Question re Gideon Welles autograph-genuine?

Posted on Company of Military Historians forum:

"A friend recently purchased a USN 1864 2nd Engineer's Commission, signed by Gideon Welles. Is it likely to be Welles' signature or did he (and Edwin Stanton for Army commissions) use some sort of auto pen?"

Well we can eliminate auto pens, first used in US gov. in 1930's. Only other signature possible that would not be an individual signature by Welles himself would be a clerk's signing of his name. My friends in the naval history business in DC aren't positive but are fairly convinced that signatures by the Secretary of the Navy on officer's commissions were the real deal at least up to the 1990's if not to this day.

Anyone know for sure? I have an email in to the office of SECNAV but no idea whether I'll get a reply.

 

You'll need to ask the Pawn Stars !

 

I have WWI commission papers from Britain: one for 2nd Lieutenant, Land Forces, 1915, and the other for Captain, Royal Air Force, 1918. In the upper left, both have the signature of the King, but I figure it's just a rubber stamp.

 

The practice of having secretaries sign documents started in the Jackson administration, supposedly because Ol' Andy fell off his horse, broke his arm and couldn't sign anything. Once the practice started, it staid.

It's usually pretty easy to determine if a document like this is signed by a secretary as they never made any effort to resemble the real signature. If the signature on the document compares well with a known example of Welles' signature it is most likely original.