How do I know if this ad is vintage?
 

I bought this on ebay many years ago, don't even know why. It was listed as a vintage advertisement, but now that I peruse these threads, I'm not sure. It has a blank back and the thick paper/ tagboard seems old. It's 11x17, and dates to 1951-2 based on the players. What should I be looking for to see if it's real or a repro?

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

I'm not familiar with these (though have seen them for sale), but if you have a decent microscope you can determine if the printing is consistent with the 1951 era. I've had people send me super close up photos of printing via email and I could tell. I know what type of printing was generally used for such an item at the time.

Another simple, though inconclusive, test would be a black light. A modern reprint would more likely fluoresce brightly. The test is inconclusive because they introduced the fluorescing paper chemicals before 1951, but much more likely that the 1951 paper wouldn't fluoresce brightly due to its old age and that they didn't as often use the chemicals in paper then.

These are believed to be authentic to the time period. There was a very large find of these (and many similar H & B Ad posters) about a decade ago. They are still pretty common, and at the time could be picked up very cheap.

Since the value is not high, it is probably not likely something that would be re-produced or faked. They are actually pretty neat, given the fact that they're reasonably priced (and original).

Real or repro it's a neat piece!!

Great looking piece but one has to wonder why they would show a Ferris Fain model bat instead of a Ted Williams model!! I mean if you have a huge star name why not use his bat as well.

About 5-6 years ago I bought several advertisements that came from this find. I was told this was a full set of what was found. They were all baseball signs similar to the one you posted. I assumed they were the real deal but never knew for sure. Very very reasonably priced IMHO.

Perhaps Fain was featured since he won back to back batting titles in '51 & '52