Fernando Valenzuela Secretarial?

[bowmanred]

I've been doing a deep dive into Valenzuela's signature and I notice that the style below has passed at all three TPAs (PSA seems to pass this consistently) but is very different from his other known signatures and never appears on anything besides flats. In fact, I've gone year by year since his rookie season until the 2000s and I don't see anything resembling it. It has a very distinctive sharp line variation and pronounced right italic slant that doesn't resemble Valenzuela's hand at all. Frankly, there are too many red flags. I think it's a secretarial, what do you guys think?

[bowmanred]

Just found out how to do attachments, sorry

[Brent G.]

I dunno — I have these two — one certified by PSA and the other was denied for being secretarial.

[bowmanred]

I have definitely seen that second one certified by PSA multiple times as well.

[Kaneen]

PSA certifies them all, the real ones and the TTM secretarials. They also certify both the real Don Zimmer's and the Mrs. Don Zimmer's...it is maddening to me. It is easy to tell the difference, especially on Zimmer.

I got Fernando in person many times, including one time when his personal assistant was with him on a Dodgers road trip to my home graphing city. On that occasion I walked about a block alongside Fernando and his assistant. Fernando kept ignoring my request for an autograph, but he finally looked at me and said "He'll sign it for you" and then they just looked at each other and laughed. (You know, the kind of laugh where they are in on an inside joke and you're not.) Fernando just kept on suggesting "he'll sign it for you,"and then they'd smile and laugh. I replied, "But I'd really appreciate if you would sign it." Fernando then said, "He can do it better than I can!" And again they had a good laugh. When we finally arrived at the door of the hotel Fernando took my SI magazine and signed it. This encounter led me to believe I had just met the person who signed all (or certainly most) of Fernando's mail requests.

Anyhow, I have studied Fernando's autograph extensively, and the following pic is a side by side comparison of in person vs. TTM:



The one on the left I got in person...the one on the right I got TTM. The TTM version has a different formation on the "F" and always has the long below the line tail on the "z" in Valenzuela.

And here is the in person signed SI magazine Fernando signed for me the day I believe I also met his personal ghostsigner.



I strongly believe the OP's example, and the encapsulated versions above, to be secretarial...probably signed by the guy with the brief case who walked around with Fernando all weekend in Cincinnati a few years ago.

[bowmanred]

Wow. Thank you so much for that detailed response; it definitely confirms my suspicions. Cool that you got to meet Valenzuela, even if he didn't want to sign. It can be very difficult to suss out the secretarials when they make it into slabs and/or are shown on the AutographFacts page.