Posted By:
Judge Dred (Fred)Dan,
That is a really neat hobby room.
Dave,
Autographs...I'm thinking of autographs of the players of 1910 and before..anybody collect these?? If so what can you expect to pay for a common player? A minor Hof?
I like collecting autographs. When I was much younger I would write to the HOF players that were alive from that era. They were pretty good about signing autographs. Obviously, this isn't something that you can do so anymore so you have to trust the material available to be authentic. I've found that signed checks, documents and contracts are the best way to go. Those have a premium associated with them but they seem to be the most reliable signatures. Another means of probably getting an authentic signature is to find a signed GPC (government post card). It should be postally cancelled. These are typically very reliable signatures. I would guess that a lot of the signed 3x5 cards and other items are probably authentic but they just don't seem to have that aurora that a check, document, contract or GPC has. There will be a lot of interesting items available such as material from writers of books (for example, Glory of Their Time) that the players may have signed. Those are pretty good pieces to have. If you happen to get a signature you can always create a post to see if anyone has one for comparison. As far as signatures go, you can probably find a Cobb check for less than a grand and you can find other Cobb material that is reasonably priced. Wagner checks are proably around a grand (if you can find a good deal). The Walter Johnson checks seemed to have dried up so you're probably looking at about $1500 for one of those. I bet you can find 3x5 (not GPCs) for reasonable prices (under $20) for a lot of the players that lived into the 1980s. As you can imagine, players that passed away in the mid part of the last century will cost a few bucks. The nice part about a lot of the famous players from that era is that they stayed connected with baseball and their signatures are relatively plentiful. For example, you can find an Eddie Collins players trade/release document (signed by Collins as an executive) for a few hundred dollars. These are great pieces of memorabilia to have. Do yourself a favor and search ebay for a while and get an idea of pricing before jumping into it and spending double on items. There are autograph sellers out there that are fairly reliable. You can try and get on their mailing list. Good luck!