Autograph collection on E-Bay UK - Your thoughts?

wallpaperman · December 3, 2007 4:26AM

The baseball category is tiny on E-Bay UK, though you get the occassional interesting item, such as this :

Auto collection

A few interesting names, Mantle, Snider being the standouts for me. As the autos are on bits of paper stuck into an album, plus the fact that the seller appears not to have a clue, think the Mantle could be above board? Price of £2K is ridiculous, but he may be open to more sensible offers.

Anyone recognise any of the other names?

vintagetoppsguy · December 3, 2007 5:02AM

3 words: FAKE! FAKE! FAKE!

gocatsgo538 · December 3, 2007 5:18AM

No doubt a fake!! Why would those auto's be over there anyway???

jradke4 · December 3, 2007 5:32AM

well I and others have bought NFL autos from a ebayer over the pond. nearly all have come back from PSA/DNA as authentic autos. take that for what it means. i cant say anything for this seller as i have never dealt with him. but if you want you can get a psa/dna review done from the auction. they will tell you if it is likely fake or real, but they dont guarentee that when you send it in to them that they will authenticate it.

sonoranmonsoon · December 3, 2007 7:22AM

Nice little story, but I would never bite.

wallpaperman · December 3, 2007 7:30AM

<< <i>No doubt a fake!! Why would those auto's be over there anyway???

>>

People do travel, move about you know. Even across that big old Atlantic. I live in the UK and have thousands of baseball cards from 1970 and before - they're not fake!

The guy does seem to sell autograph collections from the comments. The one recent auction that was not private was for a collection of 60's pop stars which looked fairly genuine.

Surely there's a lot of signatures there that nobody would waste time faking?

stown · December 3, 2007 7:33AM

Some of the autos look legit but not worth $2K (IMO) because of the circumstances.

For example, I'm not a Munson expert but it looks pretty close to me.

For comparison:

MooseDog · December 3, 2007 7:56AM

There really isn't any reason to fake a lot of these names, some pages are all on the same team so they were probably gotten in person at a game. I'd hit it...

Here are the names:

Photo 1
Wes Covington
Tony Cuccinello
Charlie Grimm(?)
Mantle (also Photo 2 close up)

Page 3 Red Sox
Bill Renna (upside down)
Sam(my) White
Frank Sullivan
Marty Keough
David Boo Ferriss
Mike (Miguel) Forneiles
Leo Kiely

Page 4
Jack(ie) Jensen

Page 5
Minnie Minoso
Frank Torre
Thurman Munson

Page 6 Dodgers
Ed Roebuck
Duke Snider
Pee Wee Reese
Clem Labine
Walt Alston
???
Carl Furillo
Don Bessent
Roger Craig

Page 7
Dave Jolley (?)
Frank Malzone

The ball is a mess, but I recognize

Giambi
Jeter
Rivera
Torre
Soriano

Bigstep · December 3, 2007 8:03AM

I'm no autograph expert but those 2 Munsons don't even look close. The Thurman on one is 2 parts and all in one stroke on the other. I don't know which is real but they are not the same.

jimq112 · December 3, 2007 8:16AM

I have a 72 yankees ball, Thur man is broken up and so is Muns on.

It's a lot of money to spend on a maybe with no chance of a refund if something goes wrong.

BunchOBull · December 3, 2007 8:22AM

everyone gets wayyyyyy to caught up in autographs having to look identical to one another...

CDsNuts · December 3, 2007 8:31AM

Was someone walking around the Yankees clubhouse with a fountain pen and inkwell for two decades?

gocatsgo538 · December 3, 2007 8:33AM

<< <i>Was someone walking around the Yankees clubhouse with a fountain pen and inkwell for two decades? >>

Curious. Very Curious...

mtcards · December 3, 2007 8:42AM

I agree. Although, they could be real, they are all curiously alike in the kind of ink. Most curious is the capital "T" and "F" found in the autos, they are all almost identical, which would be next to impossible unless every one of the players went to the same Elementary school

vintagetoppsguy · December 3, 2007 8:49AM

I own a ton of Duke Snider autos and it was the first one that caught my eye. I can tell you that is not, nor ever has been anything even close to his signature. The Mickey Mantle has some characteristics of a later Mantle auto, but the seller says these are circa 1950's autos and Mantle's auto did not look like that in the '50s.

stown · December 3, 2007 8:53AM

The more I look, they/some could be legit:

Looks like Mick ran out of room, hence why it's squished up at the end.

Again, I'm not an expert; just my worthless $0.02

onlyanumber · December 3, 2007 9:42AM

Munson looks fake, Jensen looks fake. I've seen a lot of Jensen auto's, never seen one signed 'Jack". I'd pass. Just an icky feeling about those autos...

stevek · December 3, 2007 11:40AM

As phony as a British dollar.

Doesn't list shipping to the States anyway, although he might make an exception.

I'd offer him some phony European cricket player's autographs in trade.

stown · December 3, 2007 11:49AM

My diabolical plan isn't working.

Allen · December 3, 2007 11:57AM

That mantle is fake.

cravetopps · December 3, 2007 12:17PM

Every single one is fake. There is a silver lining though, after you buy them and find out they're fake, it seems like you can wallpaper your living room with them, wallpaperman.

baseballfanatic · December 3, 2007 12:18PM

Every scammer should take a note on this guys auction.
It is done to perfection.
Even after you submit the autos and they are turned down, you will STILL want to believe they are real.
Perfect mix of players.
Perfect mix of big names.
And just enough of a story to make you think maybe??
Anyone on this board of sports collectors have a "dear friend" that sent them a 2001 Yankees team autographed ball?

kidzfund · December 3, 2007 12:45PM

Don't do it - it's 2,000 british pounds, or about $3,000...

Joe

stevek · December 3, 2007 1:09PM

One thing ya gotta realize - there is a segment of the population out there, whatever the percentage is, who can look at an autograph and quickly sign, and make it look real. I guess good artists probably have this trait - looking at something and then their hand with a drawing utensil can duplicate it. I remember a guy in 5th grade, yes, 5th grade could take any autograph, look at it and sign, and it looked fairly close to genuine, and this was 5th grade - with some practice, this guy no doubt could probably fool anyone with his Mantle autograph.

wallpaperman · December 4, 2007 2:22AM

Thanks for all the replies, especially MooseDog for identifying all those names. No way would I pay anything like the silly price he's listed it at, would maybe offer £200.00 if a chance they were real. Interesting to read the conflicting opinions on the autographs.

I always enjoy reading the threads about the authenticity or not of autographs that often come up on here, and there are no doubt some real experts on the boards. While I understand that an autograph expert can be right 9 times out of ten, surely there is always the chance that, say, Mickey Mantle had a 'bad signing day' where the loops and other things are not following their usual pattern. Who can say whether his arm was nudged while signing an autograph - he's still going to finish the autograph, but it might not conform to the recognised Mantle pattern?

I'm just thinking out loud here, and I do remember reading of instances on either here or Beckett boards where someone has got an auto in person, probably many years ago, but it hasbeen rejected by the authenticator when they submitted it.

Anyhow, cheers again all.

wallpaperman · December 21, 2007 2:29AM

Footnote to this thread;

The guy relisted it last week at £250.00, down from £2000.00 and accepted an offer of just £89.00 (not from me!).

Autograph collection on E-Bay UK - Your thoughts?

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