Chris, I'm not even going to try and moderate the fights between you two anymore, Chris. Chris, you give as good as you get as far as I can tell, Chris...is that okay with you, Chris? Chris, thanks for clarifying that you have not given H&S all of the info, Chris.

I am not sure what info there is to give to H&S. I have had the ticket/autograph in my possession for the past 20 years...

Just ignore the little man behind the curtain.

And good luck with the auction.

Thank you David

I don't want you to, Dan.

But at the same time, I don't want to hear crap from anyone for defending myself.

Seems like it's okay for Atkatz to insult me, but when I defend myself it's called "fueling the thread."

This coming from the same "collector" who wrote in the below thread "Nice pickup, the autograph book looks good."

Nice "eye," David.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...autograph+book

Maybe you should have done some "legwork" before you purchased that Fang-Penned "1927 NY Yankees" team-signed baseball.

Chris, try as I might, I just can't achieve perfection.

Can you tell us how you did it?

The difference I see is that you are playing Cloak & Dagger where nobody else is. Teaser threads with no payoff suck, and you're the master. If you don't want your feet held to the fire then don't play games. Which is what you're doing.....playing games. You're not educating. You started this thread and you've not said not one thing about why this signature is bad.

Mark Fimoff is our resident expert on baseball photography identification...when something is bad he tells us why, he goes step by step and shows us exactly why something is not right. He does a lot of legwork in doing this, and does not hold that as capital. He freely gives us this information to make this hobby a better one. You could do that too.

Edited to add: The auction houses don't always listen to him, but when he brings his concerns to Net54 and lays them out they amazingly change their tune.

As Jackson Browne famously wrote, "Don't confront me with my failures. I've not forgotten them."

Oh, to have lived a failure-free life, like yours, Chris.

Stop the insults. Period.

Or if you want to joust with me, I'm in.

What now? Are you channeling the Bruces?

Joust?

Why don't you challenge me to a duel?

You want to criticize me, David, that's fine.

The insults will stop.

Actually, David, I'd prefer we settle this in a 6X6 room, but even with my two hands tied behind my back, I'd be at an advantage.

I'm serious. Stop the insults.

Are you threatening, now? You are the new Bruces!

The consignor says that he's had it in his possession for 20 years and never had it authenticated. H&S had it authenticated for their auction. What information do you have that PSA rejected this?

Can we stop the pissing match and get back to the issue here. Why is this Ruth bad?

But it's nit bad, Dan.

th3re is no insults, we just want to know why you think its bad, the old "trust me" i am a secret agent, isnt cutting it.

And these aren't, David, as you posted ""Nice pickup, the autograph book looks good."


http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...autograph+book

There you go again!

You're gonna hafta do better than pointing out two mistakes I made, and freely own up to. You see, Chris, most everybody here--I daresay everybody here--has made mistakes. Mistakes they're well aware of. You're the only one who is never wrong--who has never, ever, been fooled.

It's hard to relate to such God-like perfection.

If you keep bringing up other's mistakes--the same mistakes--over, and over, and over, it's just gonna alienate folks.

Just a friendly little tip.

And in my opinion, and Spence's opinion, and the opinion of others here, the Ruth is good.

Dude, stop it...the issue at hand is this Ruth autograph, not anything either one of you said or did in the past.

You claim this Ruth sig is bad...you said it in your second post to this thread, why you didn't say it in your first is a mystery, but anyway. You also say that you think it was rejected by PSA...why do you think that? The consignor says it has not, is he a liar? Is he the mystery man from Michigan?

Dan I am many things, a liar isn't one of them. As I have said previously, I have had the ticket for twenty years and never attempted to get it authenticated before this auction. Any indication otherwise just is not true

For the record I don't believe you to be a liar. I would like Chris to answer my questions though. And I don't think that's too much to ask considering he started this thread.

Richard, did you ever send or hand your Babe Ruth Signed Ticket to Heritage for examination or possible consignment?

I spoke to Rob Rosen at the same time I spoke to Josh. I have an email (Dated 1/7/13)from Rob saying he would send me an info packet to put my item in the auction. I can forward you the email if you like. I did not go with Rob because of the $'s. But NO the ticket was never sent to him!

