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Does this Maris look authentic?

So, I won the 1959 A's Maris ball from Heritage. Here's what the ball likely looks like after reimaging the photo for approximated aging (assuming the ball isn't/wasn't shellacked, since none was mentioned in the listing):

I bought the story that the signature was an early Maris, but now that I look at balls from earlier in his career, the signature STILL looks off to me. Is the R too thin on top and hard on the right leg, along with the s being wrong for his style?

I also wonder how Heritage decided that the ball was 6-7 average on signatures, as the Maris looks to be borderline ungradable when balanced for age.

My doubts are increasing, since the Ray Jablonski looks wrong for the era, and the B in Bob Cerv looks a lot softer/clean/slow than I'm used to seeing. Maybe I'm just scrutinizing too much.

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Permalink Reply by Dane on May 20, 2014 at 3:45pm

Thanks for the photo and input, Terrier. Seeing your ball is somewhat reassuring, since Maris signed in about the same spot.

Randy, I know it's semi-subjective, but there's a difference between being able to identify an autograph as belonging to someone and being able to decipher all the letters. It's like, if someone had a semi-bold Mantle autograph and the pen ran out of ink on the "ey" of Mickey, we'd still know the signature was in the hand of Mantle. That's what I thought they meant by a "4" on the grade scale. On my ball, I can't see the "o" or top of the "g" of Roger, nor the "a" from Maris. I think it'd be a "5" if all the letters were fully visible, but this is a "5" signature that has faded letters on top of that.

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Permalink Reply by Dane on July 28, 2014 at 7:23pm

I ended up sending the ball in to JSA, since they were asking only $50 for the authentication fee. They ended up refunding my shipping in return for sending them a shipping label, as I couldn't fathom paying $31 to ship a baseball.

The funny thing is, the check is dated tomorrow: