The Importance of Context in Autograph Authentication: The Case of Roy Foster, Jr.

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Professional autograph authenticators typically render their good/bad decisions by looking within the “four corners” of the item in front of them; they do not consider outside context. This comports with their business models that prize efficiency—and usually works fine. An autograph authenticator can often tell if a signature is real by comparing it against “on file” exemplars, so-called “signature-matching,” and further determining that the pen and substrate of the sample were in use at the time the signature was penned.

But that approach doesn’t always work. Consider the case of Roy Foster, Jr. Some of you may remember Mr. Foster. I pulled his card from a Topps pack in 1971 and while I am getting old, I am not yet ancient. In 1970, Roy Foster, Jr. was a budding star outfielder for the Cleveland Indians. He had 23 home runs and a .824 OPS his rookie season. He polled second behind only the legendary Thurman Munson in the A.L. Rookie of the Year vote and was featured on his 1971 Topps card with one of those cool rookie all-star trophies. From there his MLB career went mostly downhill and he retired after the 1972 season.

Mr. Foster suffered a stroke in the mid-2000s and died of complications from that stroke in March 2008. He was not much of a signer at any point in his life. There are not too many examples of his pre-stroke or post-stroke signature around. But, seemingly, Mr. Foster’s pre-stroke signature (which is present in facsimile form on his 1971 Topps card) is the metric that today’s professional autograph authenticators use to determine whether a submitted signature is authentic—they compare the signature on the item to their “on file” pre-stroke signature exemplars. In doing so, they ignore the context of Mr. Foster’s life, namely, the stroke that he suffered in the mid-2000s which radically changed his signature.

My post-stroke 1972 Topps Roy Foster, Jr. autograph was rejected recently by both PSA and Beckett authentication. Yet I have little doubt that it is good. I know this from talking to advanced collectors and doing some Internet research. I discovered images on the Internet of several of Mr. Foster’s post-stroke signatures that match the one on my ’72 Topps. Digging deeper, I contacted the fans/collectors who posted these images and learned their stories of how they acquired those signatures through-the-mail after Mr. Foster suffered a stroke—one even telling me how he sent Mr. Foster a get well card after the incident and how Mr. Foster’s caretaker sent him a note lamenting that Mr. Foster was sorry that the inelegant autograph was “the best that he could do."

My point here is not to bash professional autograph authenticators. I think they are pretty good at what they do: signature-matching. However, they are deficient in that they do not take context into account, which is necessary to render an accurate opinion when, as all too often, their signature databases are wanting.

My Signed 1972 Topps Roy Foster, Jr. for comparison with

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/pla...hp?p=fostero01

and

http://sportsgraphs.com/royfoster.jpg