Thank you, Richard.

Hopefully, I will speak to Josh tomorrow.

Oh man this thread is fascinating. So many of the intricacies of this autograph board (and the current state of the hobby itself) are writ large.

Great stuff.

Blecch. I've only seen two of these autograph 'mystery' threads so far, but that's two too many - I'm surprised you all put up with it.

Later.

Scott,

It's like the car wreck that you can't keep from slowing down to look at.

I am not even sure why I am poking my head into this discussion, but from an observers prospective, or even a potential buyer I don't understand why if there is something that is clearly evident about why the autograph is or isn't authentic, in someones opinion, why that can't be clearly pointed out. It's not even necessary to go into detail about how or why one knows that, just what it is they see. There are some autographs that I know very well and when I see ones that either are or aren't authentic, I will readily offer up what I think is right or wrong about them, from my experience. I won't go into a diatribe about why the "n" in a mantle signature needs to be approached from a hoop downward prospective usually, etc...but I at least state what it is I like or don't like.

Stop, you're trying to make sense of this.
I agree with you.

It has been my observation that autograph experts will not go into detail because they believe this will give the forgers a heads up about what they are doing wrong. In the meantime the forgers keep on forging away. Also the experts are making money left and right either approving or disapproving of your autograph so it's really in their best interest to keep the forgers in business as well.

Also the experts are making money left and right either approving or disapproving of your autograph so it's really in their best interest to keep the forgers in business as well.

An oft missed point.

Above is my original post.

Of all of the auction houses out there, how did I know that it was Heritage that Richard contacted initially about consigning that Babe Ruth Signed Ticket?

Think about that.

When I first read that Sports Collectors Daily email about the Babe Ruth Signed Ticket, something wasn't right about that Babe Ruth. It was the same feeling I had when I looked at David's avatar of his "1927 NY Yankees" team-signed baseball.

I trust my "autograph eye" more than anything else. Some of you like to make fun of that, but except for one person here, everyone wrote "it looks good." Forgeries are meant to have the appearance of "looking good."

The following is not meant to inflame this thread, but why did David's eye think that the autographs in that autograph book "looked good?"

I immediately checked my exemplar files to examine that particular style sig. I have numerous exemplars (one of which I posted).

Then I started to do my research and posted this thread. I posted this thread earlier then I wanted to, but I felt I had to because the auction was live.

Then everyone got impatient. In the meantime, I continued to do my research on that Babe Ruth Signed Ticket. And still, everyone continued to be impatient.

Research takes time. A lot of time and work.

Scott Garner, commented on the ticket itself. A generic Tigers ticket that was stamped with a date of July 13, 1934 on the day that The Sultan Of Swat slammed his 700th career homerun?

What also piqued my curiosity about the ticket is did The Bambino sign it on a flat surface? The Huggins & Scott auction description reads:

Following that game, her and her father were at The Fisher Building in Detroit where Babe Ruth was doing a radio interview and the woman was sitting next to Ruth's wife. They got to talking and the woman asked if Ruth would sign the ticket stub from the game that she attended where he hit his 700th home run. He obliged the request. The woman held the ticket until 1992, where she gave it to our consignor, as a gift.

I will have more later.

Just for the record, I stand behind my thread 100%.

I contacted Heritage and H&S at the same time (I have emails to prove this). Mr. Rosen, after seeing an email of the ticket offered to send me a package to put the ticket in his auction (I have that email as well). After my conversations with H&S I felt more confortable with them simple as that. And just for the record I stand behind my story 100%.

Chris,

Thank you for the info.

Yet you posted that you knew already it was bad in your second post in the thread. You posted that while you were still doing research.

he just wants attention and to feel relevant, "i have some secret information, and no you can't have it". i dont know if the autograph is good or bad, but he believes it to be bad, the onus is on him to show people, its not for the other people to just believe him because he is a member of the secret order of the water buffalo, the secret agent stuff grows old.

if it were john l sullivan or bob fitzsimmons, i would show people right away just WHY it is bad, you don't need to do any more research than comparing it to known exemplars and passing it or failing it that way.

chris can't do that because i believe there is a dearth of experts on babe ruth that really know his signature.

