Need A Little Help Here - 3x5's and More

[akleinb611]

It isn't that I don't have a handle on Demeter; rather, I seem to have formed some kind of mental block! Lord only knows why...

A lot of these are entirely obvious once identified. I should have recognized Oldis, certainly, and Chandler is pretty obvious as well. I still don't know how I missed Gary Sutherland a few posts back.

So, that leaves only 86-7 and 86-8 as mysteries. Hopefully someone will chime in before tomorrow, so they don't get reposted in my final, farewell posting.

Thanks again for all the help!

Alan

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I don't blame you for missing Oldis. It wasn't instantaneous for me. The Oldis and Sain were a touch atypical due to a few different factors. With Oldis, I immediately saw the "Bob", but the B in Bob is scratchy due to a poor ballpoint, so not fully formed. The surname is messier than normal. It was Oldis' rather unique angle of writing that turned the light on in my head.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

86-7 is a messy, slightly atypical, very early Willie Davis. He changed his autograph numerous times, so you'd never know it was him if you were comparing to later examples.

It's hilarious how I figured this one out. It's the only one I had to use my exemplar files for, and we can be glad it came to that.

I was looking at the thing, and started to wonder if it may be a messy Willard Hunter. I'm just not used to Hunter ever being messy, but that's as close to a player's name as I could make out by staring at it. Hunter debuted with the 1962 Dodgers, so the first thing I did was pull up my 1962 Dodgers team-signed items. In scrolling through them, I found an autograph strikingly similar (especially the "W" in Willie and the "a" in Davis). Almost as messy as your cut in question. It took me a few seconds...it was Davis. It's not a style he employed very long or that is encountered very often, so no wonder I was thrown for a loop. Also, yours has an inconvenient pen skip in the D, making it indiscernable as that letter! How odd that my erroneously reading that scribble as possibly being one player ended up leading me to his teammate and the eventual solution!

[akleinb611]

You're right about Davis. Most striking was the signature he adopted not long before his death. It almost looks Japanese. I've never talked about this, but I got a by-mail return on a couple of photos where he not only signed them with that very distinctive and odd signature, but he scribbled all over the cardboard mailer and seemed to ramble on about something or other. I've wondered if he was suffering from some mental problems during that time.

Alan

[akleinb611]

Okay, with the dawning of a new day, I'm taking stock. I threw almost 190 illegible signatures at you guys over the last couple of weeks, and you generously identified all but 36 of them. That's a batting average of over 80%, good enough to qualify for any All Star team. And it's not as though you're getting paid any free agent money.

So, I'm re-posting the 36 signatures that have stubbornly resisted begin figured out. Maybe a second look will click with some of you. Maybe some of you have joined this thread late and haven't looked over the previous postings.

Once all is said and done, I hope that someone else will scan all of their mysterious autographs and throw them in our faces, hoping someone will unlock the key to their identity.

Again, many thanks.

Alan

[akleinb611]

And here's the next twelve of the stubborn mysteries:

[akleinb611]

And finally:

[dgo71]

#10 is Jeff Bailey, 2007-09 Red Sox
#17 appears to be Wally Bunker
#20 appears to be Terry Hughes, 70s Red Sox