Need Help On Drunk Mantle With F-You Inscription

[btcarfagno]

I wanted to get some help with this one. I am better than 75% confident the signature is a Mantle, albeit a rather sloppy likely drunk version. But the only two balls I have seen with this particular word in the inscription had very different letter formation especially with the "F". But I am not about to make a determination based on two examples that may have been signed very close in time to one another. This is definitely the same pen and seems to have been written contemporaneously. But that doesn't mean he wrote it.

So I would like to get opinions on both the signature AND the inscription.





Tom C

[EYECOLLECTVINTAGE]

Take my opinion for what it's worth(not much on mantle) but I'd say it's off. Some looks exact and some isn't close.

[btcarfagno]

Understood. You can never be 100% sure with a drunk Mantle (if that's what this is). I think that the flow is pretty good abd the places where it seems to stumble don't seem like it was done to try to slow down and fake a signature. To me it just seems like (I hope anyway) a drunk Mantle signature. The inscription (if legit) would also be more likely to have been put there by an inebriated Mantle.

One other thing I think it has in its favor is the placement of the signature. He is usually pretty good at squaring up his signature on the sweet spot. This one is lower, which would make sense if the "F-You" was already there and he wrote his signature under it. Then again, someone else could have written the "F-You" there and he could have signed under it.

Or for all I know it may not even be his signature.

Tom C

[shelly]

Tom, I agree with you on the f. All the balls I have seen with fuck on it the f is turned around. I would call the ball bad just for that reason.

[Sophiedog]

I agree with you guys. Here's a flat with the other type "F"
img246.jpg

[btcarfagno]

But here's a ball with "my" type of F...as well as a perfect match on the ck style...



Tom C

[packs]

Even on that one the bottom of the F tails backwards. The one in the first pic is a straight vertical line.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by packs

Even on that one the bottom of the F tails backwards. The one in the first pic is a straight vertical line.

Correct, but the pen stroke is exactly the same starting above the next letter looping and going down, then a separate stroke to finish. That is not a normal pen stroke for a capital letter F. Also that "uck" is "sucker" and the "ck in..well...that other word...they are pretty much exact matches to the handwriting in my ball. Even the "You" is pretty much an exact match from mine to the slabbed F-U example above.

I don't think we can dismiss the entire ball due to the capital F and a limited number of exemplars when there is an exemplar that shows it to be valid.

Unless the c-sucker ball is a fake and mine is done by the same forger. That is certainly possible. But to me, the c-sucker ball and mine were written in the same hand. Either both are Mantle or both were done by the same forger.

And I am not trying to be difficult here. I found the c-sucker example after I had researched it and finding it convinced me that it could very well be genuine. If the c-sucker ball is genuine anyway.

Tom C

[Mr. Zipper]

The "Have a ball..." example is a certain fake. The work of a known forger.

[joed25]

I believe it is a forgery. I have seen a lot of these around apparently from the same forger.

[btcarfagno]

Ok then that would make sense that mine would be as well. It is definitely done by the same person.

Oh well.

Tom C