Photo-Matching

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Not nearly as easy to do as you suggest, for vintage flannels. Where do you find supplies of 80 year old flannel and thread?

I never said it was easy to do. I said only that for a HOF vintage jersey worth millions, there are those out there with the expertise and financial incentive to make replicas that cannot be shown to be fake by the unaided eye. Supplies of 80-year-old thread and flannel are out there. And, no disrespect intended, but I do not believe any expert is infallible. I vividly remember the Halper sale and in the worst way wanting to find one 19th jersey I was comfortable was real. I remember talking to a very renowned authenticator about a particular jersey, which this person assured me it was authentic. I asked him pointed questions about aspects of it that did not seem to me to add up. The end response was, "I just know it is real." Turns out it wasn't.

My expertise is not in game-used jerseys but in other areas of memorabilia. And I have been beat. To this day I marvel at the skill and knowledge required to make the replicas and wonder who had the skill/knowledge to do it.

BTW, doesn't it strike one as strange that the vintage jerseys that show up just happen to be of HOFers? And how many confirmed exemplars are there of such jerseys?

My bottom line -- photo-matching in and of itself is not enough to conclude a multi-million dollar HOF game-used jersey is genuine.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

My bottom line -- photo-matching in and of itself is not enough to conclude a multi-million dollar HOF game-used jersey is genuine.

I agree with this.

Because of the difficulty I don't think it is a practical problem for shirts valued at less than, say, $100,000, to pick a more or less random number. If such a shirt was independently deemed genuine by a qualified pro (in my book, that means one specific authenticator,) then photo matching can be one more element added in favor of it being genuine.

But on one of those mega expensive shirts, I do see your point. Especially jerseys without pinstripes. For example, a loose thread, stain, tear, or other imperfection visible in a vintage photo could be produced on a fake easily enough.

I was thinking about Halper too, when I made my previous post. Interesting you also mention him. Specifically, I always wondered about his claim to have jerseys of all the HOFers. Take Waddell... how could the shirt Barry claimed to have been Rube's have possibly been confirmed?

More modern flannels have (usually) several specific taggings, and always an identifying uniform number on back. There are plenty of exemplars. It's a much easier world to navigate.

A shirt from, say, 1906, with no number and virtually no tagging, not to mention few, or maybe no, team/season exemplars to compare....... Yes, I can see serious problems there and agree, a photo match wouldn't do much to convince me if that's all there was.