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Authenticity is Everything
Foxx and Berg
Recently picked up a very well preserved 1936 Who's who in Baseball book
Book has 16 signatures, all of them ink/aged for a long time (not sure I can say they were signed in 1936, but somewhere in the 1936-80 time frame given analysis of the cellulose, foxing, etc I have done
It has NYY sigs which I recognize well ( Combs, Dickey, Lefty, and the 2 "Reds" (Ruffing and Rolfe) )
It also had Moe Berg's an Jimm(y)ie Foxx signature. I have been able to match all of them to "like" exemplars, and the Foxx was a bit of a challenge because of the "Jimmy" vs "Jimmie"
Thinking of getting a CoA from Beckett or JSA for posterity (do not need it for me, but for my heirs)
Wanted to get opinions from the group on the Berg and Foxx (Ps I can post the others if someone wants to see them, but they are nt all that rare)
Note that the "Jimmy" is not s curled Y, but rather a straight down, the Cross on the "F" makes it look like a looped Y which it is not
Tags: Berg, Foxx, Jimmie, Jimmy, Moe, Morris
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Foxx.jpg, 4.1 MB -
Berg.jpg, 4.1 MB
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Foxx detail cntrast.jpg, 209 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Woody2Shoes on
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Each and every Jimmie Foxx that I've ever seen from a reputable source, great provenance, and with or without a well accredited COA has had either one, two, or on rare occasion even as many as three dots over the "immie", maybe mixing in with quotes, which he did sometimes use.
Also, each of those has been spelled "Jimmie", I've never seen "Jimmy", that's not the way he spelled it based on what I've encoountered, and the J was formed by the beginning of the "i" starting as an arc, before the "J", forming half of the two arcs of his "J"s. The Foxx also looks strange, it's odd look being exacerbated by that strange "Jimmy".
In fact, I think I've seen the exemplar for this particular Foxx signature in a small blue guide to HOF autographs, published maybe 20 years ago. Many of the exemplars chosen to typify a certain HOFer's signature looked off, some so much so that I thought they were deliberate plagiarism spikes, deliberate mistakes by the author.
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Permalink Reply by Bernie on
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I have seen a few "Jimmy" but less than 10%
I have a "exemplar" (PSA verified) which is a good match, which I will post a link or a cut/paste
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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on
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here is one that has PSA.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jimmie-Foxx-Autographed-Signed-Album-Page-P...
I believe the one in the subject is authentic.
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That is the one I had in mind, so you bat me to it
I felt the same way about Foxx, but in essence, we are validating (literally) a couple of streaks, Xs and Os
I will roll the dice and have Beckett (Grad) authenticate when he is in town in a couple of months. All in all, I think the book is really cool and the signatures are ~"10"s
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Well, that one is certainly unique! Never seen it's like. Mandela effect? The Jimmy Foxx of an alternate timeline, where he's a poet, with a very delicate and dainty hand instead of a ballplayer? A by-product of CERN? This page belongs in the one from that auction with the delicate, mildly ornately flourished Ruth auto! Was there a find of old, blank autograph albums? Yoiks and away! 8O)
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Some things perhaps belong in the string theory world you suggest
If I am going to forge an autograph, and I have a 1936 Who's Who, so an unlimited supply of photos to forge, why only 16?,
Here are the names which came with the book (which I realize I had not published
1- Harold "Speed" Johnson (Publisher)
2-6 Combs, Rolfe, Lefty, Ruffing, Dickey NYY (HOF, Key, HOF, HOF, HOF)
7-8- Berg, Foxx Bos RS (Key, HOF)
9- Frank Frisch (HOF)
10- Bill Terry (HOF)
11- R Peckingpah (Key?)
12- Wally Schang
13- Mike Ryba
14- Babe Herman (not George Herman, not Babe Ruth)
15- Bud Hassett
16- Frank Zachary
The names are a very good signature match across the board, so we would be dealing with a very skilled forger, or authenticity. Seems like a very eclectic and unbalanced group to be the target of a skilled forger. To paraphrase Dr Evil (Austin Powers) Why forge a signature worth billions when you can forge one worth millions?
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150X magnification of the Foxx signature. The "foxing" (no pun intended) on the fiber on the book's paper shows through the ink, suggesting the ink was there before the aging effect of the fixing took place
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FOXX 150X2.jpg, 237 KB
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I would think that the paper would age uniformly, signature or not. That the natural oxidation progress of the paper would take place under or over the ink, and the ink itself not necessarily a catalyst or buffer, influencing the foxing process, one way or the other.
I'm on your side. I'd rather the Foxx be genuine. I merely outlined the reasons why I would walk away from it and reason #1 has to do with the spelling of the first name.
I also included the Ebay links to show how easy it would be to procure unsigned material like this for relatively little expense.
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The paper has not been uniformly exposed to light/air, and some of the fibers indicate more foxing (the paper is very clean, I had to look hard under the microscope). I am tempted, but will wait until authentication, to use one of my pens (fountain) on a non signed page, across a "foxing line" to compare morphology. But the expectation would be that the "mold" would be "painted over" by the ink, and not come through. What I am seeing is an ink that hard dried and the mold grew along the fiber and above the ink.
Regarding the first name, would you not think that someone who has taken the time to study and replicate signatures would leave such a "loose end" dangling? Keurejian (sp?) has stated that Foxx used both. I do agree that most signatures are "Jimmie" not "Jimmy", but is it really reasonable to have someone go through all this trouble and then "mis-spell the name"? (Also, note that the 2-3 signatures I have found with "Jimmy" are consistent in the Y being strictly a downwards stroke and pull back of the pen, no attempt to loop. This one looks to the naked eye like a looped Y, but it is not, it is the cross hatch on the F that has that appearance
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If the ink appears bone dry, as is to be expected with a Foxx auto, especially on "pulpy" paper, then when the ink was written there is far more revealing than the paper it's written on. You've got the tools handy for forensics and you've done a great job pinning this down as ink that looks to be written at least 40 years ago and most likely many more.
There's so few "Jimmy" signatures that I would have thought them written early in his career, rather than post 1936. I've seen a lot of team and partial team, and All-Star baseballs, also signed "Jimmie", never a "Jimmy", to my recollection, mostly from the latter part of his career, so I wonder if there's a study anywhere on "Jimmy" versus "Jimmie" signatures and if anyone has reached some type of conclusion as to why and when.
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Near as I can tell, is mostly anecdotal and no rhyme nor reason for Y vs ie. I have noticed some "Jimmie" where the end of the e goes down and to the right, some up to the right, but have mot seen a "Jimmie" where an e slants down left.
Next clue I am looking into is the cross hatch on the F, does it go left to right or right to left......
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