A couple things, first autographs were VERY widely collected before the 1920's, but the idea of collecting Baseball autographs was not. Actors, Politicians, famous businessmen etc. were collected widely in the 19th century (and in some instances the 18th century). Secondly, the value in your item in 1906 was the photograph so Pat was not giving this away as an "autographed photo" but simply giving away a photograph with an inscription. In 1906 nobody would have treasured the autograph on the back of that photo, and inscribed images of Baseball players like that are somewhat common, especially early in a players career. I once had an estate of a former All American Football player at Princeton and I had his receipt from Pach Bros where he ordered like 50 of his own cabinet photos and then there were letters from all sorts of girls thanking him for the "beautiful inscribed photograph". You dont see photos like this nearly as often from when a player was more established, they like to send things like this off to Family and Friends early on to show they "made it".
As it is though, a Pat Moran autograph is somewhat scarce, I've owned 3 in 20 years and only seen a few others beyond that.
Rhys Yeakley
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