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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 CJCollector on October 7, 2012 at 6:24am

Ebay seller greencircletoo has re-listed her Mantle/Williams forgeries (with the B&J Collectibles COA) for the third time.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ted-Williams-Mickey-Mantle-Signed-Autograph...

She has also lowered the Buy It Now and again re-listed it as a 1-day listing.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 6, 2012 at 7:35pm

Check out the Ebay listing from Ebay seller autohunt7.

He's trying to mask his forgeries by inserting the words "JSA" and "PSA" in his title description.

This is a GAI certed (The Mike Baker Collection) set of forgeries of Mantle, Mays and Snider. This set of forgeries was produced in the thousands.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WILLIE-MAYS-MICKEY-MANTLE-AND-DUKE-SNIDER-S...

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 6, 2012 at 11:14pm

Here's another Mickey Mantle forgery with a COA from Chris Morales. Chris Morales, of course, is on Ebay's Banned COA list.

This forgery is being sold by Ebay seller rchupungco.

The seller writes "You will not find this anywhere else." For your information Ebay seller rchupungco, thousands upon thousands of this particular Mantle forgery were produced.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantle-8x10-Autograph-1974-Hall-Of-F...

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 7, 2012 at 7:46am

That's a 100% authentic Mickey Mantle autograph, DB.

DB, can you explain to me why you think the Mantle you posted above (and the one I have posted below) is not authentic?

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Permalink Reply by DB on October 7, 2012 at 8:04am

to date there has never been one posted with a home shopping network that has been authentic. I was focusing in on the Ms. If this is then authentic then we now have a Home Shopping Network purchased item that is authentic implying that they indeed sold legitimate ones. Back to dugout

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 7, 2012 at 8:15am

The Home Shopping Channels did indeed sell authentic Mantle, Williams, etc. autographs. No one ever claimed that all of the autographs they sold were forgeries. It's just that we focus on the forgeries.

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Permalink Reply by DB on October 7, 2012 at 8:19am

It's good to show legitimate ones from time to time especially when a selling source seems to have a mixture of both to avoid erroneoues impressions. The thread began with authentic ones so it's good to show some goods ones as well as has been done from time to time.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Frost on October 7, 2012 at 8:37am

I am sorry but I believe this baseball may need a little more consideration. Once again it is very hard to say 100% via scan but I think this baseball may be authentic. I would like to physically examine this signature and see the baseball it has been signed on but via scan I would say that the signature is Likely Authentic. When authenticating autographs I know how hard this is but you can not really look at the price nor the certificate to make the final determination although they are factors that sometimes have some weight.

Home Shopping Network defiantly had some authentic hand signed Mickey Mantle baseballs offered in 1988-1990. I secured the deal for many of these private signings and personally witnessed many of Mickey Mantle's private signings during the 80's & early 90's. The baseballs used for this signing would have been Rawlings OAL "Bobby Brown" Costa Rica balls.

That is just one of the reasons I would really need to psychically examine the baseball in question to be 100% sure of it's authenticity. I must say Christopher Williams has an excellent eye and is an important voice in helping to show the world the problem with the ongoing flood of fake Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams , Joe DiMaggio and Derek Jeter autographs. The other issue is exemplars being used for Mickey Mantle, although he was pretty consistent with his signature, there are defiantly variations of his signature. They were no always that beautiful perfect signature that most people would identify Mickey Mantle with.

I have seen some but not a lot of authentic Mickey Mantle baseball's deemed as not authentic based upon sloppy, rushed, or his getting tired after 1000 baseball's signature. I have spoken to Steve Cyrkin and I told him I was going to list some not so typical yet authentic Mickey Mantle signatures.

Thank you once again for your time.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 7, 2012 at 8:48am

That Mantle is a 100% authentic Mantle autograph and it is on a Bobby Brown baseball.

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Permalink Reply by DB on October 7, 2012 at 9:00am

Mike, williams is accurate as he has only fallen on his sword once so far.

But, having some variations and other "not so typical" ones is always encouraged. You are right though that way too many non-authentic exemplars seem to be at the root cause of it causing lots of people issues.