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Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig

My wife remembers her dad saying that his father took him to Yankee stadium when he was young. After he died we found these photos. I looked at them at 100X and can say for sure that they are signed in fountain pen and the inks are different so they were not signed by the same pen. Local Forensic Document Examiner authenticated the Babe Ruth but when I showed it to a buyer, he was unsure and would not make an offer. She liked the Lou Gehrig but did not consider herself knowledgeable enough to certify it. They are both 8 X 10. Any info would be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Richard S. Simon on August 31, 2012 at 4:45am

I have seen those pictures many times. With the owner swearing they are real.

They are printed autographs. Not your usual printed autographs where the signature is part of the picture but these are printed separately from the picture to create the illusion that the photo is actually signed.

They are definitely not autographs, they are definitely printed signatures.

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Permalink Reply by Richard S. Simon on August 31, 2012 at 5:17am

I would be curious to see the forensic report.

Can you please upload it to this site so we can read it?

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Permalink Reply by Alan Rachman on August 31, 2012 at 9:10am

The report is below. These might well be fake, I have no experience in autograph verification but I do have a lot of experience with a microscope and, as I said, I have looked at the signatures at 100 times magnification. They are three dimensional. The dried and cracked ink is visible on the surface of the photograph. The inks are of different color and the cracking pattern is different on each. Could this be duplicated in a printed signature? If they were printed wouldn't the characteristics of the image be exactly the same when viewed under magnification? I am not trying to argue. I am willing to concede that you know more on this subject than I do. I am simply asking an honest question. Thank you for your reply.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on August 31, 2012 at 9:36am

I dont like the Ruth signature, even if it is written in pen.

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Permalink Reply by Richard S. Simon on August 31, 2012 at 11:11am

For my reply see my first statement. I don't mean to be flip but I KNOW the signatures on those photos are not made by a person. And to top it off the Ruth is a printed copy of a not authentic signature.

And like I said the signatures on these photos are put on the photo separate to the actual printing of the photo, thus they are not like most facsimiles that are out there. To the uninitiated it can appear to be an actual handwritten signature. But I assure you IT IS NOT.

I have no idea who the document examiner is, but there is no address or phone number on the COA.

Does not take a lot of thought to figure out what a COA with no address or phone number is worth.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on August 31, 2012 at 1:31pm

Victoria Mertes also appears on COAs issued by Forensic Document Services, the Marino Family Forgery Ring "in-house" "authenticator." Victoria Mertes has no credibility.

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on August 31, 2012 at 11:53am

I have seen these in the market before....there not authentic...these are mass produced....

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Permalink Reply by Bill Panagopulos on August 31, 2012 at 1:51pm

Yet another "qualified" forensic document examiner...where do these idiots come from?

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Permalink Reply by Richard S. Simon on August 31, 2012 at 2:37pm

Alan,

Your COA is dated 1998, is that when you saw this forensic?

Reading your post you seem to say that you personally got the COA and communicated directly with the examiner at the time you got it.

Is that what happened, in 1998?

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Permalink Reply by Alan Rachman on August 31, 2012 at 2:44pm

Yes, it was in 1998. I did some looking and found what I believed to be an expert and went to her office in Beverly Hills. The walls were plastered with enlarged images of many famous autographs and she told me that she was especially knowledgeable of Babe Ruth's autograph. She looked at the photo with a hand magnifier and referenced a couple of other examples, said that it was authentic, and charged me $35.00. I had told her about my observations of the writing under the microscope and she said that it sounded right. She also said that she did not know Lou Gehrig well enough to make a judgement but her opinion was that it also was good. (No charge for the opinion.) I didn't try to sell them for several years and then I only showed them to one person.