Early Mantle sig?
 

I'm not considering buying, just wondering if anyone here has an opinion as to the authenticity of this Mantle auto. I'm not very familiar with his early sig.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Baseball-aut...item27c1bcaec0

In my humble opinion, it looks real. I have an early Mantle auto and it looks a lot like that.

The only thing I'll say is that I'd have to absolutely LOVE an autograph to purchase a signed un-used gov postcard. Too many forgers are using vintage GPC's because people think they must be old and authentic.

Tough to tell from a tiny scan. If you were selling an item for $1,800, wouldn't you pay the extra 25 cents or whatever to have the image larger so the item could sell itself? :confused:

My first reaction is that, even with the tiny scan, it appears very fresh and bold for a 60 year old signature.

Mike - you are very right about that.
This does have some resemblance to early exemplars I have on file, but without seeing an enlarged copy, I would not say it is good.
Zipper - the seller does not have to pay extra for the larger size copy. A seller would have to disable the enlarge feature on ebay.

The other possibility is that the original image as they uploaded it was tiny. Ebay doesn't enlarge items that are thumbnail size to start with.

It never ceases to amaze me the lousy pictures some people post with high-priced items. I mean, if you're selling a "junk drawer" collection of stuff you found in your granny's house, I can understand not investing in a camera and just using your phone's built-in camera. But on a higher-priced lot, a good clear picture or two from even a cheap digital camera will more than pay for the cost of the equipment upgrade. Unless the intent in the first place was to let the viewer's imagination fill out the poor visual representation of what they are hoping is a poorly-represented gem of an item. My thinking is that if they know enough to legitimately ask $1000+ for an item, they know enough to show it clearly too...