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#1
06-06-2012, 10:44 AM
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But investors dont go on crusades like this, only the collector is insane enough to go on a multi-year wild goose chase to find a near impossible autograph like this, but after spending tons of money and time, even a collector has to know when to call it quits, like my friend who spent probably over 10 grand and couldnt find a jim robinson autograph. There is such thing as throwing good money after bad. When you cover about 95% of the bases, the remaining 5% will cost you more than the first 95% ever did, and some autographs just aren't meant to be found. I've went on a few of these chases and have about a 50% hit rate. Marvin Hart a good example. The very few that are around are either in public institutions like museums or gov't archives, and only a couple in private hands but have been around awhile, but I never see new examples come into the marketplace, I wish they would, finding some of these autograph is like finding sasquatch sometimes. You get a lead but it ends up evaporating before your very eyes. I found autographs of over 90% of all the champions and challengers for the heavyweight crown unified, wbc, wba, ibf, (and all of them from 1923-1996 except one, leroy jones, and that is a story unto itself.) You have to do a systematic approach with included geneaology, work history, friends, geographic location, etc. i am quite good at it now and will take on autograph cases if anyone wants a certain one. Last edited by travrosty; 06-06-2012 at 11:15 AM. 
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#2
06-06-2012, 11:39 AM
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Travis, although I agree with most of what you're saying, I do believe that the internet and social network sites have made the world so small, that almost anything can be found (if it can be found) by just sitting at your computer. There are collectors right here on this site that network all over the U.S and the World and have found some stuff that I would have thought was extinct. All it takes is one person to happen upon an item in someone's collection or yardsale etc, take a picture of it on their smartphone, and then text it to multiple collectors to see if they need it.
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#3
06-06-2012, 12:15 PM
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I don't think that is true with VERY tough to find autographs. thats why they are hard to find. Once you go through the collectors and dealers, then you end up with the super hard to find, like Roy, then you need a specialist who has a systematic approach. we did a search for jim robinson and his autograph like you wouldn't believe, the sane things, the insane things. thousands of man hours, thousands of dollars. Checking every lead. It was totally insane. The guy from espn the magazine wrote a story about it. No Jim Robinson, no autograph. You find out all the info on the guy as possible, you run his geneaology reports, you locate all the jobs he had, all the places he lived. you try to contacts relatives, friends, you run ads, you post on forums. its a system. you have to keep a log or a whiteboard flow chart. otherwise it is hit and miss and you have to start over, because if you ask around and get nowhere, you will miss the one avenue that could have the answer. It's like looking for a raft on the ocean, they go in a certain pattern, so they dont miss a spot. if they just go here and there, the raft could be in a small area they didnt get to, then they dont know where to go next. but that's just my ramblings. everyone can have their own opinion about it. Last edited by travrosty; 06-06-2012 at 12:40 PM.
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#5
06-06-2012, 12:44 PM
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Jim
In 2000 I found an article talking about Castleton in an old scrapbook and it mention he was Mormon. The focus of the article was a perfect game he threw in 1905 for the Youngstown team. At the time the earliest documented Mormon athlete was Spencer Adams in the 1920's so when I made the discovery it was pretty significant and completely unknown. I was working on an article about him to submit to the LDS church and I was not very careful about keeping the research private and the cat got out of the bag before I could finish. Years later Bob Lemke did an article in SCD which made my research pointless so I never finished. I have been hoarding his cards and photos for years and years along with my brother and we have just about everything of his except for the Western Playground card and of course, an autograph. I have been asking around to old time collectors and dealers since 2000 and supposedly one old timer has an autograph but I cant confirm it. I even became friends in Law School with a guy who was his great great nephew (named Castleton) and neither he nor his geneology rich family knew anything about Roy. I sent about 2 dozen letters to all his descendants and relatives about 5 years ago and never got a response from any of them. Forget the Yankee collectors, if one ever came up for sale I would buy it. I would be prepared to pay whatever it took. Aside from Louis Sockalexis, Roy Castleton's autograph is one of my absolute "Holy Grails". I hope that helps explain a little better. Rhys Yeakley
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#6
06-06-2012, 12:50 PM
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they found out he worked for the armada de mexico, the mexican navy as an office manager. they called in a favor and the navy scoured their records for a couple of weeks until they found his resignation letter. but before i got that far i contacted every boxing promoter, manager, organization on planet earth to try to find this guys autograph. that's the insane part, there is no end to it. it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of leads, even the obscure ones, because i have found out that the obscure ones sometimes pan out. i contacted everyone with the same last name that i could find. hundreds of them, you send out letters, you email and email and email, you write stacks of letters until you cant write any more. you offer rewards. you google every key word you can think of, you have to know your way around ancestry.com , google, spokeo, all sorts of other search programs. you run gov't records, wwi registration, census records. and it's all a race against time, because every year, someone that knew him passes away, files get thrown out, signed checks get tossed. you contact libraries, museums, halls of fame. gov't agencies, family members, friends, acquaintances, anybody, anything forever and ever, and ever, and if you are very lucky, you find 1 autograph. this is what I did for many obscure boxing autographs, sometimes i got lucky, sometimes I didn't. If the guy is living, but is a recluse, like leroy jones or jose roman, or alfredo evangelista, you have to read all you can about them, you have to try to get in their head, figure out what makes them tick, you have to try to think like them. you have to figure out what is important to them. it's obviously not signing autographs. you have to try to locate them. they don't want to be found. family members will cover for them, tell you he doesnt live here. you have to figure it out, find a side of them that you can reach, an empathy side. Or find a close relative that has sympathy for your cause that can get an autograph for you. i wrote to evangelista and as far as i know, i am the only one to ever get a letter back from his with autographs. but i didnt go in cold. i didn't just ask him for an autograph. that request goes in the trash can. i wrote a long letter that worked up to an autograph request. i found out what his interests were, why he is the way he is. i made a connection. he thinks everyone who wants an autograph just wants to sell it for money. he's apprehensive that way to sign for strangers. so i decided to not be a stranger, but it took time and a strategy. all this and more goes into find an autograph of a long ago deceased person, or a living person who doesn't want to be found or sign autographs. It's a crusade, it really is. Once you start, you enter a strange world, and you can't be afraid of insanity. It's like a really good private eye, only you are a collector so it is much more personal for you. Last edited by travrosty; 06-06-2012 at 01:03 PM.
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#8
06-06-2012, 01:55 PM
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yes, it's not like putting on fake moustaches and trench coats and meeting a dark stranger in an alley and exchanging cash for a paper bag or anything. But it's the constant perserverance that is insane. sometimes a few years, with correspondance inches thick. and hundreds and hundreds of emails. All failing and you find yourself not any closer than you were at the beginning. but you keep trying. There are many times you say to yourself that you have to stop, that it is a lost cause but you gotta keep going, you have too much emotionally invested to stop. It's when the guy is living but you can't find him that is really frustrating, because you know he is out there somewhere. if the guy is dead for a long time, the trail is cold for a reason, a lot of time has passed, but for the living recluse who doesn't want to be found, it's very frustrating. Leroy Jones who passed away a couple of years ago, didn't want to be found at all. Jose Roman, who evidently lives in the tampa area, and works at a grocery store, doesn't want to be found. Frustrating. He could sign a few autographs and make a little money, but he evidently doesn't want anything to do with boxing. i think these guys who fought for the championship and lost had a sense of failure, that they didn't want to talk about it, that they felt they got cheated and wanted to move on with their lives. Last edited by travrosty; 06-06-2012 at 01:58 PM.
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