Williams look good

[yanks12025]

Does this look ok, thinking of buying it.

[GrayGhost]

Originally Posted by yanks12025

Does this look ok, thinking of buying it.

I don't like it at all from the connection from the D to W, to the "T" to the way the s trails at the end. Plus, the slant looks bad. Im just a schmo, but I wouldn't touch it

[RichardSimon]

There are so many things wrong with it I don't have the time to write them all here.
It is just plain fugly.

[Tigerden]

No good and a really bad one at that. IMO- It looks slowly written and like Richard posted, fugly. Ted had a great signature, very fluid and written neatly but with quick strokes. The fakes seem to be easily recognized as opposed to other signatures and look to be written slow and a little off shape or fast and sloppy. This one is both slow and sloppy.

[RichardSimon]

Ted gave this to me personally, near his home in Florida, at his agents card store. An excellent exemplar of his great autograph.

[balltrash]

Long time lurker here but I seldom post. For what it is worth, I would feel more than confident that this is real. Very typical of his later in life signature style, after his first stroke. Further, it is the image of him meeting Babe Ruth and if I were a gambling man, I would lay good money on there being a Green Diamond hologram in the lower right corner. Many/most of these images were likely done at one sitting as the overwhelming majority bear signatures which are admittedly slightly a-typical but are themselves quite similar. I list some example links below:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beautiful-TE...#ht_500wt_1050

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TED-WILLIAMS...ht_2517wt_1263

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ted-Williams...#ht_500wt_1284

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BABE-RUTH-ME...#ht_500wt_1284

[chaddurbin]

if authentic those are some of the ugliest ted sigs i've seen.

Originally Posted by balltrash

Long time lurker here but I seldom post. For what it is worth, I would feel more than confident that this is real. Very typical of his later in life signature style, after his first stroke. Further, it is the image of him meeting Babe Ruth and if I were a gambling man, I would lay good money on there being a Green Diamond hologram in the lower right corner. Many/most of these images were likely done at one sitting as the overwhelming majority bear signatures which are admittedly slightly a-typical but are themselves quite similar. I list some example links below:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beautiful-TE...#ht_500wt_1050

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TED-WILLIAMS...ht_2517wt_1263

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ted-Williams...#ht_500wt_1284

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BABE-RUTH-ME...#ht_500wt_1284

[GrayGhost]

I had not heard of the stroke version before either. Plus, I also was not aware that Ted's Green Diamond was perfect. Wasn't his son in that , or running it? I thought there was some controversy there, maybe not.

They just look awful to me, but again, Im FAR from an expert

[RichardSimon]

Ted's son was heavily involved in Green Diamond and rumors have always been out there about what his son did or did not do for the company.
Are these photos of Ted and Babe always up on ebay in quantity?

[whitehse]

Authentic or not I would NOT want those autographs as there are too many examples of quality, authentic autographs out there to choose from. Ted's autograph is one of the most beautiful in the hobby. To compromise and buy one of these examples would be wrong in my opinion.

[ss]

IMO, so many of the "later in life" were signed by his son. Stick with the real stuff, like the example Richard showed you.

[RichardSimon]

Speaking ill of the dead is not considered PC but John Henry Williams was not a good son according to most stories I have heard. From what he did to his dad to what he did with a sharpie and pen, the stories are out there of his bad behavior.
And much Green Diamond stuff that I have seen reinforces those stories.
btw - that signed photo, he signed others for me also, was after I spent over an hour with him, one on one, in his agents card store as he regaled me with many baseball stories. It was truly one of the most exciting 60+ minutes of my life.
I know there are stories out there about his ill tempered behavior but he was great to me and the time I spent with him is a memory I will always treasure.
And as a bonus to my meeting Ted,,, his agent was also the agent for Monte Irvin. I met Irvin and spent most of the day with him, going to lunch and dinner with him and then back to the hotel. He was a gentleman and told this former NY Giants fan many, many stories. He also signed about 20 wire photos I had of him and told me the story about every one of them.

[RichardSimon]

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/.../2006/610.html

[mcgwirecom]

Ted used to have a website, or maybe he still does, hitter.com I won a contest back in 1997 and won this personalized signed photo. Not saying one way or another but just giving you a date of August 1997 on the letter from John Henry

[barrysloate]

Richard- interesting link regarding the forged John Henry Williams signatures that REA sold. Which leads to a question: since Ted Williams' son died, what is the status of Ted's body? Is it still cryogenically frozen? I hope that it's not, and that ultimately it was cremated as per his wishes. But I bet there might be a complicated legal issue with it.

[RichardSimon]

Good question Barry, since I have not seen any news about it, and you have not either, I would assume it might still be frozen.

[thecatspajamas]

Isn't it just his head that they had frozen?

Just did a quick google search to see if I was imagining things, and turned up this disturbing blurb:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009...ion-foundation

"Workers at an Arizona cryonics facility mutilated the frozen head of baseball legend Ted Williams - even using it for a bizarre batting practice, a new tell-all book claims.

In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former exec at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., graphically describes how The Splendid Splinter" was beheaded, his head frozen and repeatedly abused.

The book, out Tuesday from Vanguard Press, tells how Williams' corpse became "Alcorian A-1949" at the facility, where bodies are kept suspended in liquid nitrogen in case future generations learn how to revive them."

[barrysloate]

That's gruesome.

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by RichardSimon

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/.../2006/610.html

The John Henry Williams' forgeries depicted in this lot are obvious, slow choppy fakes. Not sure they would fool anyone and they are not close to the Green Diamond signatures I have seen. The Green Diamonds tend to be sloppy, but they have flow and were signed quickly from what I have seen. I always attributed it to the fact that they were signed later in life. Comparing a Green Diamond to Richard's beautifully signed inscribed photo, which was signed by a younger healthier Williams, is not a like comparison.

I think we have to be careful not to unjustly taint Green Diamond items based on John Henry Williams' bragging. If they are fake, they should be outed and destroyed. However, it should be done on solid evidence, not because of suspicions based on the fact that John Henry was an unsavory character.

[Mr. Zipper]

A Green Diamond signature close-up.

Thoughts?

[GrayGhost]

I don't like that one either. Maybe Im paranoid, but compared to Richard's and other genuine ones Ive seen , looks lousy.