President Bush 41 Auto Success Questions

[dangallo]

Hi all, I have a question about autographs received from President George Bush 41.

I wrote him a nice personal letter on February 15 via his Presidential Library, recounting some childhood memories of him and thanking him for his commitment to the game of baseball. (He kept a glove in his Oval Office desk!) I sent along a 5x7 photo of him as a Yale player that I downloaded off the Internet.

This week, I was thrilled to see the envelope waiting at my doorstep and sure enough it was signed! No letter or anything. Just the cardboard that I'd used for packing and his autograph in black sharpie on my photo.

Here's my question. Does anyone know if he uses autopen or is this likely a real autograph? The fact that it took more than 2 months makes me think it could be real. And the autograph looks real under the light, because I can see where the marker ink "pooled" a little bit with the indention of a pen into the photo. But I'm not familiar with autopens and wonder if they could produce the same results.

The other thing that makes me wonder-- the penmanship doesn't seem as shaky as some of his other recent autographs I've seen. Now I know he's back & forth as far as his health, and that could make a difference in his shakiness. It's also a small-ish autograph for a photo this size. Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

It matches up to a lot of his autos I see on eBay, but I'm not a professional and I guess you never REALLY know unless you see them sign it yourself.

I'm attaching the photo for your thoughts. Thank you all. I collect autographs that have to do with baseball & politics, so this would be a really neat one to have gotten...if it's real!

Here's the photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30510112@N06/13906688990/