Seeking help on unique Knoblauch bat

[mattjc1983]

Hola, wondering if anyone would share some advice on a Knoblauch-autographed bat (allegedly); Knoblauch is obscure enough to today's average fan that there really isn't a good place to ask this but we have enough expertise on here that maybe I'll get lucky (or maybe someone has even seen this bat before!).

I grew up an absolutely huge Knoblauch fan and as an adult I (like many of you I'm sure) have been able to pick up things that were a pipe dream as a kid, like Knoblauch autographed balls and his 1992 Score buyback auto. The one thing that has always eluded me is a signed bat. I've had eBay saved searches for years and it simply appears that Knoblauch didn't sign a ton of bats, and those that he did are Yankee logoed, of questionable authenticity, or only available at exorbitant prices from places like Steiner Sports.

On Sunday, I grabbed the pictured bat via buy-it-now on eBay. The price was low enough (~$55) that I was comfortable with the risk, but I'm skeptical re: its authenticity for several reasons:

• I've collected autographs for a long time and I've seen very few items with as long and neatly printed an inscription as the ROY inscription on this bat. Even if the signature is actually Chuck, I'm wondering if the inscription is not. But what would be the point of adding an inscription to an autographed item that isn't inscribed by the player themselves? That would actually devalue an item in my mind.
• A person wanting to fake Knoblauch's signature had a convenient example etched on the barrel just 6 inches away, and the written signature, while pretty close to his actual signature, is suspiciously almost an exact copy of the etched signature.
• The numbering says this is 392/500, but I've literally only seen one other bat like this come on eBay in all my years of saved searches. If there were really 500 of these made, I suspect I would have seen more over the years.
• The seller has no provenance at all and says it was in a storage locker.

The few things giving me confidence are:

• This is a pretty fancy bat, indicating that maybe it was a corporate giveaway of some sort? I'm skeptical that someone wanting to fake a signature (especially of someone as inconsequential as Knoblauch) would spend the kind of money it probably cost for each of these bats, as opposed to just getting generic bats from a box store. On the other hand, Knoblauch was a ROY, so in the early 90's faking something like this may have been fairly lucrative.
• The signature does look pretty close, even with the skepticism noted above.
• The bat was found in a storage locker in League City, Texas, which is only 30 minutes from Chuck's hometown of Houston. So if it was some kind of a corporate giveaway, it'd probably be done in that area.

Don't know if there are any fellow Twins fans here that might have an opinion? Thanks in advance.