Autopen machines are used to automate signature reproductions to give the appearance of an authentic autograph.
These automated signature machines are mostly used by celebrities who get a large volume of requests for their autograph,
but are also used by people who need to send out a large number of documents that contain their signature, such as politicians.
Ironically I received such a letter from Rudolph Giuliani urging me to vote for a member of the Republican Party here in New York.
I joked with my wife, that I had not even sent him a TTM request! Now in a case like this, you don't have to think twice about whether or not the signature on the letter was authentic, because I can't see Rudy signing letters to every registered Republican in the state of New York, especially when he's getting ready to run for President.
How Does It Work?
Autopen machines use a signature template known as a "matrix", which is used to reproduce the signature (much like that stencil you used in grade school).
With that being the case, there's nothing to keep some unscrupulous autograph seller from obtaining, or producing one of these templates to mass-produce celebrity autographs for re-sale, so be careful when purchasing autographs that do not come with a Certificate of Authenticity (COA).
How Can I Tell If I Have Received An Autopen Signature?
It's really difficult to spot an autopen signature, so the best bet is to find an authenticated signature and compare it against what you have.
One of the resources you can find on this site is an enlarged autograph of every TTM or In Person autograph I've obtained, for comparison purposes.
If a celebrity has taken the time out to personalized or inscribe something along with their signature, it most likely is not a autopen signature, but you still have no way of determining whether or not the celebrity, a family member, or a secretary has signed the item.
With all the negativity surrounding this article, the fact of the matter is that unless you personally witness the player signing, there is no way of being 100% sure that it's authentic, but we should remain grateful to anybody that legitimately signs for us.
For anyone who would take active measures to defraud their fans, there are plenty of websites just like this one, which will gladly help spread the word.
A cool resource I found while doing research for this article is IsItReal.com, which has lots of useful information on forgery practices such as autopens.
After further review, and based on user feedback, I have determined that the Nolan Ryan and Muhammad Ali autographs I received through the mail are indeed an autopen signatures.
After playing around with comparison copies, which were all signed on the same items, I resized the images so they were all the same size for comparison purposes.
In Photoshop I then placed them one over the other, and played with the top image's Opacity (Transparency) so I could "See Through It" and view the underlying signature for alignment.
I did this with all the copies, and found that all of them were "Exact Matches", which does not occur with real signatures.
Red Flags To Look For:
>A Player sent you something other than what you sent to them.
>No personalizations.
>The player sells autographs on their website.
>Multiple people have reported receiving the same item from the same player.
>Signatures are exact matches.
If you have doubts about a signature that matches any of the above feel free to use the contact us form, and I will email you back.
If you send a high resolution scan, and a few internet links to the same item, I can compare the signatures like I did above for your item, and add it to this page.
Other Ali Resource
AliAutos.net
IsItReal.com
UPDATE:
I've recently compared my Wayne Gretzky through the mail signature with one by
TTM collector John Schrader, and posted it in my Wayne Gretzky Autopen review.
