I'm an eBay troll and a die hard Los Angeles Ram fan and collector. I spend way too much time on eBay looking for cool and unusual things to buy. A few months back a guy had something pretty interesting....Some of you may remember as I started a thread about it back then:
A hat given to famed Santa Clara/Los Angeles Ram/San Francisco 49er trainer Henry Schmidt...Signed by too many Rams to mention but Norm Van Brocklin, Tom Fears, Tom Dahms and Deacon Dan Towler to name a few. There were many other NFL and non-football dignitaries on there as well. So many that I naturally questioned if these could be original signatures. The hat above was one of three this seller had from the Henry Schmidt estate. I bought two of them. Marc (Bocca001), Net54 member and Santa Clara collector, bought the third. Real or not, I thought these were too cool to pass up. Since then I've wondered how to go about authenticating...was it possible...what it would cost...and did I really want to.
Well...Fast forward to about a month ago. I'm trolling for pennants on eBay and I find a guy selling an old Rams pennant. I shoot him a message to see if he has any others...turns out he does...He's a pennant collector too and also a die hard Rams fan. We quickly become pen pals via Ebay's messaging system. We've since graduated to exchanging phone numbers and letters in the mail. He's quickly become a very good friend.
What an interesting guy...former baseball writer (Baseball Digest and Sports Collectors Digest)...published author...and amazingly enough, he was friends with Norm Van Brocklin and he spent quite a bit of time hanging with the Rams greats of the 1950's and 60s.
So we're both very interested to see each others collections and exchange pictures. After showing him most of my pride and joy...and finding out he lives about three hours from Santa Clara...I ask if he's heard of Henry Schmidt...to which he replies of course. I proceed to tell him about my Schmidt hats and he asks if I can send pictures...which I do.
Then today in the mail I receive this from him:
That's Norm Van Brocklin, Tom Fears, Tom Dahms and Deacon Dan Towler presenting a signed ball and hat to Henry Schmidt. Now I'd love to say that the hat Van Brocklin is signing is one of the ones I own. It's definitely the same style of hat, but I can't match up the signatures. I have no idea how often these hats were presented to Henry Schmidt, apparently at least three times...but regardless, what a great addition to my collection and probably all of the authentication I'll need to put to rest whether these signatures are real or not.
For Marc...Is that yours in his hand?