Shoeless Joe Jackson Auto- Fake?

[jason.1969]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Agreed. IT is interesting that it sold in Heritage Auction in 2015 and sold for I believe $179K so it has been around
Surprised that the Museum waiting until After the Auction to comment on it being fake.

What collector in his right mind would trust unbiased Joe Jackson experts over JSA and PSA?

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

What collector in his right mind would trust unbiased Joe Jackson experts over JSA and PSA?

Hi

I do not disagree with you.

I just do not understand why they did not say something prior to the auction (or even after the First Auction at Heritage) and instead waited to put out a TWEET after the auction.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Surprised that the Museum waiting until After the Auction to comment on it being fake.

Originally Posted by jason.1969

What collector in his right mind would trust unbiased Joe Jackson experts over JSA and PSA?

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Hi

I do not disagree with you.

I just do not understand why they did not say something prior to the auction (or even after the First Auction at Heritage) and instead waited to put out a TWEET after the auction.

I doubt my viewpoint will surprise anyone here, but I'm not convinced that the "museum" isn't at least somewhat biased. First, the "museum" appears to be a single-family home, likely run by one guy and a few part-time volunteers. I'm not saying that to discredit him/them, I'm sure he knows a hell of a lot about Joe Jackson, but I doubt he would know much more than what anyone else could learn by reading the same publicly available information written about Jackson. What would make him (or the "museum") any more of an expert on Joe Jackson's signature than PSA's or JSA's experts? I also think it's irresponsible of him to put out a post saying "this is 100% fake" as if he could possibly know with that level of certainty. Not to mention he didn't provide a justification for his position. He just posted a couple of images of known Joe Jackson signatures from very late in Jackson's life at an age when many people have shakier signatures. I'm not saying it's 100% authentic, but I'm surprised at how much credence is given to the "museum's" opinion. Personally, I would take PSA's or JSA's opinion over the "museum's". It might be fake, but it also might not be.

One thing is clear though, there were two people who wrote on that photo. Whoever signed Joe Jackson's name and someone else who wrote the text below it.

[Republicaninmass]

The only way he'd know if it was 100% fake, is if HE signed it!

[SteveS]

It just seems fascinating to me that the museum says 100% fake, and in the "Strange Inheritance" episode swarmee posted above, at the 15:40 mark the host asks Steve Grad how sure he is that it's authentic, and he says 100%. No leeway in those opinions. So somebody has to be 100% right, and somebody has to be 100% wrong. And both are considered to be experts in the subject matter. I am neither an expert on Joe Jackson nor his autograph. But based on its scarcity and his known struggle with signing his name, I can't see any way to say with absolute certainty that a purported Joe Jackson signature is authentic (excluding the very obvious fakes, such as on a Bud Selig ball). Maybe someday in the future there will be a way to isolate DNA or a fingerprint on a 100 year-old photo that's been handled by many people. But I assume that the person who spent that much money on it did the research and is satisfied with the purchase. The trimmed Wagner sells for millions, despite everyone knowing that its trimmed.

In trying to find out more about this topic, I found this interesting Joe Jackson item on eBay. Maybe the seller is a member here. But apparently Joe practiced signing his name before placing a signature, and this is a piece of that practice attempt. So maybe his signature varied based on how much practice he got. In any event, after the sale price of the signed photo, maybe this is now a good bargain: https://www.ebay.com/itm/14272455219...AAAOSwpixarEdm

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by SteveS

It just seems fascinating to me that the museum says 100% fake, and in the "Strange Inheritance" episode swarmee posted above, at the 15:40 mark the host asks Steve Grad how sure he is that it's authentic, and he says 100%. No leeway in those opinions. So somebody has to be 100% right, and somebody has to be 100% wrong. And both are considered to be experts in the subject matter.

Why is the assumption being made that the "museum" is an expert whose opinion on signature authenticity ought to be respected? I'm ignorant here, so I'm asking this question honestly. Why do people care what this guy thinks? What are his credentials other than being some random fan who bought his house and some memorabilia and lets people tour it for a fee?

[samosa4u]

I am the Joe Jackson autograph expert here! I own a few of his signatures which were given to me by my father. He got them from his grandfather, whose girlfriend's neighbor's brother's best friend's mistress knew Joe! Here is a GENUINE signature below:

And yes, it is available for $2.5 million USD or you can trade me a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in PSA 8

Thank you

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Why is the assumption being made that the "museum" is an expert whose opinion on signature authenticity ought to be respected? I'm ignorant here, so I'm asking this question honestly. Why do people care what this guy thinks? What are his credentials other than being some random fan who bought his house and some memorabilia and lets people tour it for a fee?

Note that I said "considered to be." I recall a certain other thread in which the issue was discussed about what makes one person more of an expert over anyone else when it comes to whether two things look alike. While I have no doubt that the gentleman who runs the museum is highly knowledgeable about Shoeless Joe's life and baseball career, I am not convinced that he can say with the 100% certainty that he has that the autographed photo is fake. And while I have no doubt Steve Grad has more skill than the average person when it comes to authenticating autographs, his reputation as an expert in the general public's eye comes from his appearances on "Pawn Stars." But Rick knows that if he ever needs a buddy who's an expert about everything, he can give me a call.

[jason.1969]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Why is the assumption being made that the "museum" is an expert whose opinion on signature authenticity ought to be respected? I'm ignorant here, so I'm asking this question honestly. Why do people care what this guy thinks? What are his credentials other than being some random fan who bought his house and some memorabilia and lets people tour it for a fee?

Dan’s definitely not a random fan. LOL. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows more about Jackson than he does. And P.S. Tours are free.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Why is the assumption being made that the "museum" is an expert whose opinion on signature authenticity ought to be respected? I'm ignorant here, so I'm asking this question honestly. Why do people care what this guy thinks? What are his credentials other than being some random fan who bought his house and some memorabilia and lets people tour it for a fee?

