Harry Wright Autograph

[barrysloate]

I've seen quite a few Wright signatures and there are certainly some similarities between this one and an authentic one. The body of the text clearly does not look to be in Wright's hand. Does anyone know if it's possible that Harry dictated this letter in person at a Western Union office, and then was asked to sign it himself? That makes no sense to me; however, a genuine Wright signature is awfully close to the one at the bottom of the telegram. Any other auto experts have some thoughts here?

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

I've seen quite a few Wright signatures and there are certainly some similarities between this one and an authentic one. The body of the text clearly does not look to be in Wright's hand. Does anyone know if it's possible that Harry dictated this letter in person at a Western Union office, and then was asked to sign it himself? That makes no sense to me; however, a genuine Wright signature is awfully close to the one at the bottom of the telegram. Any other auto experts have some thoughts here?

I don't know anything about it but the g in "get" in the body of the note sure looks different in structure to me than the g in "Wright" in the signature.

[prewarsports]

You can have a telegram that is signed, but it is very rare. For example, I have a few telegrams that Jacob Ruppert and Harry Sparrow from the Yankees front office would write out, then have them sent and would keep the originals in their files.

Back in the 19th century/early 20th century you would walk into a Western Union office and pick up a telegram slip, write the message you wanted on it and take it to the clerk to have him send it. He would read it off your handwritten telegram and send it. These were then 99.9% of the time thrown away and were only kept for business purposes. On the other end, the telegram would come over the wire and the operator would write it in his hand and put it in a sealed envelope to have it delivered.

Since yours has the envelope with the name of the recipient, you have the latter version.

I owned this item at one point in time along with 40-50 other telegrams from the Bob Allen estate and I sold it as a telegram for the Wright/Delahanty content. While not signed by Harry Wright, it is still a 100% original item pertaining to (2) of the biggest names of the 19th century and a valuable and desirable piece and still is worth in the $500-$1000 range.

I hope that expains the process a little better. There is a neat little portayal of this in the Movie "The Assassination of Jesse James" from a few years ago where Bob Ford walks into an 1870's Western Union office and writes out his telgram and hands it to the operator and then explains "You might want to keep that" because of the significance of the content.

[old13man]

I was clearly misled because it was sold as an autographed telegram by Harry Wright and as mentioned authenticated by the leader in the industry. This should be quite interesting to try and obtain a refund. Just another reason you can't trust authenticating companies.

CJ

[RichardSimon]

Will you tell us who sold this item to you?

[prewarsports]

Probably the people I sold it to. I think that when I sold it, I just "sold it" with some other items and although I knew exactly what it was, and assumed they did too, appearantly it was a bad assumption if even third party authenticators dont know. I think they had no idea how telegrams worked and thought it might have been signed and submitted it and it came back as signed and never questioned it or suspected anything. I know the seller very well and they rely heavily on 3rd party grading and I know there was no malice involved on their part. I think the beef is with the authenticator and not the seller in my opinion.

[canjond]

I'm certainly not a handwriting expert and as a casual observer of the conversation, I appreciate the background on how telegrams work. However, there is one thing that still has me curious (as brought up by someone earlier as well).

From a strictly layman's perspective, the handwriting on the telegram, and the purported signature, seem to be in two different styles. Aside from the fact that certain letters do not match up (i.e., the "g" as already pointed out), just the overall slant and letter spacing is clearly different. The actual writing has a noticeable right slant, while the signature doesn't.

I guess I'm still not sold that this can't be an original signature of Wright.

[old13man]

I do not want to out the seller because I also believe it was not sold in malice. But that being said it was sold as a Harry Wright autographed telegram and I feel a refund would be appropriate. I will contact him and hopefully everything goes smoothly.