Signed T206 Green Cobb (Heritage)
 

Alas, another beauty I will never own, and already at $52,500 and climbing, well over $10,000 more than any signed T206 card has ever sold for previously.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1d140e9d_b.jpg

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball/s...mbnail-071515*

This one originally came to market in a 2002 Hunt Auction, nearly 20 years ago, here:

https://www.huntauctions.com/live/im...664&lot_qual=a

And we even (sort of) had a conversation about it 10 years ago on Net54:

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?p=836406

The auction listing says this is "the only example known!" But there are a few out there in hobby land, including this one from Jeff Morey’s collection:

https://live.staticflickr.com/4902/3...8d55b2ca_o.jpg

Maybe one day prices will come back down to Earth, but I said the same thing 10 years ago, and I am starting to run out of decades to keep waiting...:confused:

The T in Ty looks weird to me, it almost looks like a very dark check mark.....I don't buy this as legit at all.....Pen pressure should not be that drastic...Is it traced?

i'd imagine ink pens might spurt heavier upon first pressing onto the card...creating the irregular looking T. Looks good to me.

Must've been elsewhere that I posted my thoughts, but I agree the stem of the T is at LEAST Cobb retracing the letter after he was done, with fresh ink. You can see something underneath that bold heavy pressure mark that doesn't match anything else in the signature. It certainly makes me curious at the very least. I also can't imagine selling it without at least discussing that oddity. Aren't we supposed to be done pretending the word of the 3rd party is sufficient? If you really want to go in depth, from everything I've seen his stem normally leans right to left coming down from the top, and this heavy mark is straight up and down, but I can see a leaning stem in a much more appropriate pressure line to the left of the heavy one. I think this one part of the autograph is a retrace. Again it could have been Cobb himself for some reason. I just hate not acknowledging such a strange characteristic. Heritage appears more interested in blaming concussions for Lou Gehrig's amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Mickey Mantle's drinking in the description than, well, describing the item.

I have been advised by people that I very much trust that the card and the auto is 100% authentic.

That said, I just flat out don’t trust PSA - they can’t catch easy alterations, how can they be expected to authenticate the autograph of a guy dead almost 60 years. Maybe this auto is good - I have no idea and I have been advised it is. But I think it being in a PSA flip is more of a liability than a comfort. F!@# PSA

I think I saw somewhere that this was one of the ones that Keurajian said was authentic.

I think it's great that people enjoy collecting things, but I've never understood collecting high-end autographs. It seems that, unless there is bullet-proof provenance, there's always a debate as to whether it's real.

At least with midrange cards, there usually is never any lingering question as to whether the thing is real. Altered, perhaps, but genuineness isn't too difficult to ascertain. With autographs, the best you usually get is some consensus opinion, where maybe 90% of people are, on average, 80% confident it's real.

But nobody really knows for sure.

Guess the skepticism has passed. To each their own but I'd never buy a signed T206 again.

If you want to drop 100k on a green cobb (or whatever this one closes at) you can get maybe a nice 7 that's probably been trimmed or cleaned at some point or a signed card that most seem to think is legit but may be faked. I would take the signed card for the money.

I agree that the auto is authentic, but the stem on the "T" looks to be re-traced. That particular ink is far thicker and bolder than the remainder of the signature.

Also, you can see what appears to be the original base of the "T" just to the left of the bolder/darker stem. The more faint line to the left looks to be the original stem of the "T".

Now whether it was Cobb or someone else who traced it over is anyone's guess. But most importantly, there should definitely be a disclaimer in the description which brings this obvious anomaly to light.

You managed to say it more succinctly than me but this is exactly how I feel about it! If you read all of my post I get all these points in there somewhere.

You are spot on!

I hadn't read your post, and went straight to giving my take after I saw the initial post. Now that I see what you wrote, all of the same points of concern are indeed there.

Bottom line.... far more disclosure is needed for this obvious anomaly. Both by PSA and Heritage... especially given the price someone is about to pay!

No way in Hell would I risk this kind of money for this piece.....I have had a bunch of Cobb's over the years, but this one just doesn't look right to me...

I'm in the camp that it's authentic as well. Beautiful item.

Paul - there are always second and third mortgages. It belongs in the collection!

Just curious, how many had you bought previously?

It certainly would fit nicely in that empty slot in my signed T206 collection, but I’m gonna pass. If only more people thought it was fake, retraced, ugly, . . .

Paul... this is your wheelhouse. What do you think? Of course almost anyone would kill to own this piece, and it would certainly be the centerpiece of any signed baseball card collection.

But do you think the base of the "T" is part of the original autograph, or is it likely re-traced? And if it's re-traced, do you think Cobb or perhaps someone else did it?

I think its 50/50... could've been Cobb correcting a weak ink-flow or pen skip, or it could've been a former owner just making that portion bolder after the fact. Eager to hear your thoughts on this one.

Obviously a very cool piece...but if I'm spending that kind of money, I just can't get excited about autographs that are faded or light, sorry. I want them as bold as possible.

It’s not retraced. Look at the second apostrophe in the little quote marks he made in the flourish or paraph after his signature. It’s just as dark as the stick in the T. To me it’s a normal fountain pen signature, and the ink flow, uneven pressure, and perhaps even some fading over time caused the stark discrepancy in tone.

I've owned three in my time. A Doyle with bat, a Lefty Leifield pitching, and a George McBride. Sold them all before the scandal. Not interested in getting them back (though not because I believe they weren't authentic, just happy to be out of that realm).

So then how do you account for the other (nearly parallel and more faint) vertical line beside the dark stem of the T?

If it was tracing it would be on top of itself. Could be anything from an initial attempt at a T to a stray line of ink. I don’t know what the smoosh above the paraph is either.