Ron Keurajian's Book - Issues/Disagreements?

[Bosox Blair]

I just received Mr. Keurajian's "Baseball Hall of Fame Autographs" book. I am quite impressed with it generally and very pleased to have it as a reference. I don't purport to be an autograph expert - in fact I know I'm a novice in this area (much deeper into cards).

However, I noticed a couple comments on the Board that there might be a few areas of slight disagreement with this author on certain points. I don't want to slam Mr. K, but I am interested in hearing what issues/disagreements Board members have with any part of this book.

Please post your examples in this thread!

I noticed one tonight. Regarding Walt Alston, the author wrote: "Alston's hand remained strong his entire life. A genuine Alston signature will exhibit no shakiness of hand..."

I believe this statement to be incorrect. Alston was enshrined in the HOF in 1983 and he died in 1984. The signatures I have seen from the last year of his life (when he was being asked to sign a lot...post-HOF): (a) do not look like the exemplars Ron K provides, which are older sigs; and (b) often show shakiness and hesitation.

One example is this Gateway cover auto signed in the '83-'84 period. Certainly many collectors would not view this as a good quality Alston auto, but I firmly believe it to be authentic:

[earlywynnfan]

I had the same reaction to Early Wynn. There was one last private signing he did right before he passed. The sigs that came from that signing showed a definite shakiness.

Ken

[JimStinson]

With autographs since every single one of them is one of a kind, there really are no absolutes. There are points he made in the book that I did not agree with and I told him so.
In Fairness though I think that in order to be throughly comprehensive the book would need to be at least a 10 volume set, Probably take 10 years (or longer) to write and cost about $1,000 retail, and then of course no one would read it or buy it, including me.

But overall I'd say its about 95% "On the Money" Which is as close as anyone is ever going to get when writing a book about autographs. Also give him credit in that there are things that both a "novice" collector and "veteran" are going to find interesting. Just being able to do that alone would seem to me to be pretty tough to do.
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jim@stinsonsports.com

[dgo71]

I think when you consider that one Mickey Mantle thread on here can go on for 6 pages, that illustrates just how daunting a task it is to encompass decades worth of research and opinions on every HOF signature and try to do so with 100% certainty.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by JimStinson

With autographs since every single one of them is one of a kind, there really are no absolutes. There are points he made in the book that I did not agree with and I told him so.
In Fairness though I think that in order to be throughly comprehensive the book would need to be at least a 10 volume set, Probably take 10 years (or longer) to write and cost about $1,000 retail, and then of course no one would read it or buy it, including me.

But overall I'd say its about 95% "On the Money" Which is as close as anyone is ever going to get when writing a book about autographs. Also give him credit in that there are things that both a "novice" collector and "veteran" are going to find interesting. Just being able to do that alone would seem to me to be pretty tough to do.
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jim@stinsonsports.com

All agreed 100%. And this was not intended as a tear-down thread. But I think there is some value in hearing whether Board members have specific issues with something published in the book.

For better or worse, Mr. K has a very authoritative writing style - he states many things as though they are certainties. This can be dangerous if readers believe these things absolutely. My example at the outset: I think a reader would be misled into believing that the Gateway Alston is a fake by the strong wording used by the author - but that is not so.

I think it will be helpful to users of this book if members could show other examples analogous to this one.

Who knows...if Mr. K reads this thread he might be able to use some of this to improve the next edition of his book (if there will be one).

Cheers,
Blair

[Mr. Zipper]

I like the book and have found it to be very informative. A few thoughts:

* The first few sections on general autograph analysis were quite good. While it didn't tell me much I already didn't know, it's nice to see something like that collected in one place.

* Illustrations of common fakes and secretarials are lacking. He often mentions fakes and secretarials in the narrative, but does not provide many examples. For instance, no Willie Mays secretarial example? No Marino exemplars?

* I think he underplays the deceptiveness of forgeries. For many entries he makes statements such as "given the low value of this signature, skilled forgeries do not exist." I'm not sure what he considers truly skilled or deceptive, but he makes this statement for some people that are commonly faked. While the mass-produced fakes are not master forgeries, they are relatively deceptive to many collectors and even some dealers. Especially when he provides one or two signature examples, it doesn't provide much for the collector to compare against. By reading the book, one could easily come away with the perception that there are only deceptive forgeries for Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig and the most rare hall-of-famers.

*An extra section with prominent and valuable non-hall-of-famers such as Maris, Munson, etc. would have been nice.

*Throughout the narrative he is very critical of game used bat collecting. Essentially, he casts doubt on the veracity of most vintage game used bats and advises against collecting them because there is so much fraud. I can't help but wonder what the reaction from a game used collector would be.