Do you pay extra for a card from a famous collector?

[Kco]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

With familiar collector markings, GPCs and 3X5s can often tell their own histories if you're versed in the various notations and printing styles of earlier collectors.

The first bonus with this is the aforementioned history/provenance.

The second is that, with these autographed items, the value seems unaffected by such markings and may in fact net you a little premium. With cards, a marked card usually takes a big hit. Buck Barker notations pale in comparison to a GEM MINT 10, unfortunately. I'm with the people who would rather have the Buck cards, but we all know how the game is played.

Some collectors were very good about dating the backs of their 3X5s. Roy Pitts, Roger Harris and Jim Rogge come to mind. They obtained most of their collections TTM. Harold Esch used to get 3X5s signed in person during spring training and would also date them in a lower corner. This is a tradition I've always upheld with the 3X5s I personally obtained, but keep my writing to light pencil on the backs. Dating these items helps us and the future generations have a better grasp of the evolution of every player's signature, so I always take the time to date mine, just as old T. Roy Pitts liked to do for all those years. I'd advise anyone else to do the same! In time, and to people perhaps yet to be born, our notations will be of equal interest as those earlier collectors.

The third wonderful aspect is that I have yet to see any forger attempt to replicate any of the collector's handwritten notations. I'm racking my memory bank long and hard to think of any instance and am coming up empty. You'd just think that this would have happened a time or three.

Its really funny you mentioned Roy Pitts, I picked up an absolutely incredible Roberto Clemente from 1957 that was part of his collection, and it's the best Clemente GPC (of which I've seen fewer than 10 or so in 20+ years) I've ever seen. I paid two premiums on that one, first the high grade nature and the rarity of Clemente on a GPC and second for provenance.

Of course it's dated neatly (3-23-57) on the back like most all of his are.