Thoughts on best auction house for vintage memorabilia (Jackie etc)

[perezfan]

If you restore, you must disclose. Only fair to the new owner...

I think restoration is warranted in this case. It looks pretty sloppy as-is, and I believe that vintage book restoration is an accepted practice. Restoration of the binding would not deter me as a bidder, as long as the signatures are in no way impacted. I'd probably bid higher if the piece had a cleaner look.

Probably best to consult Al for his opinion, if you indeed choose LOTG (who I think would be an excellent choice for this piece). Al is a straight shooter who will provide you stellar advice.

[Hankphenom]

Nobody has mentioned this as a possibility, so I will throw it out: taking the yearbook apart to create four separate pages with beautiful early Jackie Robinson autographs for auction bidders to fight over. I'm not the biggest autograph expert, but I'm not sure this wouldn't be the way to maximize the return on your piece(s). Otherwise, you will have a beat-up or restored version of this yearbook, with four Jackie autos hidden inside in this case, to put up on a bookshelf. If those buying the separated pages want to have a nice copy of the yearbook to show the complete original source thereof, that wouldn't be too great a challenge at too great a price. Just my two cents, and something I would at least consider if this was my piece.

[rand1com]

I have to agree with Hank if you want to maximize the dollars for the 4 autographs. You won't have to spend any money to repair the binding and you can likely expect to get $2000 or possibly more for each autograph. No way in my opinion that the intact book with 4 autos inside will bring near that total. However, I would hate to see it separated as it is a piece of history as is. I had one of these about 5 years ago with only (3) autographs and sold it intact for $3000 to a collector. It is obviously better in today's environment but probably only $5-6K since it is not really displayable.

You can't really go wrong with any of the well established auction houses but you have an item that is not likely to have a duplicate in any auction so I would go with one of the most widely recognized ones. Heritage, REA, Hunt, and Memory Lane are all good options in my opinion.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by rand1com

I would hate to see it separated as it is a piece of history as is. I had one of these about 5 years ago with only (3) autographs and sold it intact for $3000 to a collector. It is obviously better in today's environment but probably only $5-6K since it is not really displayable.You can't really go wrong with any of the well established auction houses but you have an item that is not likely to have a duplicate in any auction so I would go with one of the most widely recognized ones. Heritage, REA, Hunt, and Memory Lane are all good options in my opinion.

Normally, I, too, would cringe at the destruction of a piece like this just to maximize your return, but it's quite likely the winning bidder would be a dealer who would turn around and do exactly that anyway. In addition, this is not a one-of-a-kind, these yearbooks are around, and I like the idea that the individual pages would get framed to make four wonderful display pieces as opposed to being hidden inside a book residing on a shelf. Lots to consider here, and you win whatever choices you make!

[bigfanNY]

I too agree that the way to maximize your earnings would be to seperate the autographs. Unless as is sometimes the case that the signatures are front to back on the same page. Even then it is close. In my opinion the football page will sell very well with either Lotg or Heritage. GLWS
Jonathan

[rand1com]

Hunt Auctions sold a single autographed football page from UCLA book that had multiple team member photos for $8500 in their 2022 Super Bowl Auction.

[Topnotchsy]

Jonathan, Randy and Hank, I appreciate the responses.

Separating them out was a thought, but the pricing for the individual pages does not seem to be all that great. It seems that outside of people specifically looking for early Jackie items (who may favor the whole yearbook), people prefer the "Jackie Robinson" signatures over "Jack Robinson." I wonder if they would get $2000 each if sold separately.

A Pasadena yearbook signed three times recently sold for $7100 ($8760 with BP). Not sure whether that represented the height of the market, but I don't know that the individual ones would sell for more separately.

Randy - I think in general a UCLA items goes for more than Pasadena. Even though Pasadena is earlier, UCLA has a much larger following, and the signed UCLA items are rarer than Pasadena (where he appears to have signed for many others).