I have a ball autographed by 13 HOF players including among others Mickey Mantle and Yaz. I'm 95% sure on this because I know the story where it came from. A woman inherited the collection of her brother and he had quite a collection. I can't imagine anyone keeping all the stuff he had without him knowing it was authentic. I know how he came across the autographs too. I live close to Cincinnati and the guy was a big Reds fan. He went to off season events where players, who didn't make the big bucks at the time, were looking to make extra cash in the off season and they went around to various big league towns and did autographs. I've been over all of these autographs and though some aren't perfect they show almost every sign of being real. It would take a master forger to complete the collection this ball came from. And the guy didn't even try to get his stuff authenticated and he didn't try to sell it. That meant he knew it was legit and he had no reason to fake anything because he was keeping it anyway. He would have had to meet literally hundreds of truly gifted forgers to conjure up a collection like this.
So anyway I'm working my way through the process. I have a number of photos of the HOF ball (as I call it) that are on my web site. If you go to my site you can see the balls in great detail. The site allows you to zoom in close on the ball and get a really good view of the autographs. I tried to post a sample here but the photos are too big. I can resize one and post it here if anyone wants.
I'd really like opinions on the validity of these autographs. I don't really want to spend the money to authenticate this ball if it looks fake. I'm not a wealthy person. I don't want to end up with more money in the ball than it's worth. I'm not even sure I want to sell it. Again I'm just working through the process.
So anyway here are my photos. I appreciate any help I can get.
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball6.JPG
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball1.JPG
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball2.JPG
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball3.JPG
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball7.JPG
http://www.a-framevideo.com/bball10.JPG
For what it's worth here's a listing of who's autograph appears in these photos. It took me a long while to figure some of them out. I sure didn't know Willie Stargell signed his name "Wilver Stargell".
1 Whitey Ford & Carl Yastrzemski
2 Juan Marichal, Eddie Mathews, Gaylord Perry, & Brooks Robinson
3 league stuff
6 Mickey Mantle & Warren Spahn
7 Brooks Robinson & Ernie Banks
10 Harmon Killebrew, Willie Stargell, Luke Appling & Tony Perez
And yes Brooks Robinson signed it twice. That's another thing that makes me think it's real. What forger would put 2 of the same autographs on a ball? He might be super crazy clever like you see on tv I guess.
BTW of course my next questions will be about the value of the ball as long as it's all legit.