Who Are The Pioneers Of The Baseball Autograph Hobby?

[vintagechris]

Conrad Anderson. Undoubtedly spent hours and hours sending autograph requests starting in as early as the 50's and maybe sooner. Sent large quantities of items to players over and over and over and over and over.

If you run across earlier items that are signed to Conrad or Connie, they most likely originated from him. He had to be one of the first big time dealers and you can find his ads in old SCD's. If anyone is interested, I can try to dig up an old SCD ad and post it so people can see his prices and the type of players he had.

[theshleps]

I used to buy from Max in the mid 1960s. He along with me and a handful of others would go to the hotels in NYC to get the visiting teams. I bought alot of rare HOFers from him. Ruth was $35. Unfortunately in 1968 I gave the hobby up for many years and sold my collection to Max. Everything I got from him plus all the players that would sign through the mail back then plus the wives of the deceased players that would send cancelled checks etc. I would love to see what I had back then as I forget what I had. Know I had guys like Jimmy Collins, lot os Jackie Robinson on Topps cards etc etc. He did take advantage of me when buying back my collection but I was still a teenager and wanted the $ for other things. He was the only adult who showed at the hotels looking for autographs. Often times there were only 3 or 4 of us and we waited in the lobby. The Dodgers were the most crowded when we would get 8 to 10 fans.

[mr2686]

I'd add Dr. John Davis Jr. to the mix. I have a great Dutch Ruether from his collection. Here's a short link to a story about him.
http://washburnlaw.edu/library/colle...boutdavis.html

[mrmopar]

There may be members here who knew this gentleman and might know more about his collecting interests, but I think I read or heard that he had signatures of every player that ever played minus a handful of real early ones and maintained that as years passed.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/her...0934&fhid=5809

Just found this searching for details too...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=151976

[drcy]

M. Watt Espy. The foremost and most widely-cited authority on the history of capital punishment, and who collected all genres of autographs, including sports. I've had autographs from his collection by movie stars, political leaders, dictators, authors and many athletes. Personalized autographs from his collection are extra neat because they are addressed to a prominent historian.

His wikipedia bio

[TakingStock]

I love reading about all of these great autograph collectors! I really enjoyed the Ralph Winnie and Bill Zekus threads from a few years back so this is especially enjoyable. Does anyone have articles on any of the individuals mentioned so far? I'm looking forward to listening to the interview with Jeff Morey!