Very, very, interesting...

[travrosty]

Go to ebay, and look at every single one of the 'authenticated' babe ruth signatures, all of them, and look at them and compare, and you can see there is a problem here. Go to all the auction houses, look at the all the ruth sigs that have been authenticated over the past 10 years. It's amazing.

Not just the baseballs, but the flats, cuts, etc. so many differences but many are cited as being signed in the same era.

How many babe ruth's were there floating around signing stuff? I always thought there was only suppose to be one. i have spent hours and hours looking at them on ebay and auction houses, and i suspect the people who say there is no obvious differences or problems with the autographs uncovered at the haulsofshame investigation haven't looked at too many.

Richard mentioned the rare boxing signature with no exemplars.

It was 'deemed authentic' by two companies, then the certs were pulled after people complained and called them on it. But instead of pulling the item from the auction, the auction house mentioned that although due to a lack of exemplars, these companies both feel this piece is authentic. Based on what?

The auction place still wanted to sell the item. And they kept the listing up, and sold it. No exemplars, still sold it.

Based on what? We are looking into a crystal ball now? Why were the certs issued in the first place? They didn't have exemplars. They knew they didn't have any, and this auction listing should be investigated to figure out what is going on with these authenticators.

People want answers, because if they issue certs without exemplars in this instance, what other signatures have they done the same thing, only it went through undetected? The free pass has expired.

One of these companies recently certified a James Jeffries (boxing) autograph at a sunday memorabilia show and they listed the name as 'James Jeffers' on the certificate. If you look at the sig, the last name does look like it is signed jeffers, only because that's how his signature sometimes looks to the naked eye. They had no idea who this guy's name was, they went with what they saw. It's gone beyond silly now to crazy.

But they know Babe Ruth, and don't ever question them or you are a Monday morning quarterback!!! They can't get James Jeffries, Luis Firpo, John L. Sullivan, Robert Fitzsimmons, Joe Louis, Jack Sharkey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Battling Nelson, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Max Schmeling, or Mike Tyson correct, and those screwups were no brainers, but let's trust them with one of the most expensive autographs in the hobby because these world experts must know something we don't.

Travis Roste-boxing expert