Mathewson signed baseball

[vintagesportflips]

I wanted to share some information about a Christy Mathewson signed ball that is out there.
In 2012, I purchased 2 early baseballs from a net54 member on the BST page. They included an early Spalding ball and a Goldsmith New York Club baseball. I sold the Spalding ball to another net54 member and sold the Goldsmith ball out of my antique shop booth last year. A couple of days ago, I received an email from someone (who apparently has been looking for a Christy ball) who was shown a signed Christy Mathewson baseball on a Goldsmith New York Club ball. The recipient of the email found an image of my ball online, and realized the staining on the balls were remarkably similar. He was emailing me to ask if the ball I had in the past was signed by Mathewson, and I assured him that it absolutely wasn't, and that I have never owned a Mathewson signature. I don't think he thought the signature looked good anyway, but he was relieved to hear my confirmation. I am posting photos of the ball when I had it, and of the images this gentleman sent me of the Mathewson signature ball. As you can see both balls have the same stain and marks on the front. The 2 images are the only ones I have of the ball from the time when I owned it, as I mainly was taking photos of the maker marks on the ball, but some of the Mathewson signature would have been visible on the image of the Goldsmith mark. I will leave it up to readers of this post to decide if they are the same ball, but I believe they are. Because the item sold in my antique shop, I do not know who the buyer was - I receive no buyer information on my sales reports. Also, the person who emailed me did not divulge any information about the person who contacted them.

The Goldsmith ball wasn't an especially valuable ball, but to be ruined in an attempt to deceive is just terrible. Anyway, I felt that I needed to post this.

Here are the photos of the ball when I had it:



Here are the recent photos that I was emailed:

[gnaz01]

Same ball, thanks for the heads up, Keith.

[horzverti]

Yep, same ball. Thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention. I really hate all of the fraud in our hobby.

[murphusa]

I have photos also of the balls sweet spot, no Christy on it
Here is my original post

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=150766

[khkco4bls]

Well I'm a little annoyed because keith never said something was removed from the king of the diamond ball when I purchased it from him.

[RichardSimon]

It is also a poorly written forgery.

[vintagesportflips]

Hello Kevin,
My apologies if I did not disclose that. To be honest, I don't recall reading it, but obviously Jim had it clearly written in his BST post. Wouldn't be the first time that I just looked at photos and breathed through a description barely reading it. Just this past year I bought an item on ebay, that upon receiving it realized it had a huge modern leather restoration - I was taken aback as to why the seller didn't disclose that. I went back to read the description and noticed that the seller had clearly and accurately described the restoration, but obviously I hadn't read the description at all.
I thought the Spalding ball was a beauty and didn't notice anything on it, but if knowing that there was something removed bothers you, I would be happy to give you a full refund plus cover your shipping cost to return it. Or if I can make you happy in some other fashion, please shoot me an email or a message.

[murphusa]

sweet spot on ball about 18 months ago