Secretarial Signatures
Historically named for secretary’s that would sign for CEO’s, Presidents, and anyone that needed to sign a multitude of documents, sometimes for work reasons and sometimes for autographs requests. This practice has been universally adopted to refer to someone who signs autographs for someone else, including athletes that receive a plethora of requests, as well.
In baseball, these used to be known as clubhouse signatures, where even now you’ll find specific styles that are attributed as clubhouse styles for the most popular athletes: Ruth, Cobb, Mantle and more. A lot of times you’ll see bats and balls signed by a team or all-star team that have mostly authentic signatures, but the more famous players will have had someone in the clubhouse signing for them. A third-party authenticator will list out the legitimate autographs and then list the clubhouse signatures as such.
Now, this is different that what you may have seen referred to as an Autopen autograph. An Autopen is exactly what it sounds like…an athlete will have a machine that holds a pen and automatically signs “autographs” on a photo, letter or other type of media. Generally, these are signed on photos and sent out to fans to fulfill requests. Please see the section on Autopen signatures.
Secretarial signatures are used to help the athlete fulfill autograph requests, either through the mail or sometimes in the locker room after games for some items. Strangely, as other collectors I know and I have seen, even some Michael Jordan game worn items, include shoes and jersey were given away after games and signed by someone other than Jordan. Most collectors who have these most likely have no clue as they were gifted these after a game by someone within Jordan’s inner-circle or the team and the recipient would have no reason to question the signature.
Unfortunately, for a number of years there were some secretarial styles that were assumed to be actual variations of MJ’s signature but have more recently seemingly been discovered as secretarial and no longer pass third-party authentication. However, please be aware that for years these styles were passed by TPA’s. As such, there are many secretarial styles that have legitimate letters of authenticity that are, in fact, secretarial and not signed by Jordan. Of note, third-party authentication is NOT an exact science. Authentication companies go with the best information they have at the time and as time goes on, we all learn more and more about the autographs and history.
There are a few examples of secretarial signatures, with only a few of them pictured below.
