Very, very, interesting...

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I don't feel bad for anyone who drops 50-300 grand on a Babe Ruth "Blazer" just because some dude at ABC Authentication said it was good...

I feel bad for anyone who gets defrauded out of their hard-earned money.

That said, all the evidence is not in yet and there seems to be a tone of Monday Morning Quarterbacking taking shape here. One would almost get the impression that it's "obvious" these Ruth balls are fakes and "only" the TPAs thought they were good.

Prior to this development, has anyone else been consistantly identifying these balls as forgeries?

[RichardSimon]

Many people have been questioning the proliferation of high end Babe Ruth ss baseballs, for quite some time now.
But when certain auction houses gets a potential $50,000 in, what do you think can happen?

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Many people have been questioning the proliferation of high end Babe Ruth ss baseballs, for quite some time now.
But when certain auction houses gets a potential $50,000 in, what do you think can happen?

What specifically are you implying Richard?

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

What specifically are you implying Richard?

Auction houses want the high priced items to be authenticated by TPA's.
A lot of money is at stake.
They earn zero if the authenticators deem an item to be not authentic.
When a lot of money is at stake perhaps pressure is placed on authenticators to authenticate things that maybe should not be authenticated.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

Auction houses want the high priced items to be authenticated by TPA's.
A lot of money is at stake.
They earn zero if the authenticators deem an item to be not authentic.
When a lot of money is at stake perhaps pressure is placed on authenticators to authenticate things that maybe should not be authenticated.

I thought that's what you were getting at...anyone ever put pressure on you to pass something?

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I thought that's what you were getting at...anyone ever put pressure on you to pass something?

I worked for several auction houses over the years. Phillips, American Memorabilia and Guernsey's.
The only one of those three who put pressure on the authentication team (3 of us) was American Memorabilia. Screaming, shouting matches used to break out as we refused to give in to the pressure. Eventually we were asked to leave their employ and they switched authenticators. Apparently they get along a lot better with PSA.
The negative reports about American Memorabilia did not come to light until long after they changed authenticators.
But I see autograph auction items where the players name is misspelled and I wonder why the TPA's would authenticate such items and how could they not even make a note of that misspelling in the COA. I see TPA's authenticating items (very rare boxing) that have no known exemplars and wonder in astonishment how their ethics could allow them to do that.
Pressure from the auction house??

[travrosty]

Go to ebay, and look at every single one of the 'authenticated' babe ruth signatures, all of them, and look at them and compare, and you can see there is a problem here. Go to all the auction houses, look at the all the ruth sigs that have been authenticated over the past 10 years. It's amazing.

Not just the baseballs, but the flats, cuts, etc. so many differences but many are cited as being signed in the same era.

How many babe ruth's were there floating around signing stuff? I always thought there was only suppose to be one. i have spent hours and hours looking at them on ebay and auction houses, and i suspect the people who say there is no obvious differences or problems with the autographs uncovered at the haulsofshame investigation haven't looked at too many.

Richard mentioned the rare boxing signature with no exemplars.

It was 'deemed authentic' by two companies, then the certs were pulled after people complained and called them on it. But instead of pulling the item from the auction, the auction house mentioned that although due to a lack of exemplars, these companies both feel this piece is authentic. Based on what?

The auction place still wanted to sell the item. And they kept the listing up, and sold it. No exemplars, still sold it.

Based on what? We are looking into a crystal ball now? Why were the certs issued in the first place? They didn't have exemplars. They knew they didn't have any, and this auction listing should be investigated to figure out what is going on with these authenticators.

People want answers, because if they issue certs without exemplars in this instance, what other signatures have they done the same thing, only it went through undetected? The free pass has expired.

One of these companies recently certified a James Jeffries (boxing) autograph at a sunday memorabilia show and they listed the name as 'James Jeffers' on the certificate. If you look at the sig, the last name does look like it is signed jeffers, only because that's how his signature sometimes looks to the naked eye. They had no idea who this guy's name was, they went with what they saw. It's gone beyond silly now to crazy.

But they know Babe Ruth, and don't ever question them or you are a Monday morning quarterback!!! They can't get James Jeffries, Luis Firpo, John L. Sullivan, Robert Fitzsimmons, Joe Louis, Jack Sharkey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Battling Nelson, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Max Schmeling, or Mike Tyson correct, and those screwups were no brainers, but let's trust them with one of the most expensive autographs in the hobby because these world experts must know something we don't.

Travis Roste-boxing expert

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Mr. Zipper

I feel bad for anyone who gets defrauded out of their hard-earned money.

That said, all the evidence is not in yet and there seems to be a tone of Monday Morning Quarterbacking taking shape here. One would almost get the impression that it's "obvious" these Ruth balls are fakes and "only" the TPAs thought they were good.

Prior to this development, has anyone else been consistantly identifying these balls as forgeries?

Of course it's obvious.


These balls have sold over a dozen different auction houses over a period of 15 years or longer. No one has catalogued them lilke this before. It takes a lot of effort to catalogue these and show the different distinct styles. Now that they are side by side, it is pretty obvious. The bottom one is most neutral as far as slant some parts almost straight up and down, and some parts with only slight slant to the right, the second one has an acute right slant, the top one only a slight right slant and the small e in ruth even slants the other way.

Almost all of the balls are advertised as 40's balls or late 30's. With a substantial part of them advertised as 45' - '48, where you would expert a pretty consistent signature, but you see balls 'deemed auithentic' that look very much different.

Nobody has been consistently identifying these balls as forgeries previously. Thats why this is groundbreaking! a big deal! its a bombshell and i think the tpa's wish nobody would have done the work to go way back and catalogue these and show them. Let's hear their defense. If they are confident in all of these dozens of snow white balls being legit, let's see their study to back it up. they do studies on mantle, williams, dimaggio, let's see them do ruth!

Why is it monday morning quarterbacking when someone wants to get to the bottom of this? Unless people just want more and more of these to continue to be sold at auction with the precious LOA and auction loa, and precertification, and coa, and ... aw forget it.

Remember, these go for 50 k to 300k. Anyone questioning them are monday morning quarterbacks?

Only to the people who don't want any investigation and anybody to get to the bottom of this so the hobby can be cleaned up and this mess straightened out. What is Nash suppose to do with this information, just sit on it, and do nothing?

It's a ten part series, if part 2 is getting peoples hackles up, just think what part 10 will bring?