I received an e mail today , oh how they lie
 

I received an e mail today offering me a 1957 NY Giants signed ball.
As I always do, I asked for pictures of the ball.
I received a bunch of pictures including these three pictures.
I wrote to him after I got the pictures and explained to him that he has a souvenir ball, printed by a machine, which does not have a lot of value and that I would not be interested in it.
Here is his reply:
"okay. I have all letters of authenticity and factual proof. my great ant received it waiting in line to get it signed there's photo documentation of the experience, meeting and shaking hands with the players. but have a nice day."
Well, I asked him to send me a copy of a letter of authenticity and that was three hours ago.
I am still waiting for it.

Great ant? You can clearly see the signatures are printed on the ball. I wonder if he is confusing this ball with another?

I have, over the years, observed dozens of sellers listing souvenir baseballs as hand-signed autographs.

It is unbelievable that the aforementioned sellers have those souvenir baseballs in their hands and are unable to see what they really are.

How can Stu Miller sign over the laces and still make a perfect S? Obviously a souvenir ball.

I have had so many printed balls offered to me.
The current owner insists that a family member got the autographs 50 years ago. None of them ever confused the ball, none of them had a clue and many of them got mad at me for pointing out the obvious. A few did thank me for helping them but most are unhappy or angry but this jerk was the first to insist he had authenticity papers and photos of the signing. Like I said in the OP I am still waiting .

Maybe his aunt worked in a souvenir factory.:D
Drew

Aside from this seller's obvious lie (about having the documentation), there really are a lot of folks out there who can't tell the difference from a real signed ball versus a printed facsimile ball (surprisingly).

How right you are. A number of years ago I was having dinner for the holidays at a friends house and he asked me to come look at a baseball he had. He proceeded to tell me his uncle got it signed at a Brooklyn Dodger game. My first mistake was not saying "wow nice ball", instead I proceeded to tell him it was a souvenir facsimile ball and he got a bit miffed. I should have quit then but not me! I went home got the same ball as he had that I bought on ebay and showed him. Karma has whiplash, we never see much of each other these days and I know he still thought I was full of crap. Moral of story for next time:
WOW that is a GREAT BALL you lucky dog!

In these cases I have found that family members lie an awful lot.
Grandfathers and uncles are the biggest liars :).

I find most people will believe what they want to believe in their mind and heart no matter what the evidence is to the contrary. Most want to believe in their family rather than an outsider , and that is just human nature .

Ant?
 

Richard,

Too funny. Not sure why but it reminded me of this silly joke:


Why was the baby ant confused? Because all his uncles were ants.


I think this collector is also clearly confused! :)


Peace, Mike

But I won't completely put down facsimile signed balls.

To be honest, even though I have hundreds of authentically signed balls in my collection now (I hope they're authentic!), one of the most treasured ones I have is a facsimile Dodgers team ball from the '70s that I got as a kid at Dodger Stadium. It was probably my first baseball memorabilia item and even though I was 8 years old and knew the signatures were just printed on there, I would still spend a lot of time just staring at it as it gave me a special feeling looking at all the different signatures.

I guess those feelings stuck with me and now I'm addicted to spending too much money on signed balls. :(

Just the opposite in my house. My FIL doesn't believe a thing we tell him, his faith is in joe on the trolley