Shoeless Joe Jackson Auto- Fake?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Thank you. This is the only thing I'm asking of people who are engaging in this conversation. All I ask is that people are honest and that they accept basic facts. If we can't have that, then there's no point in discussing. There are many other things we can have a difference of opinion on, and that's fine. But if we start saying things like "that's just your opinion" on whether or not a line goes up or down, then we're all just wasting our time here.

Travis/Snowman, That is what all of you are doing, just wasting your time.

You stated to others that you look to deal in facts, not opinions, right? When it comes to autographs, I don't know if you can qualfy anyone as an "expert", since to begin with it is a proven and known FACT that no matter how hard someone tries, they can never sign their own name exactly the same way twice. So if the person doing the signing can't even duplicate their own signature, how is some third party going to be able to tell the difference between that person's true signature and that of a skilled forger? And I believe that is one of the main reasons so-called "experts" can determine the use of an auto-pen, because all the signatures are exactly the same.

Truth and FACT is, all a so-called autograph "expert" can prove with 100% certainty is that an autograph is fake, like when the item signed wasn't created till after the alleged signer had already passed away, or the ink is analyzed by a chemist and found not to be old enough to have been available when the alleged signer was still alive (ie: T206 cards autographed with Sharpies). Truth and FACT is, unless they actually witnessed a person signing their name on an item, no so-called "expert" can guarantee with 100% certainty that anyone's autograph is legitimately signed by the alleged signer.

So unless some autographed item is definitively proven to be 100% fake, and there was no "expert" on hand that actually saw the item being signed by the alleged signer, the chances of any autograph being legitimate, or fake, is going to be between 1% and 99% (and I'm using round numbers so don't someone be a jerk and say it should be 99.9999...%, or something like that).

Now here is the biggest and most important FACT of all. Since pretty much all autographs will likely fall into this wide range of uncertainty somewhere between 1% and 99% as to whether they are legit or not, it will be up to the collecting public at large to decide whether or not a particular autograph is legit or fake. The so-called autograph "experts" do not, I repeat, DO NOT, decide on behalf of autograph collectors if something is legit. Not having seen an item actually being signed, all any "expert" can do is offer their OPINION on whether or not they think any particular autograph is real or fake. And that "expert(s)" OPINION is then taken into account by the collecting public, along with all other pertinent facts, stories, evidence, provenance, along with the multitude of thoughts and opinions of all the autograph "non-experts" out there, and then the overall collecting public will be the one to decide if they accept a particular autographed item as real, or not. And from all the back and forth arguing going on in this thread, guess what? It really doesn't matter because the collecting public has already decreed they feel it is legit by the simple, incontrovertible fact that at least two collectors saw fit to be willing to pay out over $1M for this signed Joe Jackson picture, whether it was truly his signature or not. We on Net54 make up an extremely small portion of the overall collecting community, especially in light of the recent surge in new collectors/investors, and their apparent obscene amounts of disposable cash to spend on such collectibles. And furthermore, whether we like it or not, this overall collecting community now includes these new people and their money. And another FACT, they, along with rest of us "old time" collectors, effectively vote for and show how we feel about an item's legitimacy and value by the dollars we are willing to pay for it. And let's face it, even with all the crazy money being thrown around in the hobby today, any time you see a single item go for over $1M, that is still extremely rare and speaks to the acceptance and deemed authenticity of an item in the eyes of the collecting community today.

So you guys can go back and forth about if it is real or not, the collecting public, not the "experts", have already decided it is real. Or if nothing else, due to all the story and drama surrounding the alleged Jackson autograph on this photo, it is considered as the most valuable baseball related autograph I've ever heard of.

Continuing to argue about this is like the other thread arguing about who is the greatest pre-war ballplayer, which got into a pissing match between Cobb and Ruth proponets. Truth is, there is no correct answer as pre-war baseball is split into two very distinct eras with Cobb playing more in the deadball era and Ruth in the live ball era. They are both great in their own ways and styles of play. I learned Ruth supporters can be very opinionated and unwilling to have any openess to facts, and merely say they are right, and have no open mindedness at all. They are also good at accusing people of saying things they didn't say or mean, because that is what they think. And the same stubborness and unwavering opinions are being shown on this thread as well. And for the record, Ruth is not a five tool player, which many people look at in determing if a player is great or not. Doesn't mean he's better or worse than Cobb, who should be considered a five tool player, just that is one thing Ruth wasn't, but Cobb was.

And Travis/Snowman, I'm not directing this at, or specifically picking on you. You were just the last person to post when I started this response. LOL Guys, let this thread go. There is no right or wrong answer. And the price paid for the picture says it is considered worth a helluva lot, regardless!!!