[jerseygary]

I was reading the fake Rube Marquard thread and I got to thinking about Sharpies. It looks like the fake signature was done in a Sharpie-like marker. Maybe it was in a kid's marker, but let's say it is actually real and indeed done with a Sharpie.

Rube passed away in 1980 and Sharpies were first marketed around 1964, so one could have been used in that 16 year window.

My question is: what is the earliest Sharpie autograph anyone has seen?

When I was a kid in the late 70's and early 80's, Sharpies were a work item, for instance my father was in the garment industry and used them to mark patterns. He used to give worn out ones to me and I would take them to school where they were a novelty because they weren't something that was mainstream at the time. Or they were used to mark clothing and were commonly kept in a kitchen "junk drawer" or toolbox. I seem to recall that collectors started getting Sharpie autographs later than that, like the late 1980's?

Anyway, whenever a Sharpie signature turns up on a suspect item, the date 1964 is thrown out as if people used them as early as that to get autographs. What's your oldest Sharpie signature?