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Mantle, Williams and DiMaggio: Authenticating Baseball Forger Favorites

It is unquestionable that Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio have been American sports icons since the mid-20th century. It comes as no surprise that these three have been favorites of autograph collectors since the advent of autograph and card shows in the 1980’s. Unfortunately it is equally unsurprising, as attested to in the FBI’s famous 1990s Operation Bullpen, that they are also the three most forged sports autographs. Although most experts believe the forgery problem in sports memorabilia has lessoned tremendously since Operation Bullpen (estimated at that time to be “between $500,000,000 and $900,000,000” by the FBI), sadly large numbers of forged material still exist.

While it would require far more than a single article to educate the autograph collector to detect Mantle, Williams and DiMaggio forgeries, there are some general as well as specific warning keys to these three autographs that may aid in detecting possible forgeries.

Genuine Mantle, Williams & DiMaggio signed photo provided by EAC Gallery.
Click to enlarge:

As a general rule, one of the first things I examine in an autograph is its feel – how it was written. When an individual signs his name there should be an easy, smooth flow to the signature. We’ve all signed our names countless times, and we don’t need to think about it. An item we offered in one of our past auctions was a sheet of paper signed several times by Joe Jackson. Jackson, who was almost completely illiterate, actually had to practice, in essence work at, writing his name prior to signing documents. Likewise, when a forger writes a signature, he or she is working at it and therefore upon close examination it’s often possible to detect such warning keys as a slowness of motion, stops and starts at inappropriate spots, and possibly even a shakiness in the writing. An invaluable aid to help detect these keys, taught to me by John Reznikoff of University Archives many years ago, is to turn the autograph upside down. When you view an autograph in an unnatural position these warning keys are often easier to detect.

In addition to such general warning keys there are specific warning keys, unique to an individual’s autograph, to keep an eye out for.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s Mickey Mantle stated on numerous occasions that he was blessed to be able to earn more money signing his name at one single weekend show than his father had earned in an entire year working as a coal miner. Because of this Mantle always felt his fans were deserving of a clear, elegant signature. In authentic Mickey Mantle autographs Mickey would always end the “y” in “Mickey” on an upswing, and because he would be quickly flowing through his signature, he therefore started the “M” in “Mantle” on a higher level or plane than he had started the “M” in “Mickey”. Most forgers, because they were “working” on writing Mantle’s signature, would pause after completing “Mickey” and begin anew in writing “Mantle”, therefore placing “Mantle” on more of a straight line with “Mickey”. If one places a ruler or sheet of paper straight across the item Mantle signed (not straight across the signature) all that appears below the ruler or paper of an authentic Mantle is the bottom portion of the “M” in “Mickey”. In the case of most forgeries the ruler or paper completely covers the entire signature. Another difficulty forgers have with Mantle’s signature was his unique way of looping the bottom portion of his “M”. Such curved lines were executed in one easy movement by Mantle, but are most often elongated by forgers who again are “working” the signature. Such slow, elongated forgeries are especially easy to recognize on baseballs as their curved surfaces only add to the forger’s difficulty.

In the case of Ted Williams autographs, with the exception of the capital “W” in Williams, Ted would consistently make the size of all the letters in his last time nearly the same exact size. Most telling is the “illia”, with the “l”s just ever so slightly taller than the “i”s, and the “a” as tall as the “l”s. Try as they may, most forgers simply can’t undo years of training and habit causing their “l”s to be significantly taller than their “i”s, and their “a” significantly shorter than their “l”s. Williams also connected the “W” in “Williams” to the “ed” in “Ted” with a swirl that gave forgers difficulty in replicating in the same, easy, flowing movement as appears in authentic examples. Also of interest, in addition to the many Williams intentional forgeries in existence, Williams revealed late in his life that during his playing days his signature on team signed balls was often a “clubhouse” example, not penned by him.

Regarding Joe DiMaggio’s autograph, problems for forgers begin with the first letter in Joe. Like the “M”s in Mantle’s autograph, the “J” in “Joe”, which appears as two loops, a larger loop on top and a smaller one below, were created by curved lines which are the hardest to duplicate without leaving telltale signs of slowness or inappropriate stops and starts. In addition, DiMaggio would pen his “J”s so that the lower loop would be written on top of (literally written over) the upper loop in two places. For some inexplicable reason, a significant percentage of DiMaggio forgeries flow in the opposite direction, with the upper loop covering the lower one. An inexpensive magnifier or jeweler’s loop will aid in viewing this detail. Finally, the general feel of an authentic DiMaggio autograph is often somewhat sloppy, in the sense that the spacing between letters is uneven, obviously much more so in his second name. Again due to the fact that forgers are working rather than simply signing, the spacing they place between each letter is far more uniform.

Finally, the age-old adage “experience is the best teacher” is indeed appropriate here. The building of as extensive a library of exemplars as possible, of both authentic and fake examples, would be of help to visualize these and additional warning keys, and tremendously assist in the detection of forgeries.

Tags: authenticate, baseball, dimaggio, fame, forgeries, forgers, genuine, hall, hof, joe, More…mantle, mickey, of, ted, williams

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Permalink Reply by James Wymer on June 18, 2012 at 5:09am

I do not see the shakiness in the real example just my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Trey H on May 14, 2011 at 3:02am

I liked the gentleman who disregarded the Joe D as a fake because of the jagged scrawl on the J. This shows you are a collector after Joe D's passing :) I have seen Joe auto 10-12 items, rub his hand,stand up,walk off,come back,rinse repeat. The level of arthritis he had was tragic. I have witnessed a ball signature such as yours as Joe would face the sweet spot up and sign. Imagine signing that 12th ball on the 8th go round . That's how you get the labored J and as your wrist moves to a neutral position,the fluid D. Your ball was a good ball.

