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Here's an interesting PSA/DNA Mickey Mantle

Saw this on another sports card forum. Must've been authenticated back when they first started as these are horrible!

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Permalink Reply by Randy on January 30, 2015 at 8:19pm

It is an autograph opinion forum. Since I disagree with everyone else I am likely wrong, but it cannot be PROVEN that I am.

That is what opinions are for.

Ninety nine percent of the time I agree with Ryan and Terrier on Mantle. In fact, this is only the second time in over 3 years on this forum on Mantle I have disagreed.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on January 31, 2015 at 6:54am

Randy, I have a high degree of respect for your opinion, and most of the time I agree with you. nothing wrong with disagreements involving opinions.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on January 31, 2015 at 7:20am

I agree completely with you about varying opinions being acceptable and I know you are very knowledgeable and study autographs more than I do. I also know Ryan is top notch.

I knew when I posted that my opinion would meet with a lot of opposition. I even stated that.

Before posting, I searched and looked at many authenticated examples of Martin and Ford since I am less familiar with them. I found some examples of Martin in which the "B" was slanted to the right. To me, the rest of his autograph on this item looks mainly upright and the "Martin" looks good to me. On the Ford, it looks to me like he was following the angle of his picture on the card.

The Mantle actually provided the biggest issue for me and at first glance, I completely disregarded it as being authentic based on the atypical "M"'s. After looking more closely at the rest of the signature and the correct baseline, I changed my mind. However, I completely respect the opinions of everyone else and obviously if you don't think any letter formation looks right then I am probably wrong. To me, the Dimaggio, looked most correct. I am very familiar with his sister's autograph as she signed virtually all of his mail requests and these "g"'s do not look like hers to me.

I do think for whatever reason, PSA/DNA authenticated this exact item. I guess it is possible someone they trusted said they got them in person in the '80's but on an item which is easily $500, I think their top authenticator would have had to sign off on it. I know they are very secretive about who authenticates any item but I am pretty sure on this item there had to be a consensus opinion.

Still, obviously they could be wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on January 30, 2015 at 8:10pm

What I meant by "other voluntary members" is that I am only disagreeing with other member's opinions, not a company that can sue this web site.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on January 31, 2015 at 6:53am

thanks for clarifying Randy.

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Permalink Reply by Null on January 30, 2015 at 8:04pm

The Mantle/DiMaggio have ZERO positive traits IMO, there is no chance these are authentic IMO. I don't study Whitey/Billy as much but they even look like pretty bad forgeries at best.

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Permalink Reply by Null on January 30, 2015 at 8:07pm

Randy you don't think any of these legends had to sign a card at a weird angle? That does not completely change the sig, there is not ONE LETTER correct in the Mantle sig IMHO.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kaminski on January 30, 2015 at 8:14pm

These are terrible forgeries, I doubt they were authenticated by PSA though.

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Permalink Reply by Randy on January 31, 2015 at 4:58am

How you can come to that conclusion based on the facts?

There is a picture of the item posted to this discussion in a PSA/DNA slab. The certification # matches exactly in the PSA/DNA database for this item including the fact that Mantle is the "Primary Signer" meaning there are other autographs on the item. It does not picture the actual item authenticated but that is common for PSA/DNA.

The only way they didn't authenticate the item is if someone opened the slab, removed the authentic card they authenticated, and replaced it with a bad fake.

Sorry, I believe the odds are much more likely that they indeed authenticated it.

Whether they were right or wrong is the only question.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on January 31, 2015 at 7:01am

if you just focus on the Martin, here is a very typical Martin signature. it varied little during his career. I honestly do not see any resemblance to the one on the card. comments from anyone welcome.