11 January 2010

Has the greatest pull of 2010 already happened?


It looks like the best possible card that was still in a box somewhere has been pulled:



That's a 1/1 dual cut, 6x game used swatch card of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, from 2009 Topps Triple threads. Pretty. Freakin'. Amazing. It has been estimated it could sell for $15-20,000 at auction.

There is only one problem though. Based on many, many other cut autos, the Babe Ruth seems way off. The guys over on FCB noticed this first and it seems like the biggest card of the year (or of 2009, whatever), could also be the biggest counterfeit card of the year as well.

A few other examples of Ruth's signature:






Those are just two examples of authentic Babe Ruth signatures.

Notice the biggest differences are in how the "Babe" was signed. In the two definite real autographs, the b has a definite loop, while in the TTT, it does not. Also, the e has three like lines...like a capitalised lower e, whereas in the TTT the e has a more modern look...like how an e looks like when typed. In the "Ruth" part, you may note that the u is farther away from the R in the TTT, as well as the R has a much bigger gap between the curve and the straightness of the letter.

Does that make it a definite fake or forgery? No. But it does raise some questions.

Two more to ponder:





What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. weird...it certainly looks different to me! How much would that suck for the guy who pulled it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The card has been returned to the ebay auction with additional comments and documentation.

    ReplyDelete