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Mike Schmidt... and Warren Burger

I found these two for sale from the same source. One is what I think is Mike Schmidt, and the other is supposed to be Warren Burger.

Any thoughts on either? I might buy the Schmidt on account of needing an NL ball for my collection anyway, and the Burger... well, I was actually planning on grabbing it to trade at a later date. I fiddled with the Burger to increase contrast, etc. The actual autograph looks horrible (in terms of excessive fading), and from what I've seen of exemplars, it looks wrong all around. That said, I don't have any knowledge of secretarial autographs of his, so I don't know what to look for to eliminate it.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on September 13, 2011 at 4:19am

I don't think the Schmidt is real. There are several legit Schmidt sigs, some on NL balls, that are real and they are not that expensive. this one just doesn't look close, even when compared to his early sigs. who is the NL president on this ball?

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 13, 2011 at 11:32am

The president on the ball is the last one: Leonard S Coleman. To this point, I only have MLB balls, no league balls. In any event, the bidding price is above the price where I can just buy the ball for, so it's irrelevant. :D

Thank you for your opinion. :) I notified the seller's agent about the consensus on the ball.

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 13, 2011 at 4:33am

The Mike Schmidt ball is a really poor forgery....I dont know about the Burger

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 13, 2011 at 11:37am

Thank you for your input. :) That was my initial reaction about it being a bad forgery, but then I started to think "What if I think it's bad because I don't know enough?" That's why I'm glad there was someone to look at the older signature versions, too.

That's part of why I was thinking the Burger was also fake.

I mean, the Burger has some elements that are completely wrong (W is from his early signature, while rest of the name is from his late stage signatures). On the plus side, I saw a worse forgery on eBay from a someone claiming to be a UACC member in good standing, so at least it's not the worst forgery out there.

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 13, 2011 at 12:08pm

Before I forget to add, the only reason for thinking the Burger _might_ be legit:

It is inscribed with "'25" which would represent 1925, or the year where he graduated from Sr High. The item is located in St Paul (the city where his HS was located), which sorta lends credence to the history of the item. I dunno. Maybe my mind is trying to convince me that it's real. :D

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on September 13, 2011 at 12:30pm

It could be. I wouldn't draw any conclusions on the burger because of the Schmidt forgery.

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 13, 2011 at 10:52pm

That's definitely true. Burger is a strange one. The UACC's primary history dealer has something like 50 different Burger items... and they look significantly different from the only one on eBay going for $50. And the one I was looking at looks different than the rest. Oh well, PSA said they'll charge $30 to verify it, so I guess I can try to get the auto before the end of the month, and send it in under the 50% off special. :D