Signature Check

Hopefully, your sports memorabilia collectable will come from a legitimate dealer like Steinway or Upper Deck. These companies sign exclusive contracts with athletes and diligently document signing sessions to prove authenticity. But what if you’re at a flee market and a little white haired lady is offering a crazy deal on an old yellow photo that happens to be signed by Sugar Ray Leonard. Is she senile? Or is she running a racket? These tips on checking out autographs might not help you get a 100% positive ID, but memorize them and you should be savvy enough to weed out the obvious frauds.

  1. Beware of the Autopen.

Autopen is the name of the machine brand. It uses a pre-programmed pattern matrix—a real, sample signature—to uses a mechanical arm with a writing implement to sign hundreds or even thousands of items. It’s usually used for glossy publicity photos or letters and it is compatible with any type of pen. Some athletes will switch pen types mid-way through a run to make the signatures look more unique. Look closely at the letters. If the signature looks “wobbly,” like the writing surface was vibrating, it was probably made by an autopen. Also, the machine often starts and stops abruptly. Sing your own name and notice how the signature trails off. Autopen signatures are prone to ending in dots or just breaking off, like the pen was pressed down or just abruptly lifted off the page. Also, no two autographs are ever exactly the same. The odds are slim that you’ll have a chance to compare, but if your local flee market dealer has two Jordan photos hanging on the wrack and the signatures are identical in every stroke, the odds are they’re both fake.

  1. Crude Rubber Stamps

These are usually pretty easy to catch. Rubber stamps are relatively obsolete these days, but they were prevalent up through the 1970’s. Look for clotted or “pooled-up” ink. Also, telltale bleeding and smudging often occurs, especially if it was stamped quickly.

  1. Preprints

Preprints are also easy to catch. Make the dealer let you see the item and hold it up to the light. “Preprint” is just a fancy way to say, “color copy” or “color print-out.” The signature will be flat, and will appear “part” of the photo, rather than layered on top of it. If it’s a glossy picture, it will be layered under the gloss. Preprints are getting more sophisticated though, so look out.

  1. Outright forgeries

These are the most difficult to detect. People spend years becoming experts on one athletes signature. Before dropping any significant amounts of cash on an undocumented autograph, you owe it to yourself to check it against an authentic signature. People never sign the same, but they will usually be relatively consistent. If Mark McGwire always gets carried away with his G’s, it’s pretty suspicious if he manages to control that loop. Also, look and for small dots in the middle of the autograph, as if someone tracing it had stopped in the middle. Check for anachronisms. A letter signed by Babe Ruth in 1950 won’t be printed on laser paper. Sounds obvious to us, but you’d be surprised.

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