Nolan Ryan: Real or Fake?

I wrote to the Texas Rangers baseball club about 3 years ago, when Nolan was managing it, and shared my story of having attended a game in 1993 to meet him, but never getting the chance. They sent me a signed 8x10, but since I wasn't there, I can't know 100% sure whether its real or not. Its one of the very few items in my collection that's from a third party, so i took some shots with my new camera for examination. The signature appears to be a blue Sharpie, and it reflects differently than the rest of the picture when exposed to light...but I don't see any strokes from a marker. Could this be a preprint, or something else? What do you all think?

Tags: nolan, ryan

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Permalink Reply by James on August 23, 2015 at 2:52pm

Could you provide a pic of the photo as a whole piece?

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Permalink Reply by Moviefan2k4 on August 23, 2015 at 4:32pm

Here's a low-res scan; I don't put HQ ones online.

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Permalink Reply by James on August 23, 2015 at 5:12pm

Thanks for the picture. The signature absolutely looks authentic. My only concern is whether or not it could be autopen signed. I'm just not sure. One thing you could is go on eBay and look for this same photo signed by Ryan. If they seem to match up exactly, then it's autopen. Anyway, that's one thing you could do.

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Permalink Reply by Moviefan2k4 on August 23, 2015 at 5:22pm

I uploaded my low-res scan to Google Images for a comparison, but they didn't have any matches. I did see other signatures though, and they look pretty identical. So, I'm thinking its either live or autopen; there's no smudging from a stamp, and the signature reflects differently from the photo.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Charnick on August 23, 2015 at 9:10pm

it looks pretty good to me, and I have about 6 ryan autos in my collection, 5 of them topps certified. he always signs very deliberately, rare to see any streaks or anything, and his auto is so plentiful, i see no reason why the team would use an autopen. you can get an auto from his foundation very affordably if you wanted to.