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Real or No Real? Mantle, Williams, Koufax

That's right. You guessed it! I've got some Mantle, Teddy Ballgame and Koufax I'd like some opinions on.

The Koufax is from the Ron Lewis Living Legends art series and the Williams is on one of those Busch Beer posters he signed a bunch of.

I can provide more photos as needed for any of the four items in question (2 Mantles, 1 Williams, 1 Koufax). The bug with adding photos was messing me up.

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Tags: Koufax, Mantle, Mickey, Sandy, Ted, Williams

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on December 31, 2018 at 6:39pm

This is a free membership community, that offers free opinions. That's not good enough? Crap is crap and it is easily spotted by those that have spent years studying these signatures.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on December 31, 2018 at 6:42pm

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 31, 2018 at 6:47pm

ZZ, here's a blog by Chris that talks talks about these forgeries. It's part of a series of several blogs he wrote on these:

https://live.autographmagazine.com/profiles/blogs/guaranteed-forens...

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Permalink Reply by Steve on December 31, 2018 at 6:03pm

Here is my reasoning. As already mentioned, some of us have years of experience researching certain signatures. We can tell within seconds if they are good or bad. I can tell by the letter formation, the flow, the size and spacing, the placement, etc. On the Koufax, you can even see it written in lighter color underneath and then traced over in a darker color.

And, ZZ, I don’t need to offer evidence or proof, only an opinion. But, please feel free to offer your evidence or proof that it is real.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel S. on December 31, 2018 at 6:19pm

It never ceases to amaze me that some of these people refuse to respect your expert opinions when they do not like the answer. I am sure that if you said that it looks like a great Mantle signature, they would respect the opinion as being from a credible expert!

i certainly appreciate the fact that the folks here have saved me a ton in unnecessary authentication fees and costly purchases of fraudulent autographs!

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Permalink Reply by John Spillane on December 31, 2018 at 6:26pm

Thank you, Steve!

Yes, the flow and letter formation of the autograph. You look at so many autographs and you know what to look for. After you study the authentic ones and forgeries for a while you get that eye where you just know in seconds whether or not it's authentic. They're called "tells" which we learn and keep, but never tell.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 31, 2018 at 6:58pm

ZZ, click on the second photo in the OP, that will zoom it to high resolution. You'll probably notice that the photo is made up of dots. That means it's an inkjet printer photo, not a regular continuous tone photo you'd get from the traditional process at a photo printer.

Inkjet photo printing came out in about August 1995. Mickey Mantle died in August 1995.

And the inkjet printing and paper quality back then was nowhere near as good as this. Then there's cost: inkjet photos back then cost a few dollars each, but regular photos cost 25-50 cents, depending on volume. At 10-times the cost and lower quality, they weren't used for commercial printing except occasionally in some very large sizes.