I see someone is selling a bad 1949 Yankee Ring on ebay. Sadly, it looks like a family member from the original owner may have represented the ring as real.
The ebay seller is asking quite a bit of money for the ring and already has two offers.
Here is the ebay auction:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1949-NEW-YORK-YANKEES-WORLD-SERIES-CHAMPIONSHIP-RING-C-E-OLSEN-PERSONAL-RING-/120922178624?pt=Vintage_Sports_Memorabilia&hash=item1c27860440
The real 1949 Yankee rings have a very different style of engraving inside the ring and two sides from a real '49 ring are a completely different style than shown in the auction.
I do know that Balfour, in the 60 years since the original rings were made lost the molds and now reproduce the 1949 ring with the more common sides that we see on the Yankee rings from the 1950's. The ring offered on ebay has the style we see in the 1950's.
The first picture I have included is a player's 1949 ring with the proper and original shank. The second picture is the shank from the ebay auction. You can see how different the ring on ebay is from the original 1949 ring.
If anyone knows the seller, can you ask him to change the listing to explain it is a later reproduction and not original. Furthermore, Irv Learner, known to make many fake yankee rings, marks his ring, Balfour 14K, where the 14K almost runs into the Balfour word. I have never seen a real ring engraved in this way, just Irv's bogus rings that he tries to sell through auction houses and on ebay. This ring, has the same markings as Irv's rings and the engraved name is very different than the style we see used for engraving in the 1940's and 1950's.
Any help is getting ebay to delete or change the listing or getting the seller to make the changes would be appreceated and helpful to potential bidders.
thanks,