Identifying an Autograph

Founder of Keymancollectibles.com, and a long time collector, Steven KeyMan has more than 30 years of experience in researching, and cataloging information on Baseball Memorabilia. Researching his own personal collection, and helping others find information on their collectibles, the website grew into the largest online resource for baseball memorabilia

Ask Steven: Direct your questions or feedback, about Baseball Memorabilia to Steven KeyMan Steve@keymancollectibles.com You can also Send KeyMan pictures of your personal Memorabilia Display, and get your own Free Collectors Showcase Room featured on the website..

Help Identifing autographd baseball Sloppy signatures

	The number of collectors contacting me for help identifying autographs on a baseball has been progressively growing every year. Not all players back in the day had great handwriting skills but for the most part they were legible. You could at least figure out the first letter of both the first and last name or have an idea of the number of letters in each name. A large number of players today sign autographs that resemble a two year old's Crayon scribbling on a wall. There are some players that do take pride in signing a neat autograph, and for the amount of money ballplayers make today it's the least they could do to please the fans that support them. Especially players that sign autographs for money. In a sport where minimum wage is $507,500 a season and the average pay is $4.4 million, a player should take the time and sign a legible signature for the fan that has to pay $40. for the autograph. Any player that scribbles on a ball even for free, should be ashamed. It doesn't take that much time to learn good penmanship, or at least get to the point that it could resemble your name. It could be done during the off season. I left a cursive chart above for players that need to refine their signature. Here are some tips on identifying an autograph: When investigating the identity of the player that signed the autograph, it is most helpful to try and figure out the team first. A clue to the player's team could be the city where the item signed was found. Typically the player that signed the autograph would belong to a local team to that city. If there are other signatures on the item that can be positively identified, chances are the two players were on the same team. This of course is not always true but it is a good starting point. The year the item was signed would then be the next step in figuring out the identity of the autograph, so the rosters could be crossed checked. The rosters on the Baseball Almanac website is best to use as each player's stats page has an autograph sample. If you could date the item signed it could put you in the general era or year the team played. Again this is not always accurate as a player could have signed a baseball made 30 years after retirement. Although it has been suggested by one collector, that players should start printing their name on the opposite side of the baseball, some players do inscribe their uniform number with the autograph. This can be very useful as even if you can't figure out the team or year, you will find lists of uniform numbers for every player that ever played the game. Even if you could figure out the players Initials, this is a tough, and tedious time consuming task to find the player. Sometimes there is no other choice. If you can figure out the initials of the player or at least the first initial of the last name you could also find an alphabetical list of every player that played the game. Again, this is a tedious, time consuming task, because you have to do a separate search for each autograph online. Posting the autograph to online forums, and facebook groups might be the easiest way out, especially for the "Crayon Scribbling" autographs that could only be identified by a collector that knows the signature. You should also supply any information such as the City the autograph was found, Team or year, if known. I am complying a data base of autograph samples on the website that could prove to be useful but by only browsing through the limited number of popular autographs that are currently cataloged, luck will have to be on your side to find a match. Oh..... and by the way, the first baseball autograph at the top of the page belongs to Ichiro Suzuki.


	KEYMAN COLLECTIBLES RELATED RESOURCES

	KeyMan Collectibles Collectors Corner - Keep up with the latest collecting news, announcements, and articles of interest on the webs best resource for baseball memorabilia.
	KeyMan Collectibles Baseball Memorabilia Facebook Group - Post Questions and comments relating to Baseball Collectibles and Memorabilia. Interact with other collectors or show off your collection.
	KeyMan Collectibles Network54 Forum - A great option for those that "Don't do facebook" Post Questions and comments relating to Baseball Collectibles and Memorabilia