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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 Mike P on May 31, 2011 at 4:51pm

looks nice to me! Consistent and steady pace, just like the Mick.

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Permalink Reply by DB on June 1, 2011 at 4:33am

what I've noticed is that sometimes he connects the M to the a and others he doesn't. The original thread one connects and the one above doesn't which is similar to the R&R one below but a different one has the connection. Since I presume he is going left to right on the signature why is there a break between the M & a as one would think he would be continuing the flow into the a.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 1, 2011 at 7:47am

It is my understanding that there is some debate as to whether he ever truly connected the M to the A. Sometimes it may look connected, but is it really just a longer than usual "trail"?

He did not connect the M to the I. They usually touch, but they are not one continuous line.

The key is looking for interaction between the M and A... that is, an indication the hand moved quickly from one to another. Hard stops at the bottom of the M are not a sure sign of a fake, but a red flag to consider when looking at the whole picture.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 1, 2011 at 8:47am

I like the autograph but the photo has a digital look, and I can't tell if it's all the lower-quality JPG or in the image itself. You can see by the artifacts around the autograph that it was saved pretty low. I'd ask for a large, higher quality image before I bought.

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Permalink Reply by thomas connolly on June 3, 2011 at 11:55pm

when i was much younger, mantle and willians were very hard to obtain in person, i had to ask whitey ford to help me get mantle at the plaza hotel one time. and whitey was nice about helping me. joe dimaggio was weird, he would first refuse you, but if you asked again, he was willing to do it. back in the 1970s thru the mail, dimaggio would always send back thru the mail, some say it was a relative of his signing for him. does anyone on here know if this was a fact?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 4, 2011 at 5:18am

Conventional wisdom is that Joe's sister handled much of his mail.

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Permalink Reply by thomas connolly on June 4, 2011 at 9:26pm

thank you for replying back to me. back in the 1970s, everything you would send to joe would come back signed, and like i said before. he was not like this in person. either one a piece, or with a few other collectors around, you could sneak another one in for him to sign..

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Permalink Reply by thomas connolly on June 4, 2011 at 12:01am

ps and in the 1980s up until the early 1990s. mantles wife use to hand out items signed by mickey outside the regency hotel in manhattan. were these items genuine?, does anyone on here know for sure.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on June 22, 2011 at 9:56am

I found this on Ebay today. Just another example of a Greg Marino (Operation Bullpen) forgery.

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on July 21, 2011 at 5:40am

Here's the break down on this, the top photo is an awesome "bullpen" famous top of the line forgery that is currently up for sale at auction for $425.00 or flat at purchase price for $899.00 all penned by the same guy and we all know who that was,just one piece of thousands that's still in circulation till this day "July 21,2011"...what really bothers me about this piece is that you just don't know if the seller has never know the truth about this the whole entire time showing it off on his or her wall, or does the seller know what there doing trying to re-enter another piece of junk into another unsuspected uneducated collectors hands that didn't do the research or background check on what an authentic piece looks like or sells for ???...that being said, under this photo is a beautiful piece...an authentic piece from all 3 DIMAGGIO, MANTLE, WILLIAMS...and check out that price $3,000.00 that's right 3K...this piece is for sale at Yankee Stadium in the "Steiner Sports" store which is always very expensive...but you know what, an authentic piece like this should be expensive....I feel this is a bit pricey but that's how it is...I have seen this go for ruffly $900+ from PSA/DNA at auction and or buy it now prices between $1,000.00 - $2,000.00 as far as anyone buying this for a starting bid for $425.00 and or $899.00, if it was authentic it would have been bid on or bought at those prices in about a week...even with this economy...that should tell the seller something....that is if in fact the seller believes that piece is genuine...red flags should go up in that sellers mind

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on July 21, 2011 at 6:07am

I'm not sure the top one is a Marino. It is definately fake, but the loops next to the Ms look different than Marino. This style was very prevelant on ebay for a long time.

The style above is marked by the almost perfectly vertical left side of the M. The thing next to the M looks like a backwards D, with just a tiny tail sticking underneath the M.

Wayyyyy off.