[Duluth Eskimo]

Originally Posted by Klrdds

Let me offer my opinion.. Some of you are familiar with my opinion and my autograph collection especially tazdmb. I have 297 HoFer autographs,of which I am confident in 280-285 of them. I started 30 years ago and bought only from a handful of reputable dealers or auction houses, many signatures were obtained long before TPAs entered the game and began to muddy the waters in both good and bad ways . I am not aware of anybody near me in numbers of HoFer autographs.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to get a full set because of the lack of any known signatures of 3-5 inductees, as well as the cost of acquisition of the rarest 20-25 signatures , the preponderance of forgeries , the demand for a TPA from companies that make obvious mistakes but yet are held in high esteem by the majority of HoFer signature collectors who I am sorry to say have NO CLUE what they are doing or buying when looking into the last 35-40 signatures because they don't do their due diligence or research and rely solely on the TPA; and finally the numbers of signatures available of many rare HoFers can't supply the demand for that signature.
For example I own, as many of you know , the only verifiable Addie Joss ( the one in Ron's book). Plus I own several HoHer autographs of which there are less than 5 known examples. So no matter how many HoFer autograph collectors there are there will never be enough signatures of some to fill the demands of the number of collectors.
I believe anything over 250 is a commendable collection and 275 is museum worthy .
These numbers may change as more people slowly liquidate their collections.
Also look at the Veteran's Committee this year .
Bill Dahlen exists but Harry Stovey , Chris Von Der Ahe are near impossible to find. I have been looking for Doc Adams since 1989 with nothing to show for it and money is not an object in most cases. So I have 9 of the 10 nominated this year but how many collectors have even 5 of the 10...that is why no one will ever complete the HoFer autograph set because of the sheer scarcity and potential cost of the rarest signatures.it is harder to complete than the Declaration of Independence signers of which I believe examples exist of all signers, but is near impossible to get even with its smaller numbers is signatures needed.
The wise HoF autograph collector goes into this knowing he will never complete the set but it never discourages them for whatever reason, and it never did me either . I have accepted the fact that I am where I am unless something fortuitous occurs . Also what makes this collection interesting is that it is not a static list it potentially changes every year, and every 3 years on the Pre integration list .
I totally agree with tazdmb... the PSA ranking system needs to be taken with a grain of salt. In fact I will say that it is way off base in its rankings.

Well said and thanks for the info. Jason