Baseball Signature Authentication (1953 or 1954 Yankees? )
StatsGuy
Posts: 100 ✭✭✭
I have a baseball that contains signatures from an old New York Yankees team. Looking at some of the more obscure players (who didn't play more than a year or two with the club), it seems to be either 1953 or 1954. Yogi Berra's signature is "Larry" and Whitey Ford signed it Ed Ford or Edward Ford. My father won it at a Minor league game (grand prize raffle ticket drawn) when he was a teen. My question is, is there anywhere reputable to send it that doesn't cost $$$$$? Does it cost/per signature, or the whole ball?. And did they rubber stamp signatures back then? I know it would have been great if I had some paper with it.
Gretzky,Ripken, and Sandberg collection. Still trying to complete 1975 Topps baseball set from when I was a kid.
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Comments
Post some pictures - I have a souvenir ball from that same timeframe that is all stamped autos.
PSA will authenticate multi-signed balls - I think the price maxes out at $150 unless there’s a really valuable signature (Ruth, for example). They’re website has all the details.
Jim
If Yogi's name is 'signed' Larry, and Ford's 'signed' Ed...it's 95% chance a souvenir machine stamped baseball...Probably not worth much more than $25 or so (depending on condition).
As burghman suggested, post a photo on here.
IMF
I'll dig up the ball. I also read somewhere where Yogi Berra signed Yogi more than Larry after 1950.
Gretzky,Ripken, and Sandberg collection. Still trying to complete 1975 Topps baseball set from when I was a kid.
For what it's worth, here are some pics of the souvenir ball I mentioned earlier - it has both Larry Berra and Ed Ford.
Jim
Here are some pics. Tom Gorman's signature is on ball as well. He was an umpire during that era.
Gretzky,Ripken, and Sandberg collection. Still trying to complete 1975 Topps baseball set from when I was a kid.
Here are others.
Gretzky,Ripken, and Sandberg collection. Still trying to complete 1975 Topps baseball set from when I was a kid.
Thanks for sharing...
As suspected earlier this ball was unfortunately not hand signed by the players but rather is a stamped one that was sold at the souvenir stands.
The Yankees had a pitcher by the name of Tom Gorman during this time period as well.
IMF
Agree with the above post.
Really? What makes you guys think it's stamped? To my eyes it looks good but I would not call myself an expert by any means. I see the smudge on Charlie Silvera's auto and that's the sort of thing that lead me to believe it might be real.
Just an opinion, really, but I have the ball pictured above (not the links, but the embedded pics). A couple things stand out:
1) all use the same ink, same bland pressure, roughly the same size
2) orientation of autos - the real autographed balls I own(ed) typically don’t have autos shoehorned in at 90 degrees to the majority
3) some of the panels on the linked ball are pretty close to the ones I have - maybe 3-4 of the 6-7 autos are in the same spots. i guess they could have setup an assembly line with every using the same pen but that doesn’t seem likely.
4. When I first looked into mine to see if it was real or not, google and ebay were my friend. Many examples of souvenir 1950s Yankee balls that look nearly identical, while truly signed balls differ wildly
Again, just my opinion - I hope I’m wrong because the one I have would certainly be worth more if real.
Jim
It's 100% stamped.....perhaps this may help explain it:
http://keymancollectibles.com/keymanletter3.htm
IMF
Didn't a lot of teams have batboys sign balls for the players? Not nearly enough an expert to claim it was done in this case.
I'll toss in my opinion as well, as I have tried to educate dozens selling similar Dodger balls on ebay as real signatures. 100% stamped and easy to tell from even an image.