Ruth and Gehrig help

[Leon]

I received these from a forum member who just registered. He was having issues uploading them so here ya go. Any help would be great. Thanks!

[Dubbymc]

Thanks Leon. Everyone this is my item.
I'm seeking expertise from those that may know Ruth and Gehrig signatures to share your opinion om whether these are authentic or not. Please let me know and thanks for your help.

[Bpm0014]

Ruth no good

[Dubbymc]

Thanks. Anything specific about this signature that makes you say this? Just curious to know.

[Bpm0014]

The b the e and the th are completely and totally off. The slant is also off. Especially in regard to the h in relation to the t. It has never in tens of thousands of his autographs ever slant more from one letter to the next. The a is surprisingly accurate. The an and the e are the 2 toughest letters in his name to replicate (in my humble opinion) with forgers almost never able to get those 2 correct. And the forger did a decent job with the a but a horrendous job with the e. For starters haha…

[Bpm0014]

So the more I look at this….

Rarely if ever does a Ruth autograph stump me. I can tell within a couple seconds if a Ruth autograph is good or not. I’ve studied it pretty extensively. However the more I look at this, the more it stumps me. A lot of the letters are rather atypical. However some are “decent”. I’m assuming this is a signed pennant. And I’m wondering if quite simply the pennant was a tough medium to sign. I’d like to hear the story behind this pennant. I’d also like to hear opinions on the Gehrig autograph. Because I believe if one is good, the other is good and vice versa. There’s just some weird things going on with this and I’d like to hear more on it..

[Kzoo]

Screen printed letters on old pennants, like these, would provide a 'bumpy' signing surface, so I would expect to see some irregularities.

[rand1com]

I would lean authentic on the piece but I would not purchase it unless it had a legitimate 3rd party cert. PSA/DNA nor JSA would authenticate this item unless they had a high degree of confidence. Otherwise, they would just reject or if on the fence give no opinion and refund the fee.

I liked the Ruth from the start although as pointed out there are some letter inconsistencies. I look at the autograph overall and have never nitpicked individual letters as I know my own autograph often has screwy looking letters. I'm pretty sure although Ruth and Gehrig tried to give very legible examples, they sometimes had some yips.

I like the Gehrig less than the Ruth but would not rule it out.

The experts would likely charge $500 or maybe more to look at it but obviously if authentic would be money well spent. By the same token, $500 into the wind in a failure position. It is a gamble in my mind of a coin flip.

Brendan and a few others here are probably as good on Ruth as the authentication companies so I hesitated to question him and hence the reason I kept my opinion to myself until he slightly acquiesced which allowed my opening.

[Dubbymc]

Thanks so very much for everyone's feedback. Yes this is a pennant with both signatures. It's not a regular size pennant, but one that I would estimate is about a third of the normal size. All I know about the history is that it was purchased by a dealer friend who I trust as part of a total collection. As a result he unfortunately doesn't know much about it other than what I have shared. It does have a COA from a company by the name of MDA Forensic Examiners, but I'm not familiar with them so don't know if they are reputable or not. Does anyone know about them? This may/may not add to the legitimacy of this or otherwise so please let me know. Any furthers thoughts are really appreciated. Hypothetically, if these signatures are authentic do you have any feel on what the value of a piece like this might be considering it has those of both players on it? Part of the reason I'm asking it that someone like JSA if they confirm that they are viable might make me go broke with the fee as my intention wouldn't be to sell it but to keep it. Thanks again for all of your help and input. The more the better.

[rand1com]

I seriously doubt it is authentic based on the authentication company. Unfortunately forensic document examiners are notorious for being wrong and are usually used to try and legitimize bad autographs.

Still, it could be authentic but just based on this information I would say 90/10 against.

Obviously, there are good forgers out there and forging on a medium like this helps cover up issues.

Brendan is likely 100% correct on the autographs being forged.

[Bpm0014]

This is the first Ruth autograph I've ever reallllly been torn on or flip flopped on. The "a" (although such a simple letter) is tough to replicate. And it is spot on. However there are other letters that are really off. Mainly the "h". What's tough to figure out is if it's simply a forgery....or was Ruth trying to fit his signature in the white/plastic area, and altered it a bit to make it fit.


I think the answers lies in: Is the Gehrig good?

And I definitely agree that there are forgers out there using this medium to cover up inconsistencies. That's so true.

[Kco]

Brendan is correct on Ruth.

The Gehrig is a close attempt, but is also not authentic. The letter formation while pretty accurate is deliberate. add that to the bleeding ink, and the over-pronunciation of certain elements of each letter itself, and while not amateurish in nature, it is not genuine.

Edited to add, the entirely of Gehrigs signature leans too far right here. he naturally has a rightward lean, but this is overemphasized in the pictured example.

[Dubbymc]

Thanks to all. This is great feedback. If you have any more please feel free to share, but based on everything that I have heard and unless one of you advise me otherwise I'm unfortunately leaning (no pun intended) towards passing on this. That's too bad because a piece like this with both of these great's signatures on it would have been epic to have. I'm feeling confident that those on this forum from what I have heard are probably as good (actually probably better) than those from an authentication company that I would pay to look at this for me. I struggle with these authentication companies because of their business model and incentive to pass these so that they can charge a high fee to collect when they do so. I also understand that if they do that the perceived value of this can escalate.

[Bpm0014]

One last observation. On the “b” the stroke coming back down…..about halfway down….you can observe the pen sort of stop and make an abrupt turn….rather then be a smooth curve.

That was pretty fun to dissect. Great job Kevin, Randy, and Matt!

[Kco]

Originally Posted by Dubbymc

Thanks to all. This is great feedback. If you have any more please feel free to share, but based on everything that I have heard and unless one of you advise me otherwise I'm unfortunately leaning (no pun intended) towards passing on this. That's too bad because a piece like this with both of these great's signatures on it would have been epic to have. I'm feeling confident that those on this forum from what I have heard are probably as good (actually probably better) than those from an authentication company that I would pay to look at this for me. I struggle with these authentication companies because of their business model and incentive to pass these so that they can charge a high fee to collect when they do so. I also understand that if they do that the perceived value of this can escalate.

One note on the fees, they actually don't have incentive to pass these. The fees charged for an item like this, would be charged regardless of if it ultimately passed or failed authentication. They will be paid whether they issue a Letter of Regret or a Letter of Authentication.

[JimStinson]

Originally Posted by rand1com

I seriously doubt it is authentic based on the authentication company. Unfortunately forensic document examiners are notorious for being wrong and are usually used to try and legitimize bad autographs.

Still, it could be authentic but just based on this information I would say 90/10 against.

Obviously, there are good forgers out there and forging on a medium like this helps cover up issues.

Brendan is likely 100% correct on the autographs being forged.

Agreed on the first paragraph which says a LOT (forensic examiners) and most if not all of the rest. On a cloth or abnormal surface there are going to be irregularities in the normal formation of the signatures making it tough for anyone to authenticate. So then IMHO the question comes down to provenance of which there appears to be none. If it's authentic or not who knows based on the above, I personally would not buy it. It's probably a cliche by now but with autographs "When in doubt bow out". If you already own it and have no plans to sell it, it will display nicely.
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