.

[tazdmb]

Always love learning something new re. Aaron's autograph.

[scooter729]

Thank you both!

It was indeed from the Manchester baseball dinner. There were plenty of other signers (Piersall, Bob Turley, Johnny Pesky), all of which were fine. I just wasn't familiar with the Aaron style, and had seen earlier and later versions of the "other A" style. Very interesting that he seemed to use that version in 1958!

Much appreciated......