Two thoughts on this story with full disclosure that do not own a high end Ruth ball and never have.
1. Why do we assume that just because someone is a relative that they are also handwriting experts? I had a lady e mail me about an autograph I had (one of 25 on a MINOR LEAGUE team ball vintage from the 1930's) and she insisted that the autograph of her grandfather on the ball was a forgery. He was a complete common who died in the 1990's, totally worthless autograph. She was REALLY pissed that I would have the audacity to sell a forgery of her grandfather! She was 100% wrong but standing on the soapbox of "I'm his granddaughter and I know for sure!", no amount of evidence was going to prove her wrong, she was the expert by birthright appearantly. We give relatives and descendants WAAAY too much credit in this hobby. Aside from a signed letter of provenance stating that the item comes from the relative or ther persons estate, their opinions shouldn't mean much when evaluating a signature 80 years after it was signed. Unless this Ruth relative was sitting in a room watching Ruth's secretary sign for him or some other intimate first hand knowledge, why would we care what her opinion is?
2. By the end of Ruth's life autograph collecting was pretty big so it makes sense to me that there would be WAY more people getting his autograph and keeping it nice (in the sock drawer or something) as opposed to getting a signed Ruth ball in the 1930's when he was still playing when people did not collect autographs as much and the value was merely intrinsic. By the mid-late 1940's people were already thinking of autographs as "valuable" and "collectible" so it does not surprise me at all that SOME of these would survive in High Grade. How many is a completely different story that I would not dare to even guess at. I bet the optomists will be shocked at how many are fake and I bet the pessimists will be shocked that a large number of them are actually real, but regardless of how this ends, some people will be pissed!
Just my 2 cents worth (1 cent for each thought)
Rhys
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