Shoeless Joe Jackson Auto- Fake?

[Snowman]

Also worth noting is that the provenance of the photo, at least according to the story in the video someone linked to earlier, is not nothing.

I hate when people speak so authoritatively on these sorts of issues though, as if there's any way they could know with absolute certainty either way. Then they throw the weight of expertise at it by saying something like "The Joe Jackson Museum stated that this autograph is 100% fake." This, of course, is intended to give the reader the impression that some actual museum with a team of expert historians and conservators has examined the photograph and somehow deemed it to be fraudulent. This is deceptive though, as this is a "museum", not a museum. In actuality, it's a guy named Dan who bought a house that Joe Jackson lived in who put some memorabilia inside and let's the public tour it for free. A kind gesture for sure, and probably a great guy with an immense knowledge of Joe Jackson. It reminds me of all the creationists who would write books debating evolutionary biologists in the 80s and 90s. They would always put "Dr. So-and-so" as the author of the book. Then you'd look them up and their "doctorate" degree was always some degree in something like theology from a non-accredited university. Meanwhile, the evolutionary bioligsts they would debate had authored numerous college textbooks and none of them would say "Dr." on the spine, just their first and last names, despite the fact that they all held PhDs in relevant fields from places like Harvard and Stanford.

There is an implication of expertise when someone says a museum has rendered an opinion on some historical document. A guy named Dan who filed as a non-profit and let's people tour his home is a "museum", not a museum. Again, probably a great guy. But as a potential buyer of an important historical document, he's not someone whose advice I would be interested in seeking out.