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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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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michael Frost on December 30, 2012 at 3:57pm

Thank you , we have come a long way.

I would like to wish you and your family & all the Autograph Magaizine members a Happy and Healthy New Years. Lets all continue to work together to expose and end the forgery's in 2013.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 30, 2012 at 4:20pm

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 30, 2012 at 4:32pm

For now, and this is just a very small tip of of the iceberg that I have been working on from the Orient.
Please examine and review these auctions including the completed and the feedback.

Click here: gemmintsportsinc | eBay

The first question I would ask is how is a seller from Japan getting all these American sports figures?

That aside, the signatures are pretty deceptive assuming they are bad. I am familiar with a handful of them, and they would not strike me as bad at first glance. Like, who is going to fake a Bob Gibson or Ozzie Smith or Johnny Damon? Seriously?

Do you think these are machine signed based on templates created from authentic signatures? Do you have any in-hand to examine? If so, do they demonstrate any sort of minute wobble like an Autopen?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Frost on December 30, 2012 at 4:43pm

No, I do not believe an autopen to be involved with these signed photos.

You ask the same thing I did about Gibson, Carlton, Rose. Ozzie Smith, George Brett.?

I have physically examined many of these photos and I was able to see there was a problem. I have had over 1000 in my hands at one time.

There are almost 15 accounts that I am sure of selling these signed photos and also a big wholesale business going on.

Even at $20 each , I would think they are selling over 5000 of each per year. They have over 100 different names being done. They also have the bigger names like Jordan, Woods, Tyson, Bird , Namath, and now going into entertainment.

Millions..$$

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 31, 2012 at 11:34am

Please post these in a separate thread in the section for Authenticity Opinions.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 31, 2012 at 1:41pm

Joe,

Welcome. This is a Mantle, Williams and DiMaggio discussion. Please post the autographs you want opinions on here:

http://live.autographmagazine.com/forum/categories/is-this-autograp...

I'll be deleting these replies since they're unrelated in an hour or so.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 31, 2012 at 2:50pm

Joe,

I'm sorry, but I have to ask you something.

You said you bought 16 PAAS autographs, all rejected by PSA/DNA, and you list yourself as being from Barrington, IL.

But your IP address when you signed up was from Taiwan, which is where Mike Frost said the autographs he called forgeries were being sold and shipped from.

You are welcome to talk about any services' autographs. And frankly, I have been quite outspoken in the past about my concerns with PAAS autographs I've seen from before spring of 2012. But you need to be honest about what you are (a collector, dealer, competitor, etc.) and whether you really did buy those autographs and PSA rejected them.

Sorry to call you on this, but please tell us the real story.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on December 31, 2012 at 3:53pm

What is so hard to understand about moving this unrelated discussion to another thread? this is for Dimaggio, Mantle and Williams items. If you want an opinion on your items, please move them out of this thread.

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on December 30, 2012 at 4:55pm

I just checked a few of the ones I am very familiar with. They range from fair to poor but they are definitely forgeries.

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Bautista on December 30, 2012 at 6:54pm

No problem Mike. I just was curious as to what company was authenticating them. You can read over any of my post and you can see I am not for one authentication , nor against any authentication .

As for the Jeter I posted . It is defiantely not one of those types you posted. The one I posted was supposedly obtained thur the mail in the early 2000's .

Here are a few with where they came from . Hopefully Mr. Williams can take a look.

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Bautista on December 30, 2012 at 6:54pm

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Permalink Reply by Michael Frost on December 30, 2012 at 11:06pm

Steve ,

Could you please start a new discussion for these recent posts. This discussion will have nothing to do with Mantle, Williams or DiMaggio's except the signature are also all forgeries.

It has only been 5 hours since my last post and I already have 2 angry messages on my voice mail and one mad man e-mail. It seems I already have a major auction company pissed off at me, because they are supplied by the Orient express. I have an autograph authenticator telling me I do not know what I am talking about !!. Claiming that most of the autographs being sold that I posted are 100% authentic and I am just trying to use Steve Cyrkin and AML to promote my company. I was also told that I was going to be reported to eBay for saying there are 1000's of fake autographs coming from China & Japan listed on ebay. Last but not least I have been told via email that I just made up this whole story and this just an isolated incident and not forgery ring. "I am a liar and nobody will believe a thing I say" "Just notice how there is no participation or interest in your comments. Chris Williams and many of the regulars will not take part in anything you say and will not comment because it will seem as if they support you & P.A.A.S.

I knew this was going to happen and I have not even reported a fraction of what is really been going on with this group from Japan, China and Thailand.

* Steve Cyrkin could confirm that I have discussed and have showed him some examples of this investigation back in mid October.

* I have also expressed to Steve on more then one occasion that I did not care to, or want to expose nor discredit any other 3rd party authenticators.

* This is not an isolated incident and these signed photos are being mass produced and being sold by many dealers on the Internet.

* I really should have waited until I was fully prepared to start this discussion and I should have maybe discussed it with some of the other autograph authentication companies prior to posting.

I was asked on the post by Mr. Zipper about counterfeits coming from China. I honestly was planning to get at least a small part of the word out before more collectors purchase these fake signatures.

Last, since this was only an isolated incident and not a ring so I have been told. Here is two more small member of this ring to review. Please look at completed items also.

Click here: gxsportsmem | eBay

Click here: johnnysfod | eBay