The image at the head of this article looks questionable as well, Joe D did not arc and something so many have failed to take into consideration,aside from rushed autos, is how a flat is signed. A flat is pulled into the person,head tilted,pen to paper,and sign. The J in Joe D there is a head on signing. Not out of the realm of possibility,but nothing I would buy based on how he did sign autos I had witnessed in person on numerous accounts. The cross-over M on the mantle is VERY rare in his "rushed" signatures and JSA/pSA can;t tell a good from a bad,so do not rely on that. The only thing solid about the Ted Williams is the length and letter height. Then again,getting a Ted Fake is harder to get than a real Ted as his pathetic children shoved anything that would hold ink on it,into his face until the day he died.

Let's face it,we ALL sign different. If we are made,muscle memory is effected,when we are happy, muscle memory is effected. Signing is muscle memory, look up,at the ceiling,sign your name and witness muscle memory. Think of some great time you had,while looking up again,sign again,notice emotional influence

I have autographs of 13 presidents on baseballs and 9 VPs. I have multiple 500 club autos and several balls from current stars and future HOF'ers and my view is a simple one. If you didn't get it signed yourself, don't buy it. Do not trust "authenticators" they have as much skill as anyone here posting, skilled guess work based on best guess assumption. I know a PSA rep who flagged 3 autos as fake, all 3 from the same person, all obtained by ME in person. ....get them yourself. If the member is deceased,then consider you get what you pay for. My Mantle auto balls...IF I were to ever sell one, would be 500-600 and I would be hard pressed to sell one at that because I KNOW they are real and what you have..I have no clue if it is real or not :)

Thanks for the read. Some was interesting,some...not so much ;)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 14, 2011 at 8:34am

Trey,

How about uploading some images with the time and place? I think your DiMaggios would be especially valuable, since you can tell about getting some signed.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Rosenbaum on May 14, 2011 at 8:02am

Charles, I just looked at your Mantle ball, and it looks a little off to me, especially the"ntle". There even appears to be a stop in the left side of the "l" loop where Mantle would never stop & start again, hard to tell for sure from your scan, but take a close look at let me know what you think.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Paul Brenner V on May 16, 2011 at 8:21am

Larry,

I couldn't agree more after looking at the ball again and seeing the stop. It's a definite stop. When I first pulled it out of the safe after dad died,I didn't even bother looking that close , because it just screamed forgery to me. The antle part, the m's, and lets not forget, now the stop in the l. This hurts. My mother always bought the presents as I was a child, and this was the equivalent of the red rider bb-gun given to Ralphy by his father in the movie "A Christmas Story". I just treated it as the epitome of my collection, not because of what it was, but from who it came from. I really wish the government would make these forgers scared to put a pen to a ball. The punishment is very minimal.

Trey,

Loved the insight. Dad had Joe sign a ball as late as '84 ,but I guess he wasn't feeling too bad at the time so there wasn't any of the slow, jerky writing as in the ball I sent back. I started to realize that I probably shouldn't have sent the ball back, as you can see from previous posts, but if I didn't see him sign the ball, I just can't accept something like that. I understood what you meant when you said "if you didn't get it signed yourself then don't buy it". This is what these forgers have done to the hobby. They are ruining it and ruining people's sentiments and memories.

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Permalink Reply by dan mc on May 30, 2011 at 9:22am

Gentlemen.

I stumbled across your forum and have spent the last hour educating myself . I am not a "top shelf" player autograph collector but do have several Mantle's that I have picked up over the years, most that I feel comfortable with. However, there is this one. I had never seen these before but there did seem to be a small supply of them a few years ago. Based on your comments, I'm assuming this is questionable.

Dan

Attachments: No photo uploads here

Mantle002.jpg, 188 KB

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 30, 2011 at 9:34am

Hi Dan,

Welcome to Live! Could you please upload a larger, crisper image?

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by dan mc on May 30, 2011 at 2:03pm

Thanks, Steve. This one should be better.

[Click to enlarge.]

Attachments: No photo uploads here

Mantle003.jpg, 405 KB

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on May 30, 2011 at 2:56pm

Thanks, Dan. You should get some good feedback within a day or so.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on May 30, 2011 at 5:07pm

I've seen this on ebay and they seem to exist in some quantity.

I'm sorry to report it is almost certainly a fake.

You can see the slowness in the Ms. The close-up also shows what appears to be stops where the pen was lifted and put back down. Look closely at the center stroke of both Ms. It appears as if the first M was done in two separate strokes and the second M was done in three strokes! There is a stop and start in the bottom right part of the loop under the second M. The real Mick would have never done that.

Plus, there are formation problems. It looks like a "Milkey Mautle" forgery style often accompanied with a Nicholas Burczyk COA.

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on May 30, 2011 at 6:31pm

If you look quickly at this piece, it could be seen as genuine. However, if you look closely you can see some hesitations ( between the " l and e" in Mantle). Also it seems as if whoever signed this, Mantle or not, kept lifting the marker when making the loops in "M" in Mickey and Mantle, whereas Mantle has been known for his consistence and steady pace. Take a look the hook of the "y" in Mickey, you can see the signer stopped then started again when he made the vertical line. I am by no means and expert and I am not branding this as a forgery, just making some observations based on the given piece. Check it yourself with a magnifying glass or by moving it closer to your eyes and it could be different for you. -Mike