posted 03-05-2011 01:24 AM               

I was watching the original listing as I recently and without intention acquired a similar piece (gifted as an extra with the purchase of another item) and I wanted to see how much it would sell for.

I was fairly certain that someone must have contacted the seller and told him the signatures were autopens and so I compared to Spain's autopen guide. While the signatures closely match Crippen's known autopen and Young's "pattern 3" I believed there were enough differences to rule out those patterns but I don't have enough experience to know for sure (my eyes are certainly fine but I don't know the extent by which there can be minor differences and yet still be that particular autopen pattern). I can say the same for the piece that was gifted to me which was apparently hand-signed for a currently retired NASA employee (35 yrs at the KSC) who had close contact with many of the astronauts while she was employed there.

Anyway, I contacted the seller and he confirmed that an eBay member advised him that the autographs were autopens. I have that member's username but won't include it here. I certainly believe the person who advised him truly believed that they were autopens based on his buying history on eBay. It's also possible or likely that he is a cSer.

I received the provenance (the item was handed-down to him from his father who was once in aviation publishing) and he also provided higher resolution scans. I also decided to transpose the autopen patterns to the scans:

I told the seller I would get some further opinions (guess where?) and get back to him. For those willing to offer their opinions, what do you think?

I'm partly interested too because I was probably eventually going to ask for some thoughts about the piece that I acquired. There's no reason to doubt what I was told by the person who gifted it to me as he had absolutely no motivation to be dishonest about it (he is the son of the particular retired employee), but there were enough shaky lines within some of the longer pen strokes of the Young autograph that I suspected that most who examined it would assume for that reason that it was an autopen.

I'll include that scan in a later post within this thread - I think it would be best to stick with the eBay item for now. What I'll mostly be seeking about the one I have are thoughts about the shakiness of the looping strokes and whether they've seen much of this in genuine Young autographs. I know it's typically very unusual to see in the average person's handwriting.

posted 03-05-2011 05:10 AM               

The clincher is how every time the pen is lifted from the surface of the photo - six times in the case of the Crippen signature - you see a little blob of ink where the pen hesitated for a fraction of a second before being lifted straight up. People don't do that when they sign - the pen stroke fades away a bit as they gradually lift it up. (Gradually being a fraction of a second.)

posted 03-05-2011 03:12 PM               

Based on that verdict, I'm fairly certain that the piece I have will also be judged as autopen signatures. This is a close-up:

The shakiness in the loops of the "J" in John and the "g" in Young and also the "en" in Crippen, along with how close they were to the autopen patterns made me initially believe that they must have been autopens but the person who gave them to me seemed certain that they were hand-signed for his mother (Since he had mentioned that his mother's collection included items with both genuine and non-genuine autographs, it may be that he or she just got some of them mixed-up). Differences though like the separation of the tail-end of the "u" in Young left me unsure.

For those who rather not obtain the link through the image properties, you can get a closer look here.

posted 03-08-2011 01:50 AM               

In the same vein, does anyone care to comment on the following Crippen signature given the representations made by the seller in the description? Based on what you've taught me above and despite what the seller represented in his listing, the Crippen is the same autopen, right?

posted 03-08-2011 07:41 AM               

I took the sigs from the white squares, colored them and overlaid them on the other sigs. I tried to line up the "ohn" in John Young and the "ob" in Bob Crippen. I did not spend a lot of time on this but it looks obvious these are not identical. Does that help anything?

posted 03-08-2011 06:32 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by george9785:
I'd still like to get some opinion on the "Crippen" that was sold on steakman55's eBay listing.

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It's an autopen. The shakiness from the autopen is evident, even in the lower resolution scan that was provided.

posted 03-09-2011 01:25 AM               

I've heard this so many times when telling people an item is Autopen signed. Usually the person who originally received the signed piece is deceased but they told the son/daughter that it was signed specially for them by the astronauts.

In reality even some of the astronauts themselves ended up with Autopenned pieces in their collections so proximity with astronauts at work is no guarantee of avoiding Autopens.

posted 03-09-2011 02:32 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaced out:
In general you should try to ignore the story behind the item and judge the signatures on their merit.

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