1927 Yankees team ball forgery

[RichardSimon]

Travs, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Though autographs have to stand on their merits and I would certainly never let a provenance story sway me, I still think that provenance matters. It helps if you are a good BS detector and can tell when the provenance is BS.
Of course when I have the guy who forged the Black Sox items I showed above, the same one I believe who forged the 1927 Yankee baseball, when I have him in my apartment and he is trying to sell me stuff, his provenance meant nothing. He claimed to have a hobby store in Forest Hills and this stuff that he was trying to peddle "just walked into the store."
Someone else who used to post here used to say that to me also.

[David Atkatz]

Once again, provenance is not a story. Provenance is the verifiable history of an object; key word here being verifiable. An auction catalog, say, from the 1950s, in which an item appears, proves where that item was at that time. It thus could not have been forged, say, by someone who hadn't even been born then.

Again, provenance is not the word-of-mouth story that a seller tries to hand you. True or not, that's just a story.

Understand what provenance is, before you criticise.

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

Once again, provenance is not a story. Provenance is the verifiable history of an object; key word here being verifiable. An auction catalog, say, from the 1950s, in which an item appears, proves where that item was at that time. It thus could not have been forged, say, by someone who hadn't even been born then.

Again, provenance is not the word-of-mouth story that a seller tries to hand you. True or not, that's just a story.

Understand what provenance is, before you criticise.

Agreed. By definition provenance is provable history or chain of ownership.

[RichardSimon]

You are correct and the word of mouth story from the young man in my apartment was totally transparent to me and I knew his word of mouth was BS.
He never fooled me nor did his partner fool me when he tried to sell me that 1920's NY Giants ball.
I always judge the autographs on merit but I do find that most of the word of mouth stories I am told, ok I won't call it provenance, are more often than not believable. Certainly not always but more often than not.
I deal a lot with people outside the hobby and have found much success in dealing with them.
When I buy a Roger Maris signed photograph, and totally think the autograph is authentic, and the photo is inscribed To Yvonne who told me she worked in Maris' dentists office, and asked him for an autograph, and I make my payment to Yvonne G------, well, I tend to think that person's word of mouth story is true.