Ron Keurajian's Book - Issues/Disagreements?

[Mr. Zipper]

I like the book and have found it to be very informative. A few thoughts:

* The first few sections on general autograph analysis were quite good. While it didn't tell me much I already didn't know, it's nice to see something like that collected in one place.

* Illustrations of common fakes and secretarials are lacking. He often mentions fakes and secretarials in the narrative, but does not provide many examples. For instance, no Willie Mays secretarial example? No Marino exemplars?

* I think he underplays the deceptiveness of forgeries. For many entries he makes statements such as "given the low value of this signature, skilled forgeries do not exist." I'm not sure what he considers truly skilled or deceptive, but he makes this statement for some people that are commonly faked. While the mass-produced fakes are not master forgeries, they are relatively deceptive to many collectors and even some dealers. Especially when he provides one or two signature examples, it doesn't provide much for the collector to compare against. By reading the book, one could easily come away with the perception that there are only deceptive forgeries for Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig and the most rare hall-of-famers.

*An extra section with prominent and valuable non-hall-of-famers such as Maris, Munson, etc. would have been nice.

*Throughout the narrative he is very critical of game used bat collecting. Essentially, he casts doubt on the veracity of most vintage game used bats and advises against collecting them because there is so much fraud. I can't help but wonder what the reaction from a game used collector would be.