Rob Rosen at Heritage is baberuthautographs.com maybe he knows babe ruth, he goes with jsa and psa opinions. And if PSA rejected it, let's get some proof of that.

i never saw williams credentials on babe ruth, cy young or any vintage baseball. let's put up that resume on vintage baseball. are you consultants with any auction house, any authentication outfit? It's more than fair to ask someone for his credentials.

I think that it would be extremely telling to compare the 1934 signed Babe Ruth ticket to other known exemplars from 1934 or very close to that time period.

Do any Babe Ruth checks, or letters (this may be wishful thinking) exist that could be used as exemplars where a date could be nailed down?

If the answer is yes, can someone please post these exemplars?
I would love to be able to do my own analysis just for grins...

Thanks!

is it fair to say if the tix is good, then the sig is good? and if one is bad, then the other is also bad? or can you have a good tix/bad sig scenario? the least likely is a good ruth sig on a bad tix.

I believe the ticket is bad and your post above is why i can't believe the signature is authentic.

Is the condition of the ticket the only reason you think it's bad? I have tickets from the 1940s with 4 sharp corners and no creases...tickets weren't flipped, traded, or put in bicycle spokes. This one was signed by the greatest ballplayer of all time...who wouldn't put that in a scrapbook or in a safe place? It's not like this stub was walking around in a wallet for 40 years.

Condition is one of the primariy reasons, mainly because of the story and who held the ticket. It wasn't held by a collector per se. The idea that this thing was placed directly into a case and put in a safe for 20 years is not believable to me.
That coupled with the info Scott has provided and other examples I have come across in the past...it just doesn't add up.

Sometimes you need to go with your gut and my gut is telling me no.

I would love to believe it's real and would love to see it be real, I just can't believe it.

I'm pretty sure that none of my ticket stubs in my collection were held by collectors...most of them (all of them?) came from people who went to the games, kept a few programs as mementos and stuck them inside the program that was put in a drawer, on a bookshelf or a box for 40+ years. Like I said, people aren't trading, flipping or organizing ticket stubs like they do ball cards. And I'm not so sure it's hard to believe someone would treasure a Babe Ruth autograph enough to keep it in good shape.

A ticket stub from 1947...nearly pristine, from the first ever Lincoln A's game.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1947opener.jpg

As far as it being an "emergency" ticket I'm not so sure that's hard to believe either. It was the middle of the Great Depression...ball clubs didn't print a ticket for every single seat. It's not hard to believe the Tigers thought they better print up a few extra tickets for the possibility that Ruth might hit his 700th homer while in town.

Couldn't he have gotten the 700 HR the day before? or 2 days before? or day after?

Dan,

I am relying on my own instinct. All I got for ya man...

I would guess they printed up emergency tickets for the series.

Dan,

Like I have said...I would love for it to be authentic just to know that one exists. I hope I am wrong.

But at the same time, the stub is now at $4k...knowing what you know/see/have read here, would you be comfortable buying it?

I have seen NOTHING in this thread that leads me to believe the autograph is not authentic. The ONLY thing we have is Chris saying that it is not good which leads to a domino effect of others who respect his opinion agreeing with it. He has not shared one shred of evidence that this is a forgery. He claims it is no good in his second post on this thread..the same day he started the thread yet later claims he is still doing research on it. He had no idea it was certed by JSA, and he seems to recall it being rejected by PSA (although I'm not sure how he can recall something like that unless he actually works at PSA...does PSA have public records of rejected autographs?). He apparently believes that Heritage rejected the autograph, the consignor disagrees with that assessment.

Why am I supposed to take Chris's word over JSA? If this was on ebay with the JSA letter would the EMR team boot it?

I know if I were the consignor I'd be pretty pissed off about this thread.

And, not a shred of evidence has been presented supporting the claim that the ticket itself is bad. Nothing but a "gut feeling" based on sharp corners.

Post #50 in this thread pictures an auction lot of (older) Detroit tickets, some overprinted, none representing an important game (so that the ticket would have been carefully preserved), and yet all are near mint, with sharp corners.

Ordinary ticket stubs from 1954...all sharp corners.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...stubsSmall.jpg