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Snider facsimile?

Hi everyone. This is my first posting here. I hope I get accepted in the comic book theme group, as I probably have more stuff for them anyway.

Anyway, back to my question... last week, I was perusing through shopgoodwill.com (an interesting auction site run by Goodwill Industries) checking to see if I won a Darin Erstad gamer that they had for sale. I didn't. As such, I decided to snoop around and see what other goodies they had for sale. Well, one of the stores had a music box with a picture of Duke Snider on the ceramic cover piece that was autographed. In a search to find out if the autograph was real, stained, or even part of the art, I went to eBay. While searching for the item, I got horribly side-tracked and ended up buying one of those "Collectors Plates" from the '80s. It had a picture of Snider, Mays and Mantle, along with their signatures. Unlike the other plates on the site, this was one of two selling for under $300. Given the price, I assumed the signatures to be fire glazed or enameled onto the ceramic plate. Then, I got to speaking with one of the other sellers, who insisted that the plate I purchased is actually signed by the trio.

That brings us (finally) to the questions:

1) Do the signatures look real?

2) Why is it that the signatures aren't all "gold" in color? (Does the paint corrode or something?)

3) How much did these things cost when they were originally issued?

Once the plate finally arrives, I'll be sure to post better pictures, but this is what I have for the moment. The back of the plate dates the item to 1986, if that helps.

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 12, 2011 at 5:28am

Good Morning Dane and welcome to this great site...the pics are kind of small...when you get the plate and when you add bigger pictures maybe myself or other members can help you...Its kind of hard to tell but I think those autos are actually printed on the art itself...I will do more research to see what i come up with in the mean time...

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 12, 2011 at 5:53am

Thank you for your response. I'll get larger pics once the plate arrives. :D

Don't worry too much about the research. I figured out so far that these were made for at least two years (1986 & 1987), and maybe even longer than that. It seems the 1986 variety usually has horizontal signatures and the 1987 has diagonal. I only ended up buying this one because it had a signature variation that I hadn't seen before. :) I actually assumed maybe it was added after the fact, which didn't matter since I was buying the plate and not the signature. :)

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 13, 2011 at 4:53am

Yeah Dane I believe there actually printed on the plate... there's 2 different versions or varieties if you will on that particular piece...

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 13, 2011 at 12:14pm

Thanks CG. I got a bit more info on the plate. :D

Apparently, Sports Impressions did have plates that were actually signed by the person imaged onto the item. Now, I still don't know for certain that this particular plate falls into that category, so I might end up throwing good money after bad (so to speak) in an effort to track down an unopened version of this. :D

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 13, 2011 at 12:37pm

i HAVE ACTUALLY SEEN THIS PLATE WITH THE AUTOS ON THE PLATE AND THE PLAYERS ACTUAL AUTOS UNDER THE FACSIMILES

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 14, 2011 at 3:21pm

I had some time this morning, so I went through eBay and pulled the following comparison images from different items from Sports Impressions that weren't stated as fired/stamped. Now, the first image is the original plate image I had. The one below it in blue was labeled as a facsimile. The one on the bottom was claimed to be authentic by a UACC authorized dealer. The two on the right were listed as authentic by a non-dealer.

I might be seeing things, but don't the top-two on the left look close enough to be autopens of one another?

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 15, 2011 at 6:19am

those all are no question printed on the plate...

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 16, 2011 at 12:02pm

I don't understand how they can all be printed when one looks so much different than the others. I can understand three being printed and one not, but they're different sizes, and the last one is a different signature type.

Anyway, I got the plate yesterday, so here are the pictures. :) This first post is with no flash, and the second with the flash. I couldn't figure out how to get the flash to not burst a glare onto the plate, so that's why I took them without flash.

My impression of what happened is the ink (or whatever) stained the plate yellow and started to bubble away. That's why the Snider is yellow and the others are green. The Snider signature is obliterated, the Mantle signature is bubbling away, and the Mays signature is somewhat complete. This implies the stamp/ink/whatever is above the surface of the glaze.

Attachments: No photo uploads here

DSC00012.JPG, 1.5 MB
DSC00013.JPG, 1.7 MB
DSC00014.JPG, 1.5 MB

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Permalink Reply by CEE GEE on September 16, 2011 at 1:24pm

I have seen these plates before...3 small plates with one player each...and....One with gold colored autos...and One with some what darker ink...5 plate variations in all and numbered on the back...the only one I myself ever seen that was authentic had the autos on the plate that were printed on and authentic autos of the players on the same item which was actually 6 autos on the plate...and I only actually seen just one that's in the market that I know of...there may be more out there...

The printed autos I have seen on the plates had slight variations...mostly with the Duke Snider "S" and the Mantles being slightly different...now Iam not an expert but that is just what I have seen in the market...

another great indicator if its actually signed on the plate is if you look at the glaze in the light....look at the entire plate closely....if the autos were actually hand written on the plate they should not have a glazed look at all...it should actually stand out dramatically and that may be the best way you can truly tell when looking at the surface in the light...I wouldn't be able to see the transition in a photo...

if all else fails maybe PSA/DNA or JSA has to step in...I may be wrong of course...let me know

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Permalink Reply by Dane on September 16, 2011 at 2:03pm

Well, that's the part that has me confused. I know when looking at the plate that the pen/stamp/whatever is not a part of the plate design, since it's above the glaze. That said, I still don't know if that would eliminate a stamp of some sort. I'm not completely sure on how the plate design process works.

According to another person who owns the plate, in 1986, SI issued two versions of the plate:

$75 no-autographs

$150 autographed

It would seem really moronic to charge twice the price for printed signatures. Then again, who knows?

Also, in 1987, SI issued a "Gold edition" which had the gold fired version of the signatures in a diagonal orientation.

The backs on the plates (1986 & 1987) look completely different, as well. The 1986 one has black printing with the stats, while the 1987 one is red and blue without the stats.

Permalink Reply by Dane on September 16, 2011 at 12:04pm

Here're the ones with flash.

Attachments: No photo uploads here