Autograph Albums keep together or Separate
 

I recently acquired a collection of mid-to-late 1950s baseball autograph albums featuring signatures from HOF legends like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Mel Ott, Dizzy Dean, Tris Speaker, Larry Doby, and around 20 other Hall of Famers in total.

I’m planning to resell the collection, but I’m weighing my options. Would the albums hold greater value if kept intact and sent to an auction house, or would it be more profitable to cut the signatures, have them authenticated and slabbed by PSA, and sell them individually?

Ah that's the $64k question....I'd love to see pics of the scrapbook.

I typically would never want someone to "break up" an old original item, but depending how this is put together it might be worth separating.

Good luck whatever you decide.

I would accept the judgement of any of the big AHs on the best way to go on a question like this. I'm guessing they'd all come to the same conclusion, and that they'd be right 100% of the time.

If they are on pages by themselves with nothing on the reverses, they will bring more individually.

However, it is much cheaper to authenticate the entire book as a whole over breaking them up and paying for separate authentications.

Appreciate the insight, waiting to hear back from the REA, will be reaching out to a few more. Most are single signed, but a few are not.The albums contain signatures from several notable Hall of Famers and players, including:

1. Mickey Mantle
2. Roger Maris x2
3. Tris Speaker
4. Mel Ott
5. Casey Stengel
6. Dizzy Dean
7. Larry Doby
8. Minnie Miñoso
9. Early Wynn
10. Brooks Robinson
11. Phil Rizzuto
12. George Kell
13. Rocky Colavito x2
14. Bob Lemon
15. Jim Bunning
16. Whitey Ford
17. Yogi Berra

Here are some examples:

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d7m...HJNF2rtVD-3g8g

Would be a true crime to break that up. :eek:

But if you are in it only for the money, then piecing it out would probably yield the best results.

I don't get your passion for keeping this book together, Mark. There's no theme or cohesion here that I can see that would make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, just a random collection of really nice autographs. Breaking them up would allow collectors of these players to create wonderful displays with photos or other memorabilia. What am I missing that would make it such an imperative to keep this thing together?

I agree

Just because it was someone's labor of love for many years, and undoubtedly took a long time to acquire the sigs of all those star players. Imagine the time and effort expended just to be in an advantageous position to get close enough to all of those great players, in order to obtain their sigs.

Plus, it serves as a perfect snapshot in time of Baseball's Golden Age... including the biggest mid-century stars during a very important era for baseball (when baseball was the undisputed "king" of American sports).

There's no right or wrong... I just tend to view these things with sentimentality vs. objectivity. Perhaps because I identify more with the person who amassed the collection vs. the person who's selling it off.

What about the many collectors who would be the beneficiaries of breaking it up?

All good.... Hope they don't end up in bar-coded slabs (but know they will).

To me, the Autograph Book itself has great charm and intrinsic value, but realize I'm in the minority in this day and age of the almighty dollar.

Kiss me I'm a liberal, but it's pretty undeniable that the dollar, and other currencies--Adam Smith's "invisible hand"--have worked better than any other system to allocate the production and distribution of resources for maximum wealth of the society at large. How many times have you taken less than something was worth to achieve a goal other than getting the best return on your investment? If this book was yours, and you knew you would get half by keeping it together than from breaking it up, would you still do it? And anyway, I still postulate that by allowing multiple collectors to create great pieces out of it, you would still be doing a social goal, what would you say to that? I'm just not getting the warm and fuzzies from the idea of this book sitting on a shelf somewhere; to me, once it leaves the original owner's hands, it's pretty much just a random collection of nice autographs that need to go where the market wants them to.

My $.02.

• It is likely you would get the most value breaking them up.
• I do not believe the auction houses would necessarily guide you right on this. For them, breaking it up means additional auction listings, and the value might not be there to really warrant that in their eyes. (Consider that an extra $1000 in your pocket is worth maybe an extra $200 in their pocket and so the incentives don't perfectly align)
• To some degree it depends who is on a page together to determine the value and how easy the signatures are to separate.
• The bigger names (Mantle, Maris, Ott Speaker and possibly Stengel andDean) are most likely worth the money to authenticate. Many of the names, (Larry Doby, Minnie Miñoso, Early Wynn, Brooks Robinson, Phil Rizzuto, George Kell, Rocky Colavito x2, Bob Lemon, Jim Bunning, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra) despite being great players, don't carry enormous value. So those may be worth selling in a lot/collection without spending on authentication
• There are differing views (as this thread shows) about cutting up items. I'm in the camp that does not see an issue cutting up an arbitrary item like this, but would not do so to items that have more historical significance as a whole. I have a Jackie Robinson college yearbook signed 4x which I could likely make way more money on separate than together if I chose to sell, but can't see myself separating the pages... so my line is somewhere between what you have and what I have.

Cool item, good luck with it!

Rip out the pages with the big names, maybe leave a dupe in there to keep some liquidity (I'd leave a Maris since there's 2).

I'd rip out/authenticate/sell the following individually as cuts or full pages (if the only one on there):

1. Mickey Mantle
2. Roger Maris
3. Tris Speaker
4. Mel Ott
5. Casey Stengel
6. Dizzy Dean

Then sell the remainder of the book and let them worry about it

That makes sense to me.

Thanks everyone… yeah, it makes sense to break out the big names... That’s where all the value is. Still trying to figure out more autos, hoping there are a few more hidden gems, hiding in plain sight.

Here are the links to the albums, if I’m missing any real big names let me know. Again appreciate all the insight from the group.



https://share.icloud.com/photos/09fE...rD3K32rS1ut64A




https://share.icloud.com/photos/0f0k...6brpb8F0F4U7SQ




https://share.icloud.com/photos/0330...LP3UPC-7nd-IHw






I have talked to four of the major auction houses and their consensus is to cut out the larger names to maximize value.

It's a great collection. Good luck with whichever way to choose to go.

But - you have to be impressed with how legible most of the signatures are. Players used to take some pride in their signature. I can't imagine what a similar book put together today would look like. Page after page of scribbles?

I love the Speaker. It stands out as a totally separate signature from the rest of the collection. It would fit very nicely with any pre-war collection of cards and/or autographs.

I agree most athletes don't take pride in their signature like they did back in the day. However, there are a decent amount of illegible signatures in these albums... so maybe the trend has been there for a while LOL.

The Speaker is beautiful. If I were to break the higher-end autos out, the Speaker auto would be one that I would consider keeping.

I decided to separate and will be posting the album in Buy/Sell/Trade section. Thank you.

Your decision has already been made, but

Here's my autograph book that I used during 1957 spring training in Clearwater, Florida.

https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...autograph-book

As a 9 year-old I was able to obtain nearly 100 autographs after the games. Not many of you can say you met Casey Stengel and Roy Campanella before he was injured, but they are both in there. I haven't carried it with me for 68 years, but my mother saved it (,but she didn't save my cards:mad:)

I'm keeping it intact with Casey, Roy, Alston, Ashburn, Minoso, Killebrew, Snider, Newcombe, Furillo, Kuenn, Doby and even Al Cicotte (related to the 1919 World Series star) just to name a few.

If I sell it, it would likely be broken up, and I understand that, but it will not be done by me.

The sentimentality value vastly exceeds the current cash value of the book.
I didn't pay a dime for any of the signatures. Is there a nine year old today with a similar collection for any price? I think not.;)