Seeing as I’ve had pretty good luck matching Sportkings jumbo patches to jerseys that have sold at auction, I decided to give this one a try as well. It ended up being a lot easier than I anticipated. My first step was simply to search for Adam Vinatieri signed game worn on Google Images.
The first jersey that came up actually looked pretty promising. That’s usually not the case at all.
https://goldinauctions.com/lot-103477.aspx
I clicked on the listing and discovered it had actually been signed twice. The number 4 on the front side had been signed in a blue marker, and the back number 4 had been signed in black. Well, the signature on my card looked like it was black ink, so I pulled both images up and compared the two and felt like I had a match.
Just for good measure, I attempted an overlay as well.
At this point, I should’ve just looked at the paperwork for the jersey, because they had photomatched it to a specific game. I didn’t see that at first though, so I set about conquering that task on my own. The Goldin description simply mentioned the jersey was from 2009. I noticed it had a pink captain’s patch, so that immediately narrowed it down to October (Breast Cancer Awareness month in the NFL).
The Colts only played 3 games during this timeframe, and only one of them was at home (where they wear blue jerseys). So it had to be the 10/4/2009 game against the Seahawks. I searched for Vinatieri pictures from the game on Getty Images, and there were only 2, neither of which had close looks at the patches on his jersey.
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/colt ... s=88971971
It was at this point that I went back to the Goldin listing and noticed the picture of the Letter of Authenticity. SIA claimed they matched it to the same game, which made me feel good about the research I had just completed. They were also able to match the jersey to one of the Getty pictures in a way I hadn’t. Either they had paid access to a better version of the image, or seeing the jersey in hand helped them match the mesh holes up better.
Either way, I now know I own a large signed, game-dated patch from the greatest NFL kicker of all time. And thankfully it’s NOT from a Patriots uniform.
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