Mathewson signed baseball

[vintagesportflips]

I wanted to share some information about a Christy Mathewson signed ball that is out there.
In 2012, I purchased 2 early baseballs from a net54 member on the BST page. They included an early Spalding ball and a Goldsmith New York Club baseball. I sold the Spalding ball to another net54 member and sold the Goldsmith ball out of my antique shop booth last year. A couple of days ago, I received an email from someone (who apparently has been looking for a Christy ball) who was shown a signed Christy Mathewson baseball on a Goldsmith New York Club ball. The recipient of the email found an image of my ball online, and realized the staining on the balls were remarkably similar. He was emailing me to ask if the ball I had in the past was signed by Mathewson, and I assured him that it absolutely wasn't, and that I have never owned a Mathewson signature. I don't think he thought the signature looked good anyway, but he was relieved to hear my confirmation. I am posting photos of the ball when I had it, and of the images this gentleman sent me of the Mathewson signature ball. As you can see both balls have the same stain and marks on the front. The 2 images are the only ones I have of the ball from the time when I owned it, as I mainly was taking photos of the maker marks on the ball, but some of the Mathewson signature would have been visible on the image of the Goldsmith mark. I will leave it up to readers of this post to decide if they are the same ball, but I believe they are. Because the item sold in my antique shop, I do not know who the buyer was - I receive no buyer information on my sales reports. Also, the person who emailed me did not divulge any information about the person who contacted them.

The Goldsmith ball wasn't an especially valuable ball, but to be ruined in an attempt to deceive is just terrible. Anyway, I felt that I needed to post this.

Here are the photos of the ball when I had it:



Here are the recent photos that I was emailed: