What baseball autographs could be considered uncommon

[mr2686]

I'll add Red Faber. He died in 1976 but was in bad health since the mid to late 60's so his wife signed almost all of his stuff during that time. At any given time, you can find about 13 Fabers on Ebay and most times it breaks down to about 4 Fabers and 9 of his wife's. Right now is a rare time as I just looked and saw about 9 actual Fabers and about 2 of his wife. I've actually seen one "major" dealer and one of TPA's authenticate his wife sig, and that's really funny since the TPA wrote a really great article on what to look for on both Faber's and his wife's sig.

[packs]

Hey Brent. I bought the Alexander ball from an old woman on eBay. There was no photo on her auction and the buy it now was $80. The ball was advertised as being signed by a GL Alexander. I figured I'd take a chance. What a chance to take!

The story she gave me is that she attended a House of David game in Colorado in the early 1930s. While she was there with her father she got a few players signatures. Alexander is on the sweetspot and on a side panel is Babe Didrickson Zaharias, who I believe played with the team only briefly.

The ball is 80 something years old and has had exactly 2 owners. It is in incredible condition.

[MacDice]

I have an unsigned baseball card of Bob Feller which is considered to be pretty uncommon.

[Lordstan]

All good points.
I think Nellie fox is probably the best example of the rarity trifecta.
1) Dies young
2) Dies prior to autograph show boom.
3) Inducted to HOF way after death.

Despite all that there are still 70 Fox's listed on ebay as I write this. I think the ebay effect really has changed our perspective on who is a difficult autograph and who isn't. Greenberg, even with him dying before the show boom, still has 170 current ebay autograph listings.

That is a great Alexander Ball. Congrats.

[MooseDog]

It was not uncommon for autograph collectors in the pre-show signing days to send a player 3-5 items to sign and would get them all back signed. Despite his untimely death, Nellie Fox is by no means hard to find, and neither is Greenberg. Both were quite accommodating signers.

Uncommon would be ones that maybe weren't as popular, or that were elected to the HOF long after their passing.

The other problem is that there were at least two major forgers at work long before the Operation Bullpen gang, the passed a lot of bad stuff into the hobby, many extremely rare names like Keeler, Rabourne, etc.

[Exhibitman]

I agree that a guy who was around for decades post-WWII can't really be considered a tough signature, except perhaps for the occasional d**k who won't sign [like Neil Armstrong or Mike Marshall] or a few foreign players who disappeared back to South America when their careers ended. What's more challenging with postwar HOFers is trying to find specific items signed by them. I wanted a Satchel Paige for a long time but only on a card signed during his career. I finally got one this year:



A Groucho autograph can be had readily but try finding one on a Bowman card:

[JimStinson]

I agree with almost all of the above, any player that died prior to the 1980's card show BOOM's autograph would be considered kinda uncommon. However even Nellie Fox , Satchel Paige etc are are tough sells and don;t command much on the autograph market. Clemente of course does but I think this has to do more with demand than rarity as he was a pretty good signer. Jackie Robinson same, but the market was flooded with hundreds maybe even thousands of signed Jackie checks so it was almost like he did a couple card shows anyway.
So the post war toughies then become the umps and executives that typically were never asked to sign autographs. Then work your way back from there using the date of death as an indicator from fairly common to , mid range , tough and impossible. Of all of the Hall of Famers many of those fall into the catagory of "no known examples" of their signatures have ever been offered to "less than a handful" exist , the production of many of the all time toughies like Addie Joss, Tim Keefe, Mike Kelly, Buck Ewing etc etc has created a false sense that there are more of their autographs in existence than there really are.
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[7nohitter]

Addie Joss

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I agree that a guy who was around for decades post-WWII can't really be considered a tough signature, except perhaps for the occasional d**k who won't sign [like Neil Armstrong or Mike Marshall]

This isn't fair to Armstrong, who signed freely through the mail from 1960 through 1994. After almost 35 years, signing tens of thousands of autographs, and then realizing he was being scammed by dealers, he said, "enough." (people would send in requests such as, "I am a teacher... Can you send 25 signed photos for my students?" which he obliged for years until he realized it was often a ruse and they were being sold by dealers.) Can you blame him for quitting?

Armstrong is quite common and in good supply... Even so, demand is much higher because it is true global demand.

[packs]

I will never understand why someone would care that people are selling their signature. Neil got to walk on the moon. That would be enough for some people.