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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 December 11, 2012 at 4:19am

Check out these horrific Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris forgeries.

This set of Mantle and Maris forgeries comes with a COA from Drew Max (AAU) who calls himself an FDE (Forensic Document Examiner).

This set of Mickey Mantle & Roger Maris forgeries is listed by Ebay seller "1969topps260."

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mickey-Mantle-Roger-Maris-Framed-8x10-Color...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 11, 2012 at 5:07am

It's a micro-Mantle and a mini-Maris!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 11, 2012 at 11:47am

This was our most active discussion, running 120 pages since March 2011.

The Michael Jackson discussion is at 132 pages after 3 weeks.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 11, 2012 at 1:43pm

Perhaps you should rename it MJ Graphs Live.

:-)

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on December 12, 2012 at 4:06am

Check out this set of Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Billy Martin set of forgeries.

This set of Mantle, DiMaggio and Martin forgeries is listed by Ebay seller "racer140."

This is the same garbage that continues to come out of Florida.

The COA is from "MFP Reborn," which is related to the following COAs: Nicholas Burczyk, YMC Sports, CSC Collectibles, Myst-O-Graph and others.

Only $179.00 for a autographed photo of Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Billy Martin? Looks to me like the seller is tying to dump this crap on someone else.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200863597208

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 15, 2012 at 4:48pm

Since they were forging the Mantle, Martin and DiMaggio, I can't figure out for the life of me why they didn't add the Whitey Ford as well. LOL

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on December 12, 2012 at 4:19pm

Check out this horrific Mickey Mantle forgery.

This Mickey Mantle forgery is listed by Ebay seller cheap_entertainment_online.

Now check out the title of the seller's auction. It reads "This is authentic." Holy crap!!!! Look at this crap!!!

Click on the images to get a closer look.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=321039817225

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on December 13, 2012 at 6:22pm

Look at this horrific Mickey Mantle forgey.

This Mickey Mantle forgery is listed by Ebay seller dollarsportscards.

This is as ugly as it gets!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360538240549...

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on December 14, 2012 at 4:47pm

Here's another set of Mickey Mantle and Joe DImaggio forgeries with a COA from YMC Sports. This crap, which originates out of Florida as most of us know, has been produced in the thousands.

The Ebay seller responsible for the below listing of Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio forgeries, is seller nuttybud3.

This crap will infect the hobby forever. $1200.00 "Buy It Now" for this garbage!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Joe-Dimaggio-Mickey-Mantle-Signed-Playing-D...

Here's a set of "500 Homerun Club" forgeries listed by Ebay seller nuttybud3.

Another piece of crap set of forgeries with a COA from MFP Reborn. As we all know, the MFP Reborn COA is related to the YMC Sports, Myst-O-Graph and Nicholas Burczyk COAs.

Look at this garbage. This crap is usually picked up at so-called estate sales, charity auctions, local auctions, etc., at a real cheap price and the winning bidders always think they got a "steal," and then they try to flip it on Ebay. As we all know, this pathetic crap has been distributed all over the place in the thousands.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/500-Home-Run-Club-11-Hall-of-Fame-Autograph...