Babe Ruth General Gum Sign/Display - Black Light PIX added FINALLY

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by Directly

The Baseball Player does resembles Ruth, except the player shown is batting right handed ?? (if that matters)

Good catch on that.

Someone with experience emailed me about that stating:

"2) turning Ruth around and making him a right-handed batter is exactly the kind of thing a graphic designer in 1934 would do, to make the image work with his/her design - but also exactly the kind of detail that a forger would NOT do - I think a forger would turn it around."

[irishdenny]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

Good catch on that.

Someone with experience emailed me about that stating:

"2) turning Ruth around and making him a right-handed batter is exactly the kind of thing a graphic designer in 1934 would do, to make the image work with his/her design - but also exactly the kind of detail that a forger would NOT do - I think a forger would turn it around."

One of the 1st Attributes of this piece that I noticed also...

I think it's Very Much More Likely to be Authentic...

It's All about the Paper imho...
If the Paper is Proved to be of the time period
Then the Ink will follow!

Tuff to fake the Paper ~

[drcy]

I think it is the other way around. You examine the ink first, then the stock. After all, one can print or forge an autograph on old stock.

However, it's not an either/or, and, of course, you examine both.

If I had the item in person I would be looking at the printing through a microscope. Paul provided me with large closeups, that allowed me to examine the printing. When people send me digital microscopic images-- and there are digital microscopes that allow you to take images--, I can examine the images as if the item were in person.

Identifying Antique Commercial Printing Processes, And the Basics of Authenticating Antique and Art Prints

[bigfanNY]

Unfortunately we live in a time where forgers fake bats using old wood in a barn with old equipment. Faking paper is less expensive than faking wood. Old stock printed on an old machine and you have a license to print money.
In 1934 General Gum of Chicago issued a non sport set of "Funnies" the set was well documented. How likely is it that General Gum issues a series of 8x10's along with Baseball Gum and nobody picks up on it? The ACC , The Sports Collectors Bible, Sterling, Beckett/ Eckes, SCD. Nobody has a record. This is not some small Dog food outfit. This is a Large Candy Manufacturer in Chicago. And with the Dog food issue there were ads in local papers advertising the series. This is Chicago lots of papers lots of ads....any about this series?
And if it was found with a large collection of Yankee Letters and Contracts...Where are they?
How many red flags dose there have to be? How many signs hang in dens that are fantasy pieces printed on tin and aged. They usually come with a great story of how flea market sellers dad took it home from the local hardware store on main st. But Grandma left it out in the garage where it rusted...
it is just so so easy to find General gum non sports cards from 1934, it shouldn't be this hard to find a baseball issue from the same manufacturer.

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by bigfanNY

Unfortunately we live in a time where forgers fake bats using old wood in a barn with old equipment. Faking paper is less expensive than faking wood. Old stock printed on an old machine and you have a license to print money.
In 1934 General Gum of Chicago issued a non sport set of "Funnies" the set was well documented. How likely is it that General Gum issues a series of 8x10's along with Baseball Gum and nobody picks up on it? The ACC , The Sports Collectors Bible, Sterling, Beckett/ Eckes, SCD. Nobody has a record. This is not some small Dog food outfit. This is a Large Candy Manufacturer in Chicago. And with the Dog food issue there were ads in local papers advertising the series. This is Chicago lots of papers lots of ads....any about this series?
And if it was found with a large collection of Yankee Letters and Contracts...Where are they?
How many red flags dose there have to be? How many signs hang in dens that are fantasy pieces printed on tin and aged. They usually come with a great story of how flea market sellers dad took it home from the local hardware store on main st. But Grandma left it out in the garage where it rusted...
it is just so so easy to find General gum non sports cards from 1934, it shouldn't be this hard to find a baseball issue from the same manufacturer.

The lack of prior info or cataloging on the set is hardly determinative. How many sets remain unknown as to manufacturer still today? R315 and W517 are from the same era and yet their origins remain unsettled. M101-4 Sporting News were not known for more than 40 years after issuance, and Famous & Barr 15 years or so after that. New discoveries or clarifications are uncovered from time to time.

"How likely is it that General Gum issues a series of 8x10's along with Baseball Gum and nobody picks up on it?" Well, let's look at what are classified as P4 pins. Apparently, they were classified by Burdick as an anonymous issue, and so too in the Sports Collector's Bible. Yet for years they have been called Cracker Jack pins, and are still graded as such. But around ten years ago or so, an advertising poster surfaced that shows they were distributed with Button Gum, along with non-sports subjects. The manufacturer of Button Gum was General Gum, Inc. of Chicago-- the same outfit identified in the OP's display piece. Here's an OC story on the topic:
https://www.oldcardboard.com/eNews/2...eNews159.htm#2

So whether or not you consider it "likely", it has happened before.

[oldeboo]

The Button Gum connection is interesting as in pertains to General Gum and what has widely been referred to as Cracker Jack pins. A box topper pops up years later and all of a sudden the whole story of an item changes. Great sources in the hobby have been wrong from time to time due to simply not having enough information.

There are newspaper ads for General Gum products like "Funnies", "Button Gum", and "Movie Gum"? That would certainly say something about the marketing campaign of General Gum if all of those existed. It would be interesting to see those.

The seller does have a few letters listed from the Yankees that originated from the 1920's and appear to be genuine. Obviously there is no direct connection, but they could speak for storage conditions if they were in the same collection for many years. They are not in the greatest condition and exhibit staining as well. Of course different types of paper age in different ways, so even in similar storage conditions they won't look exactly the same. Does anyone believe that these items below could have been stored in a similar environment in the same collection for many years?

[RCMcKenzie]

If I walked into Hobby Lobby and saw a pillow with an image of a T207 Joe Jackson on it, and 2 years later, I saw a T207 Joe Jackson on eBay and was the winner, and David Cycleback said it was good to go, wouldn't that be crazy? No one thinks it's weird that the piece is already known outside the hobby as we debate on it?