Check collecting

[Baseball Fan]

I know this happens from time to time, where a batch of new checks from a player gets released into the hobby and the price then starts going down on them.

I've been intrigued to see so many Dave Bancroft ones hit the market this past year. Since he died in 1972, I would have thought whatever checks would have gotten out by the 90s or early 2000s.

Does this happen often? Does a family just have a bunch for three decades and then decide to get rid of them?

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Most certainly!

The most disruptive instance of this has to be in the football world. HOFer Bert Bell's autograph used to be quite sought after. His son later started selling checks. It turned out that the family had so many that they could now be used as football-themed wallpaper! It's difficult to imagine a time when Bell's autograph wasn't common.

Then, you have the Bizarro version of the story: one of the rarest HOF checks is none other than Bob Feller! For a man who would sign and sell his firstborn if there was a crisp Abe Lincoln in it for him, he stubbornly refused to part with a single check! This clearly had to be due to security concerns, or else we'd have seen thousands on the market.

[Scott Garner]

Most certainly!

The most disruptive instance of this has to be in the football world. HOFer Bert Bell's autograph used to be quite sought after. His son later started selling checks. It turned out that the family had so many that they could now be used as football-themed wallpaper! It's difficult to imagine a time when Bell's autograph wasn't common.

Then, you have the Bizarro version of the story: one of the rarest HOF checks is none other than Bob Feller! For a man who would sign and sell his firstborn if there was a crisp Abe Lincoln in it for him, he stubbornly refused to part with a single check! This clearly had to be due to security concerns, or else we'd have seen thousands on the market.

BillyCox3 is definitely correct as you never see Bob Feller signed checks.
I collect the checks of no-hitter pitchers and this is the one out of my personal collection that I picked up 5-6 years ago. One thing that is especially cool about this Feller check is that he signed it twice!
Apparently Rapid Robert only wrote personal checks for a brief period of time following his divorce from his 1st wife. During this period of time he lived and worked at the Sheraton-Cleveland Hotel.

[Stampsfan]

Apparently Rapid Robert only wrote personal checks for a brief period of time following his divorce from his 1st wife.

I wrote a lot of personal checks right after that experience too.

[whitey19thcentury]

Also...I sold a Luis Aparicio signed check for over $250 about 10 years ago. It was in a larger lot of signed HOFer checks from the Steele collection at a Hunt Auction live auction.

So, like Feller, it is hard to fathom an Aparicio sig selling for three figures!

Here is the description of the lot:

Lot of (22) baseball Hall of Famer auto. personal checks. Includes Bill Dickey, Leon Day, Ray Dandridge, Max Carey, Al Barlick, Warren Spahn, Duke Snider, Enos Slaughter, John Mize, Brooks Robinson, Willie McCovey, Walter Leonard, Carl Hubbell, Reggie Jackson, Burleigh Grimes, Rick Ferrell, Luis Aparicio, Carl Yastrzemski, Bill Terry, Joe Sewell, Ted Lyons and George Kell. Comprehensive group includes some tougher to find examples. Includes LOA from JSA and letter of provenance from Peggy Steele: Range EX-NM/MT