Baseball thrown by Babe Ruth as a pitcher for the Red Sox

[oldjudge]

In nearly all cases you don't try to associate an autographed baseball with a particular game. I don't care when a Babe Ruth ball was signed, only that Ruth signed it. Here you are trying to associate this ball with a particular game, with no proof, as far as I can see, that the ball was there (except for the score and date). If this ball had come from the estate of a player in the game, with letters of provenance or pictures of the player holding the ball, then I think you would have something. How an authenticator would write an LOA on the ball, saying it was from a specific game, is beyond my understanding.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

In nearly all cases you don't try to associate an autographed baseball with a particular game. I don't care when a Babe Ruth ball was signed, only that Ruth signed it. Here you are trying to associate this ball with a particular game, with no proof, as far as I can see, that the ball was there (except for the score and date). If this ball had come from the estate of a player in the game, with letters of provenance or pictures of the player holding the ball, then I think you would have something. How an authenticator would write an LOA on the ball, saying it was from a specific game, is beyond my understanding.

MEARS stated on the LOA they based their findings on the inscription on the ball. That is their leap of faith. I don't collect these sort of things but understand leaps of faith. It seems like a fair debate with this ball....

edited to add, it looks like these type baseball can easily go for thousands of dollars. That is interesting.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

In nearly all cases you don't try to associate an autographed baseball with a particular game. I don't care when a Babe Ruth ball was signed, only that Ruth signed it. Here you are trying to associate this ball with a particular game, with no proof, as far as I can see, that the ball was there (except for the score and date). If this ball had come from the estate of a player in the game, with letters of provenance or pictures of the player holding the ball, then I think you would have something. How an authenticator would write an LOA on the ball, saying it was from a specific game, is beyond my understanding.

Jay, I understand what you are saying, but your not understanding the point on the autograph comparison. I didn't say tying it to agame, I'm saying they are authenticated in a similar fashion. I know I'm not comparing Apples to Apples with using the autograph example, but just similar in the sense that JSA/PSA/MEARS etc use their analysis to determine genuine or not.

Did you pull up the 5/6 examples of game used balls with no letters of provenance (hell can you trust those, maybe yes maybe no), what provenance did they all have? Game used balls from that period are not really faked, but I'm sure they could be like anything and everything in this hobby - autographs, broadsides, display pieces, trophy inscriptions, cards obviously, anything can be faked.

But again if you are a fan of game used balls or what have you and you know what to look for, as does MEARS, Heritage, etc. you can tell with, let's say 95% certainty, and that is good enough for me.

I like game used balls because they were part of the game itself unlike cards (and I know I'm in the minority on that), but to each their own, but I have seen and handled several over the years to be able to tell if genuine.......with 95% certainty that is, very small leap of faith for me, but yes perhaps a bigger leap of faith for someone not into game used balls.