My Arnie Herber Mystery
 

Long time lurker, first time poster. I'd like to get this mystery cleared up for me if any of you have an insight.

I was a dorky kid and collected both baseball football Hall of Fame autographs in the early 70s. I had a football autograph address list, and used that to send for TTM autographs. This would be about 1972 IIRC. Anyhew, one guy I sent a letter to was Arnie Herber. I was blissfully unaware that he'd passed on in 1969. So when I got several 3x5 cards back, signed in green ink, I didn't think anything of it.

Recently I started collecting again and have been looking at my Herber autographs. They're all signed in green ink, both felt pen and ball-point and I have six of them. They all similar to the style of the one in the photo that I've attached which I found on the internet.

So my question is -- are these really Arnie or his wife or another family member's signature? Or did someone keep a cache of 3x5 cards signed by him so they could be distributed this way after his death? I guess that's possible although strange.

Opinions anyone?

Well no responses. I guess this is standard TTM activity then -- deceased people sending 3x5 autos TTM.

Really there are only two possibilities:

1) Cache of 3x5 cards saved by wife/family and used for TTM requestors
for x number of years after his death
2) or just about every Arnie Herber auto you've ever seen is a forgery

A signed check from 1965-68 would probably clear this mystery up.

Anyone have one to post?

JimStinson
 

I don't know if this is relative or not but since no one is posting I'll add my two bits , Yours does match others that have been offered for sale even to the color of the ink.
That being said his vintage signatures are very different from those generally accepted as "later in life" signatures. Maybe he signed a stack of 100 index cards one day when he was sitting around. Back in those days the football Hall of Famers were not being deluged with autograph requests so 100 would have went a long way. Or maybe someone else was signing for him all along

It may be relative to an old baseball player (can;t remember his name) but some hobby vets might be able to help here , anyway.... Through the mail requests were answered promptly until someone discovered he HAD BEEN DEAD FOR 10 YEARS , Turns out the wife had been signing for him all along before he died and figured why let something as insignificant as his dying stop her from doing what I guess she must have liked to do.

Not sure if this solves the mystery for you or only makes it more complicated
______________________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

Jim -- thanks for the response.

I'm really hoping that what I have is six autographs signed by Arnie. Three were acquired by me and three others by a childhood friend who used the same address list and subsequently traded them to me for what I can't remember.

Looking at them now -- it is really odd that five are in felt pen and one is ball-point. This kinda makes me think that they were pulled from a cache that had already been signed, but I'd still love to see what his real signature pre-1969 actually looks like before I pay to have them authenticated.

Arnie's autograph is somewhat valuable, comparable to other football hall of famers that I have in my collection,
otherwise this issue might not seem so interesting to me. I've seen a Herber 3x5 sell for as much as $400 on eBAY in the last 15 years, so having six of them is kinda nice.

The five Herbers that I recently sent to PSA/DNA were deemed authentic.

I guess this closes the case and the answer appears to be that evidently a cache of signed 3x5 cards were kept at the Herber household and distributed after his death.