58 Yankees Souvenir ball

[timzcardz]

Originally Posted by vlg

Here is the one detailed photo that I was able to get so far. I had it in a program that allows you to compare signatures, so the top one is from a known stamped ball, a '56. (sorry for the delay, had to find a place to park images and time isn't what it used to be) They are obviously different, the question that I was trying to find out is, were different stamps used. I have checked some of the long running stamps, and they seem identical from year to year. First opinion that I had was that the ball had fraudulent signatures.




VLG

I believe that the bottom one is stamped as well, for the following reasons:

1. The signature starts out going smoothly across a stitching hole.

2. Is it likely that someone would sign a ball starting out the signature by going straight through a stitching hole? I would more likely expect to see it at the end of a signature if the signer ran out of space.

3. If it was signed going through the stitching hole, wouldn't the very nature of hitting the hole not yield a smooth signature but rather cause the signer's pen to jump or to restart? In this case it passes right over the hole, narrowed by the side of the hole with no apparent disturbance in flow.

4. I don't see that the signatures are "obviously different" as you stated. But don't take my word for it. Here are the two somewaht randomly cut and pieced together. They sure fit together like they are the same. (I did proportionately slightly increase the size of the "known Stamped ball" as the image was a little smaller.)

[RichardSimon]

Not to keep harping on this, but PUT UP pictures of the ball and the mystery will be solved.
Many of us here would be able to determine stamped or authentic in a quick flash.

[Heritage Sports]

While Richard is correct that more photos would be helpful, I don't see there being any doubt that this is a stamped ball based solely on that Whitey Ford autograph. I'd be willing to bet that if the ball were cleared of "autographs," it would be blank, correct? No manufacturer's stamping. Every stamped ball I've seen has no maker's marks, while conversely every hand signed ball does have them (perhaps there is a 1 in 10,000 exception, but I can't recall one). And I'm also assuming that the application of the signatures are much more regimented than hand signed balls, such as this 1958 example.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on these assumptions, but I see perhaps a dozen stamped balls a week here at Heritage and I feel like I can spot them from a mile away.

Again, let me stress the image below is a genuine hand signed ball, provided for the sake of comparison. I'm sure all of us will see how different it looks from the image provided by "thekingofclout" on 1/24.