Baseball Autograph Book from 1941-1942

[muggsy]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

I haven't looked through in great detail to see if there are any "hidden gems" (players who are obscure and died young and tough to find). That said, what I do see with Ott and Southworth and Bithorn and an early Musial, you are likely looking at around $600-800 value.

Tom C

Bithorn was murdered in 1951, if we can consider 35 young...
I haven't typed out the full list of player names yet for the hidden gems that I missed—such as those who died young or didn't return to baseball after the war, etc.
There are also some I like such as Ernie Lombardi, Enos Slaughter, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner.
St. Louis won the World Series in 1942, and there are quite a few of the Cardinals including Southworth, their HoF manager.

[muggsy]

Some I haven't identified:

*under Mel Ott
*under MMarion
*under Southworth
*uppermost-righthand corner... looks something like Puxley?
*below that looks like Neil Cooper, but I don't know who that is.
*under Hank Sauer, Joe Abreu, Joe Beggs, is it Gee Walker?

[muggsy]

I'm a little surprised those quotes are that "low." At that, I'd rather just keep it. Which makes me think a serious collector would pay more. The condition is poor but it's still very cool, and I thought maybe rare, memorabilia. Much of the '42 WS Cards, 8 Hall of Famers, historical ones like Hi Bithorn, and we'll see what else we can uncover.

[Ryan1125]

If this was my Grandpa's I would definitely hold on to it and cherish it. Regardless of the price you get, it will always be "worth" more to you, knowing your Grandfather got these personally.

One major issue with items like this is they are very hard to display, while at the same time, not something you want handled all the time. To most people (buyers), it's just a big book of signatures, most of which they can't even identify. Usually what ends up happening is sellers start ripping pages out, and these end up becoming individual "cuts". That's all fine and dandy if you're looking for pure profit, but I tend to enjoy the "story" of your Grandfather obtaining all of these, as opposed to a little 2" cut autograph with no backstory.

Good luck, cool item!

[mrmopar]

Said just about everyone ever trying to sell something

Originally Posted by muggsy

I'm a little surprised those quotes are that "low." At that, I'd rather just keep it. Which makes me think a serious collector would pay more.

In all seriousness, I would agree with most that already commented that the value comes from splitting up and selling to folks that want one or a few of the keys. The bulk of signatures in books like this wouldn't make most collectors look twice. I suppose there may be some sentimental value for a book like this, but honestly, a bunch of otherwise random signatures as a group is not all that meaningful to most.

I personally think the worst part of splitting up a book like this is the destroying of some good signatures to harvest better ones when they are signed too close together or when the signatures intertwine with each other slightly. Keeping a single page in those cases would have saved them. I hate those old autographs from books that were cut around the signature in the exact shape of the autograph itself. Not quite to that extreme, but close...

[muggsy]

Thanks, guys! Sounds like keep it is the consensus here. I think it's really cool, so that value sounds worth more, I suppose.

I think this rookie Musial might be my "favorite," and seems the most "rare" to me.


It's on a clean page where it wouldn't be an odd shaped cut. It seems to have a lot more history—and would be among his first autographs.
I wonder level of interest in this alone for any Cards/Musial fan especially.

[muggsy]

[removed because identified]

Originally Posted by muggsy

One thing we CAN still do is identify the few left.

(4)
Is the one below Mel Ott really Bubber Jonnard? What was he doing in 1942?

Per Wikipedia, Jonnard was a coach for the NY Giants from 1942-46