30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, May 21, 2012

Thurman or Thruman Munson?

I was checking out my trio of 1977 Topps, 1977 Topps Burger King, and 1977 Topps Cloth Thurman Munsons when I noticed something interesting about Munson's autograph. See if you can spot anything suspicious among his three signatures:


Need some help? Check out how Mr. Munson spelled his first name on his Burger King card (middle signature). Notice he swapped the "r" and "u" and spelled it "Thruman". Now I may not be the best speller on the planet, but I definitely know how to spell my own name.

In fact after closer inspection, it's fairly obvious that all three facsimile signatures are different... which is completely understandable. However, Munson misspelling his name stirred my curiosity.

But that's what's cool baseball cards... or cardboard in general. I love looking at them and finding "errors" and "variations".

Have a great week... and sayonara!

6 comments:

BA Benny said...

Great Catch, I never noticed those variations.

Baseball Nut said...

Great catch Fuji. I think you already know what a soft spot I have for Munson.

I think I might have an possible explanation. Thess signatures were taken from sheets that were sent to the players where they signed their name multiple times. Munson's 1970 autograph sheet is currently up on eBay with a $35,000 BIN price, so it should stay up there for a while.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thurman-Munson-Rookie-1970-Topps-Contract-SIGNED-5x-/120501225047#ht_977wt_1165

On this one, Munson signed his name 5 times. You can see the slight variations in his signature, but it pretty consistent. But take a close look at the first auto. It almost looks like Thruman.

The other thing to note is his r's rarely flatten out at the top so the u's and the r's almost look interchangeable. This can be noticed most notably on the 3rd signature.

John Bateman said...

Wow, Great Find - after 35 years. Never seen this before.

Fuji said...

Originally, I just wanted to compare the three sets... and I just happened to notice the signatures were in different spots... which led me to look at the autographs more closely. I never would have noticed it otherwise.

Fuji said...

Great call... I can definitely see where the first one could be taken as Thruman. What an amazing item though... would love to add that to my collection if I win the lottery.

Fuji said...

Lol... I give all the credit to "luck".