"Long Tom" Hughes and "Salida Tom" Hughes Autograph Scan Request

[prewarsports]

Gotcha David, thats why I posted all the caveats on I was ONLY posting on what I saw and not making any definative statements since I have never owned an autograph of EITHER in my time.

Ball aside......

The letter and the signature posted are both clearly supposed to be the same guy, but are both clearly NOT written by the same person and I do not believe a stroke is the reasoning due to the dates being so close together and a stroke that would take a person from the letter to the card in handwriting would be a fairly extreme stroke. My Father had a stroke in 2003 and it took him about 6 months to a year to be able to regain the motor skills to be able to write again and get to the point where his signature was even "shaky". In this case we are only talking about a month or so.

I believe that the first autographs "shakiness" is almost certainly due to old age and is consistant with what you see in older mens autographs. Usually stroke victims where it affects their motor skills are also shaky but the signature line itself is uneven and that is not present here, it is consistant and clean, but shaky.

I also believe that if I had to pick one as real and one as "secretarial" you would have to come to the conclusion that the clean and legible one is the secretarial because people do not choose someone with trouble writing to sign on their behalf.

Again, nothing definative as I have never owned any of the Hughes we are talking about, but I still stand behind the "hypothesis" that the first signature is authentic and the letter was written by a wife or daughter or someone else on behalf of Hughes, probably because he was getting older and could still "sign" like the note, but probably a long letter like that would have been very labor intensive and time consuming.

Just my thoughts on what I see in front of me and by no means am I privy to information that anyone else is lacking so take it for whatever that is worth.

Rhys

[David Atkatz]

I agree that the card is "more likely" genuine. But...
I can find no mention of Hughes ever having had a stroke. He lived seven more years, and in those days, a debilitating stroke was more likely to kill sooner than one is today.

All anyone seems to have is precisely two "exemplars" that don't match. Nothing definitive can be said.

[ss]

Here's my other exemplar of Salida Tom. This is supposedly from John Evers, Jr. Collection. For what it's worth.

[prewarsports]

I agree with you David. Until another example on a flat is found, it is impossible to say for certain which one is his actual autograph.

TOM HUFFORD has a Thomas J. Hughes I believe. Maybe he can chime in and clear things up for us!

Rhys

[JimStinson]

Here is an example of Thomas James Hughes , he signed his full name at bottom. Writing above is in another hand. Date 1918
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jim@stinsonsports.com

[JimStinson]

And here is Thomas L. "Salida" Hughes circa 1918
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jim@stinsonsports.com

[JimStinson]

The first image posted in this thread (the one with the authentication sticker on reverse) is neither Thomas James Hughes or Thomas L. "Salida" Hughes, it is Thomas Franklin Hughes (1930 Tigers)
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jim@stinsonsports.com

[Rho68]

I just ran across this thread while searching for Salida Tom Hughes. I'm a new member so my apologies for continuing an old thread, but this is the only place I have found good information on this subject. Has anybody actually had their hands on one of his autographs or seen one for sale ? I'm so happy that you guys posted an example so I will have something to go off of ! Way too many Tom Hughes' ! I have dealt with a couple of you (Jim Stinson and Rhys) while trying to add to my 1914 Boston Braves collection and you guys have been great. If any of you run across 1914 Braves or WS items for sale I would appreciate you pointing me in that direction. I will never own a Stallings or Evers autograph unless I hit the lottery, but I'm interested in the more reasonably priced items. I'm also looking for a reasonable Dave Jolly (1957 Braves) autograph. Thanks !