1918 Red Sox Babe Ruth Contract (VERY COOL)

[GrayGhost]

Originally Posted by thebigtrain

I have serious doubts about the authenticity of the "boilerplate" printed AL contract. The parts typed in with a typewriter appear to be in a font style that was not available on the typical typewriter in 1918. This is especially evident in the typed word "Massachusetts," which oddly is in lower-case whereas all the other typewritten portions are all caps.

The boldness (or lack thereof) of the typewritten portions is also cause for concern. Most typewriters of this vintage really "whack" the paper, and leave much "bolder" ink behind, also with more "ink bleed" around the edges of each letter, which almost gives them a "fuzzy" appearance. The capital "As" in this document are "dirty," meaning the open spaces of the letter are somewhat ink-clogged/dirty. To my thinking, a typewriter is a forger's best friend, because outside of typeface geeks like me, most people would never think to analyze such a thing (as Dan Rather found out the hard way in 2004 with the fake Bush national guard docs).

The fact that an upper-case letter "I" is used instead of a numeral for the number "I500" is also suspicious. It would also be customary (as is the case today) for the name Harry Frazee to be typewritten out as well, not simply the word "president." In fact, I believe the boilerplate printed line where someone typed "President" was supposed to be the line for Ruth (or whatever player was signing it) to sign. Ruth appears to have "signed" below in a cramped way. Notice that the notary/witness gets his own dotted "boilerplate" signature line as well.

All of this typing appears to have been done on a circa early 50s electric machine, although closer analysis than is possible from these scans would be needed for a definitive answer.

For this price point (about the cost of a nicely equipped Mercedes), I'd have had a typeface expert/forensic document examiner take a look in person before throwing my $$$ at this thing. Just a few seconds looking at the scans gave me a really bad "gut feeling."

Wow. that is fascinating and food for thought on this Piece. and that much coin makes a huge difference