What is the toughest baseball HOF autograph to obtain?

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by the-illini

With the recent post about a possible Addie Joss signature, it got me to wondering who is the toughest HOFer to find a signature of - is it Joss? King Kelly?

yes, and yes, and rube waddell and a few others where there is 1, 2 or none known and mr. stinson can take over from here.

[packs]

I bet there aren't too many Ross Youngs or Candy Cummings around. Probably zero examples from the early negro league players like Pete Hill.

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by packs

I bet there aren't too many Ross Youngs or Candy Cummings around. Probably zero examples from the early negro league players like Pete Hill.

There were two Ross Youngs in the August Heritage auction (though that is an anomaly as he is extremely tough).

You're right about Hill and many of the early Negro Leaguers. Cristobal Torriente, Smoky Joe Williams, Bullet Rogan, now those are some hard to find autos.

[keithsky]

Ask the experts at Coach's Corner what the toughest one is to find and they will say none are tough to find

[JimStinson]

There are at least a dozen considered tough to impossible. About 2 dozen which only a few examples exist of , topping my list of perhaps impossible (at least at present) would be
1) Jose Mendez
2) Cristobal Torriente
3) Frank Grant

nearly impossible
4) King Kelly
5) Tim Keefe
6) Hoss Radbourne
7) Buck Ewing
8) Addie Joss
and probably a few others. But the top three "forget it"

I was researching #1 & #2 over 18 years before their induction into the hall, And was never able (even then) to produce a single lead. And that included knocking on doors and even making "cold calls" and being armed with information that even today I've kept secret

[the-illini]

Thanks everyone - I hadn't even considered some of the early negro league players. I would have to think some of those would have to be a miracle to find an example of.

Tim Keefe surprises me that he is that difficult. Didn't he live to be about 75? I know autograph collecting didn't really exist during his lifetime, but I would have thought there were enough checks/government documents over the course of 75 years to keep him off the top 10 of this list.

[Griffins]

are there any post war players that are more difficult than you'd think?
Mike Marshall/Neil Armstrong types that won't sign?