Babe Ruth's balls

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Bpm0014

I'd love to see a pic...

I will go to the Nash site and find one that is exactly like it, and post the image here. It's a well-known forgery type. But no, I'm not going to post the exact example. If you want to assume I'm making this up and move on, I understand. Or if it just bores you not having a picture, I also understand. I'm posting about a non-educated collector mentality - not about a particular example.

Nash did a great job of categorizing Ruth forgeries to a point that some of them are simple to spot. But most of them are still getting authenticated and so much money is tied up in these items that it's not going to stop. You take a baseball that you paid $15,000 for from a guy who paid $12,000 for from a guy who paid.....you get the point. The authenticators and auction houses are not going to stop that train at this point.

By the way, I discovered a Ruth forgery tell a few years ago and discussed it with one of Nash's friends. Guess what? That tell is now documented on his website. I did not want it out in the open and only a few people were aware of it, but now it's common knowledge and I've even begun to see a few very questionable Ruth signatures where the forger has attempted to hide the tell. These guys are not dumb - there is a heckuva lot of money tied up in Ruth forgeries.

The other thing to consider: If a particular forgery becomes accepted and is commonly authenticated, the forgers who can more easily duplicate that type of forgery will now start forging in that style. Why not? It's easier and you still get $10K+ per baseball.