Opinions on a Pie Traynor autograph and much more

[mschwade]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Karma is a bitch though. Dross is no longer with us and passed away at a young age.

Did Dross forge any other players and when did he really start putting forgeries out on the market?

[mschwade]

Originally Posted by mschwade

Did Dross forge any other players and when did he really start putting forgeries out on the market?

I read somewhere that Dross did a lot of Mantle's also.. Do you think those ones you originally passed and have since changed your mind about on eBay are works of Dross?

[earlywynnfan]

OK, what am I missing? This guy is talented enough to do the "Pie" part and the "raynor" part nearly perfectly. Yet, instead of getting it right on the only part I could actually forge, a generic capital T, he makes it distinguishable to anyone who knows Traynor's sig??

Is this ignorance or arrogance?

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

[mr2686]

Traynor had more than one type of T. The T in the forgery was like he signed his name early on until, I think, the 40's.

[RichardSimon]

Traynor did have more than one type of T.
No the photos of Mantle were not done by Dross.
Dross has been dead for some time.
Dross started out forging autograph cuts only.
This was approximately 20 years ago.
He forged mostly HOFers as far as I know.
Before I knew that he was a forger he actually bought some blank B&W plaks from me at a JFK airport show.
All of a sudden rumors were sweeping the hobby, this was about 17-18 yrs ago, that a big find had been made of B&W HOF plaks.
Many names were involved. The cards themselves were pure mint.
Dross got some dealer to be his front man, I forget who that was, and he sold many of the plaks to several dealers. The front man claimed he had collected these himself and now decided to sell them. This frontman left the hobby not long after this scam went down. One dealer in particular bought $80K worth and sight unseen, knowing what he was getting I ordered a number of them from that dealer. As soon as I got them though I realized they were fake and got out of my deal. There were many better names in the group of forgeries. I believe I still have photocopies of the forgeries and I will look for them tomorrow so I can list them here. One of the things to look out for is pure mint B&W Artvue HOF plaks. Many of these cards were shown to me afterwards at shows and many collectors did receive refunds when I told them they were not authentic.
The clever Mr Dross had been visiting Cooperstown and stumbled upon a store that had connections to the HOF. After the HOF switched to gold plaks they sold their remaining stock of B&W plaks to this store. All the plaks were shrink wrapped and stayed mint until the store owner put them out on his selling floor. One of the ironies of this scam was that none of the living HOFers at the time were part of this scam. The reason for that being that individuals who visited the store were buying up the living HOFers to mail to them for autographs.
Thus here was a huge group of HOF plaks but no DiMaggio, no Hubbell, etc. By the time Dross got to the store he could not buy any players who were still alive then because the store had sold out of those.
Some of these plaks are still in the hobby I would think.
I will try to find my photocopies and produce a list here tomorrow.

[packs]

I am curious as to whether this photograph was submitted for authentication by an auction house.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by packs

I am curious as to whether this photograph was submitted for authentication by an auction house.

Packs,
Look at the 7th post on the first page. The forged Traynor photo received PSA DNA authentication with a letter stating that it was real. Nice!!

[mr2686]

Richard, if possible, could you share with us any info that would help us tell that this is a forgery. Besides what we might not see (pen pressure, date of photo etc) is there something obvious? To the naked eye it looks pretty good although the H looks a little more ornate than usual. I don't want you to give away the farm but I'd sure like a little help if possible.

[mschwade]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

No the photos of Mantle were not done by Dross.

Do you think you know who did those Mantles? I've got to believe Mick's signature is the most forged in the hobby. There is sooooo many fake Mantles out there.

[mr2686]

Thanks Richard!

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by mschwade

Do you think you know who did those Mantles? I've got to believe Mick's signature is the most forged in the hobby. There is sooooo many fake Mantles out there.

I know the signers of some of the fake Mantle signatures out there but not what you are referring to.

[Spahn21]

Richard,

You are correct on all accounts about that despicable 'collection' of fake 8x10's and B&W plaques which was at one time attributable to a "Bobby Moore".....They still pop up from time to time and many have been authenticated once or twice or more by various companies and/or individuals....Tris Speaker was part of the plaque group. Others who could not be on plaques like Weiss, and Yawkey, and Goslin (who is rarely found on a plaque) were also part of the 8x10 hoard. Ron Gordon had a list of the original offering and provided me with a copy of it years ago, though not sure where it is presently, and I recall that all names were offered in large quantities like 20-25-even 30 available of individual items. The now defunct company, National Pastime, purchased a large chunk of the collection. One of the qualities that seems to be present on all the plaques I've seen is that they are 'snow-white'--as if there isn't a day of aging to them and they came right off the press--Kevin Keating