Amazing article on 1869 Red Stockings balls faked by Cooperstown Forger!

[steve B]

The testing technology has changed a lot since 2002. At the time the testing would have been expensive, probably a few thousand dollars, and would have usually required a sample of the material in question that would be destroyed by the test.
Now there are handheld devices that can determine the physical makeup of an object without damage. And they become less expensive all the time.

From the business end- who would spend a few thousand to check an item with the probability that if the item was bad you'd be sending away the consigner but still be paying the bill to the testing lab? And getting the consigner to pay for the test probably isn't likely.

With todays tech they could get results in a few minutes. Then they'd just need the knowledge to interpret those results. The machine is under 30thousand. If I owned a high end auction house I'd want to have one.

Steve B

Originally Posted by esd10

you would think the auction houses would do more research befor offering these items. If they would have taken some time and had the balls tested this would have never happened.

[bmarlowe1]

I really like his March 4 entry. He is quite right that the guy depicted is not Al Spalding (yes, the ears really are grossly different).

I know nothing specifically about verifying autographs, but it is interesting that 4 "experts" verified the signature of Spalding on a photo that does not depict him.

I have written about "confirmation bias" and how it affects the judgment of collectors. In this case it clearly affected the judgement of the handwriting experts consulted.