That Babe Ruth guy again...

[shelly]

Bottom line. If there is the sliest doubt of it being good. Just stay the hell away from it.

By the way. I do agree with Brandon on the e. I have never seen that before.

[RichardSimon]

This one is interesting.
I will only say Brendan has pointed out a very obvious question in the signature.
I just went over every exemplar in my Ruth files and did not find one instance of that "be" combination written like that.
Whoever signed it lifted the pen at the end of the b and then placed an e there.
As Shelly has stated, this one is a pass.

[yanksfan09]

Boy, ....i appreciate everyone's responses so far.

I'm going to try and meet the owner soon and get some close up pictures myself , under some.good lighting hopefully. I thought maybe the be has the little loop, or hook on it that he does on a number of authentic examples. Maybe seeing some really close up pictures of that will help everyone see whatever is going on there more clearly.

Hopefully this week I can get some better pics.

Thanks all

[ATP]

Here's a Ruth example I pulled from a scrapbook several years ago, there were hundreds of autographs in it almost exclusively from the 1930's to early 1940's, but only a handful of sports related ones. Am going to try to see if I can find a better closeup on my old computer. It won't be easy to see in this image, but I am almost positive I made a mental note of it having a pen lift and not the loop on the b-e connection. If I find the closeup I will post that as well

[yanksfan09]

Thanks Jeff would love to see close up.

These are some more different "b-e" variations I found searching the web...

[ATP]

Originally Posted by ATP

Here's a Ruth example I pulled from a scrapbook several years ago, there were hundreds of autographs in it almost exclusively from the 1930's to early 1940's, but only a handful of sports related ones. Am going to try to see if I can find a better closeup on my old computer. It won't be easy to see in this image, but I am almost positive I made a mental note of it having a pen lift and not the loop on the b-e connection. If I find the closeup I will post that as well

Found the closeup...

[Lordstan]

I think the E in the OP's post may not be a stop and start, but a small loo. If you look at the other 2 I used in this photo you can see variations of the same formation. The end of the B end. He then reverses flow and makes a imperceptible loop that come back to start the top of the "e". Because the ends of the 2 letters are so close, the loop is hidden by the ink.

I put 3 similar b-e's together.
The top "e" shows the loop that I describe more clearly as there is more space between the ends of the B and E. The bottom 2 have the 2 letters so close that the loop is hidden.
Now I am not expert enough to opine on the entirety of the auto, but, IMO, the b-e is not as different as it might seem.

[David Atkatz]

Yeah. What I said. ;-)

[yanksfan09]

Originally Posted by shelly

Bottom line. If there is the sliest doubt of it being good. Just stay the hell away from it.

By the way. I do agree with Brandon on the e. I have never seen that before.

I generally live by this thinking as well. But it's tough to give the right advice to the owner when one like this presents itself in person to a close friends boss/coworker . I'd like to at least point him in the right direction.

This is a tough one.

Hopefully I can see it soon and shed more light on it.