Some great points in here. The two that I connected with are RunScott 'get educated on Parent et. al' before starting to collect and Lordstan - be a skeptic and make the autograph have to prove itself to you.
I've been collecting vintage baseball stuff for over 40 years but only got into signed cards 5 years ago when I saw a Mel Ott signed Goudey at the natty. I said to myself, in all my years of collecting I don't see many old cards with vintage signatures. So for the past five years I've been learning about and picking up signed vintage cards of HOFers.
It's been just about the last year that I thought I was seeing more signed cards than usual. I know in some thread, some of you felt that too. And specifically to me, I noticed more signed Mel Ott on Playballs. Now I may be totally wrong but they felt off to me.
I didn't bid on them.
The point I would like to make is to not be afraid to rely on your instincts. It's one of my favorite aspects of collecting. If you've done your research and something seems off to you, odds are you are right.
And when you come across signed cards from old collections where you trust (as much as one can) the provenance, that's a good time to buy.
I was lucky enough to get a few Goudey and Diamond Star cards direct from the Michigan batboy collection and from the Long Island collection at Phillip Weiss Auctions. I learned about the how the cards were acquired, trusted the sellers and was comfortable with the signatures, so I went for it. They did have COA's from the big TPAs but it was the provenance that gave me the real confidence.
So I say do your research, take in a lot of information and then trust your gut.
And man I can't wait to catch this guy.
-peter
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