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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 VolFins on July 21, 2012 at 4:27pm

Got the ball and it's a beaut !! ZERO toning, just a beautiful white ball all around with a great signature. You were right about it being a Budig ball, I didn't know they were harder to find. Great ! Thank you for the info. : ) I need to do some research on the different baseballs and get more educated on this subject.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 6:05am

Here's a set of Mantle, Snider and Mays forgeries with a cert from the now-defunct GAI. This particular set of forgeries has been produced in high numbers also. Note the Scoreboard cert with the auction. This is another case of a seller using a Scoreboard cert in an attempt to sell forgeries. This is not a Scoreboard product. Shame on this seller.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantle-Willie-Mays-Duke-Snider-Signe...

This is another case of a seller misusing the Scoreboard cert to sell a set of forgeries.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 2:19pm

This is from the same Ebay seller. This one has a COA from Coach's Corner Auctions. Look at this mess. This is one set of ugly forgeries.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140798884125...

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 9:58am

Another one of these Mickey Mantle forgeries on Ebay. This forgery was also produced in the thousands. Who buys this crap!!! The COA is a joke, of course. There's actually a bid on this garbage!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Autographed-Photo-of-Mickey-Mantle-with-C-O...

Here's a close-up of the Mantle forgery.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 3:22pm

The same person who issues that Myst-O-Graph COA, also issues the YMC Sports COA. Same crappy forgeries.

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Permalink Reply by chuck clark on July 15, 2012 at 4:20pm

Im the idiot that bought this you arrogant moron.You didnt want to show the witnessed section where Mantle was witnessed signing the pic in 92? Go a bit easier on the name calling bud, you never know who might have made a simple error.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 4:27pm

Chuck, simple error or not, us collectors are sick and tired of seeing this garbage infect our hobby. Not only that, but this junk devalues the collections of those that own authentic autographs.

Maybe you can show us that photo you mention of Mickey Mantle signing that piece. We would love to see it.

I'm also curious how much you paid for that piece.

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Permalink Reply by chuck clark on July 15, 2012 at 4:30pm

I didnt say I had a photo of him signing., and back off on the arrogence. I said if you looked at the back of the phot, there was a second item there aside from the coa. Take a llok at that and maybe you might understand why I belived it.

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Permalink Reply by chuck clark on July 15, 2012 at 4:32pm

For what its worth, I have removed it from the e bay site, I appreciated your input but not your attitude.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 15, 2012 at 4:37pm

Hopefully, you will destroy it.

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Permalink Reply by James Wymer on July 15, 2012 at 4:46pm

Chuck what I noticed was a photocopied COA from scoreboard with the same forgery signature as on the autographed item. The reason I know that it is a copy is that I can see that the copier had a scratched drum and that left lines on the paper. I used to be a copier tech that is how I knew that. Chris is very instrumental in alerting ebay to these forgeries and keeps people from getting scammed. He may be a bit blunt in his observations, but I am glad he exists. He also would help you in the future if you were to post an item unsure of it's authenticity.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on July 15, 2012 at 4:47pm

I don't understand why people believe something is legit because there is a piece of paper saying it is. Having a photo copy of a paper with a photo copy of his signature saying he signed items for Scoreboard, has absolutely nothing to do with an item supposedly signed by him. Do people not realize anybody can make a copy of anything and put it with any item and claim that makes it legitimate? It doesn't state what photo's he signed, how many different poses, or show photo's of him actually signing anything at all. Caveat Emptor!