Agreed. And for that matter, why is the other, non-museum person's opininion any better or more respected? The only way you personally can ever be 100% certain that someone's alleged autograph was actually signed by them was if you witnessed that individual actually sign and immediately give back the autographed item to you. With the exception of certain business/legal documents and/or items that were notarized or signed by witnesses (and even then, documents as such have still been known to be faked). My understanding is that no one throughout their entire lifetime ever signs their name precisely the exact same way twice........ever! So how exactly can these so called experts ever really be 100% certain that an autograph they are reviewing after the fact was actually signed by the person it was claimed to be signed by? Truth is, they can't. The only thing they can possibly be 100% certain of is when an autograph is fake and not signed by the person it was supposed to be autographed by. For example, when you see an autographed card of some athlete that wasn't even produced till some time after that athlete had already passed away.

I know a friend who has been collecting autographs mostly TTM since the late 1980s, and probably has somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000 autographed items today. He was never big into authenticators, and tried an experiment one time to see if he should look into getting at least some of his items authenticated. He had been somewhere that Sandy Alomar Jr. appeared for a signing back in his playing days, and got Sandy to personally autograph a card for him, so he knew it was 100% legit. He then took another Sandy card, and after practicing the signature from the legit autographed card he'd recently gotten a few times, signed a fake Alomar autograph himself on the second card. He then went ahead and submitted both cards together for authentication to one of the major, recognized autograph authentication and grading companies that is still doing it today. And guess what, the card Sandy autographed for him in person came back as a fake, while the card he had forged Alomar's signature came back as a legit Sandy Alomar Jr. autograph. I'll give you three guesses what his opinion is of these so called autograph experts, and the first two don't count. Needless to say, he's never wasted even a plugged nickel on having anything else of his "professionally" authenticated.

[ThomasL]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I doubt my viewpoint will surprise anyone here, but I'm not convinced that the "museum" isn't at least somewhat biased. First, the "museum" appears to be a single-family home, likely run by one guy and a few part-time volunteers. I'm not saying that to discredit him/them, I'm sure he knows a hell of a lot about Joe Jackson, but I doubt he would know much more than what anyone else could learn by reading the same publicly available information written about Jackson. What would make him (or the "museum") any more of an expert on Joe Jackson's signature than PSA's or JSA's experts? I also think it's irresponsible of him to put out a post saying "this is 100% fake" as if he could possibly know with that level of certainty. Not to mention he didn't provide a justification for his position. He just posted a couple of images of known Joe Jackson signatures from very late in Jackson's life at an age when many people have shakier signatures. I'm not saying it's 100% authentic, but I'm surprised at how much credence is given to the "museum's" opinion. Personally, I would take PSA's or JSA's opinion over the "museum's". It might be fake, but it also might not be.

One thing is clear though, there were two people who wrote on that photo. Whoever signed Joe Jackson's name and someone else who wrote the text below it.

Here are some helpful tips for you snowman:

-Putting museum in quotes there to suggest some kind of slight and illegitimacy only highlights your ignorance on this topic so do yourself a favor and stop.

-Yes Joe Jackson and hobby experts, who have no incentive behind rendering an opinion, who know the nuances of Jackson's signature and his history, actually would know better than TPA employees and would actually give an unbiased opinion on the authenticity of a signature than would a company with an preexisting and financially beneficial relationship with an auction house who is selling and gaining a profit (via fees garnished from the sale) and advertisement by selling a rare autograph. To argue otherwise is either ignorant or you are just trying to be flippant...you are beyond naïve if you think TPA companies know better than actually historians and experts on any given narrowed field of study.

-with that...actually NO it is not "irresponsible" of him to put out his opinion, it actually could be said it is more his duty to do so given that he's one of maybe 5 people on the planet that could give such an opinion.

-If you read the 2015 thread about this photo you would see some of the well respect experts express that this is a fake and it has been well known/generally accepted within the hoppy as a fake since then.

-If you also read that you would see that no it isn't clear that "two people" wrote on that photo.

[Tabe]

To me, it seems like an obvious fake. The signature is way too nice to be Joe's but, more than that, the "Alexandria" gives it away. It's the same hand as the signature and no way Joe wrote that.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tabe

To me, it seems like an obvious fake. The signature is way too nice to be Joe's but, more than that, the "Alexandria" gives it away. It's the same hand as the signature and no way Joe wrote that.

On Blowout there are images of quite comparable autographs on legal documents from 15 16 and 20. For example.

[edhans]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Personally, I would take PSA's or JSA's opinion over the "museum's". It might be fake, but it also might not be.

The same PSA and JSA that passed scores, if not hundreds, of fake autographs on vintage cards? Think I'll believe the historians.

[indy500autographs]

Originally Posted by edhans

The same PSA and JSA that passed scores, if not hundreds, of fake autographs on vintage cards? Think I'll believe the historians.

Yes, this. PSA is certainly not perfect. My opinion of their services went down dramatically when they authenticated an Eddie Sachs "signed" photo as authentic that is a well-known pre-printed handout. There are literally dozens of the exact same photo in the auto racing memorabilia world but they authenticated it as a legitimate autograph, which it absolutely is not.

[jad22]

Originally Posted by edhans

The same PSA and JSA that passed scores, if not hundreds, of fake autographs on vintage cards? Think I'll believe the historians.

There used to be a website that had the 100 most famous fakes that were certified. Can’t remember where.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jad22

There used to be a website that had the 100 most famous fakes that were certified. Can’t remember where.

Likely Hauls of Shame.

[jad22]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Likely Hauls of Shame.

Ah. That guy. The article was pretty good regardless.