NonSports Forum

Net54baseball.com
Welcome to Net54baseball.com. These forums are devoted to both Pre- and Post- war baseball cards and vintage memorabilia, as well as other sports. There is a separate section for Buying, Selling and Trading - the B/S/T area!! If you write anything concerning a person or company your full name needs to be in your post or obtainable from it. . Contact the moderator at leon@net54baseball.com should you have any questions or concerns. When you click on links to eBay on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network. Enjoy!
Net54baseball.com
Net54baseball.com
T206s on eBay
Babe Ruth Cards on eBay
t206 Ty Cobb on eBay
Ty Cobb Cards on eBay
Lou Gehrig Cards on eBay
Baseball T201-T217 on eBay
Baseball E90-E107 on eBay
T205 Cards on eBay
Baseball Postcards on eBay
Goudey Cards on eBay
Baseball Memorabilia on eBay
Baseball Exhibit Cards on eBay
Baseball Strip Cards on eBay
Baseball Baking Cards on eBay
Sporting News Cards on eBay
Play Ball Cards on eBay
Joe DiMaggio Cards on eBay
Mickey Mantle Cards on eBay
Bowman 1951-1955 on eBay
Football Cards on eBay

Go Back   Net54baseball.com Forums > Net54baseball Main Forum - WWII & Older Baseball Cards > Net54baseball Sports (Primarily) Vintage Memorabilia Forum incl. Game Used > Autograph Forum- Primarily Sports

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-19-2012, 11:25 AM
travrosty travrosty is offline
Banned
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 2,223
Default The evolution of autograph collecting from my perspective.

My threads are so popular, I decided to tell a chronological tale on my travels through the autograph hobby, with notations on how the hobby has changed, and not all for the better. some names have been changed but the facts are true.


Part 1 starting out



Back in the summer of 1991, when I was a lad of 21 years old, I was living in California working in the city of Torrance. I had only recently started collecting sports collectibles, cards and autographed baseballs, etc. I had a collection which included baseballs signed by ted williams, mantle/mays/snider, and joe dimaggio. I would go to the local baseball card and sports memorabilia shop in Torrance known as Triple Play (sportscards).

It was near the corner of western and Sepulveda? but later moved to the del amo fashion center, a huge mall in Torrance.

I would go to the shop almost every day after work and on a lot of the weekends to, for something to do. It wasn't a big store, but had a lot of interesting stuff and I got to know the people working there and enjoyed talking to them. whether they enjoyed me being there and bugging them is another story probably!

Bob Byer owned the store and Tony Velarde and a nice guy named Luther worked there and I would literally spend hours and hours just looking at the baseball cards and signed memorabilia without buying anything, just looking. I didn't say much, I just stared at all the good stuff.

Then we would talk about sports memorabilia and I would go eat at el pollo loco or carl's jr. and then go home. And repeat the next day, and the next, etc. because I really liked sportscards and autographs.

I wanted to slowly build up a collection of nice signed baseballs and good condition rookie cards of hof'ers in the sports of baseball, basketball, and football and hockey.

I didn't have the kind of money to go back and buy the vintage hof'ers in baseball, but basketball and football, and hockey were more affordable, so I started buying some key rookie cards. I got nice examples of Walter Payton, Julius Erving, bird/magic, michael jordan, 2nd year jim brown, a nice bobby orr card (non-rookie) and I bought a wonderful roger maris rookie card as well as a topps wayne gretzky rookie card. I never got around to the joe montana rc and the mario lemiuex rc that i wanted.

On the autograph side I wanted signed baseballs of the big three, mantle, dimaggio, williams.

But I didn't know autographs at that time and I didn't want to spend money on atographed baseballs that could be non-authentic signatures.

So I did something a lot of people don't do, even today. I bought from someone I trusted, someone with experience, and an established dealer.

I had looked at those baseball so long anyway and now I was ready to buy, because I asked Bob about those baseballs, his experience in the hobby, and I was more than comfortable they were real and that Bob would back up the baseballs.

So I bought them, the mantle was a mantle/mays/snider ball but that was cool. i loved them. When it came time to take possession of them, bob asked me if I wanted a certificate of authenticity for them. I declined because I knew they were real and I knew that Bob backed them up so why get one. Didn't need it.

I went to the National Sportscard Convention in Anaheim that year and it was crazy packed. Later on in the year I moved back to Minnesota.

But before I moved back I had read a World Almanac as I loved to read reference books like the Guinness book of world records and the World Almanac, I love facts and figures, and I always loved to read the sports sections of those books, there was no internet.

I was reading the World Almanac - the boxing section and I came across the list of the world heavyweight championship fights. Under Joe Louis it said that he fought a boxer named Harry Thomas on April, 1, 1938 in New York.

I was shocked. I knew there was a boxer from my small hometown of eagle bend, mn who fought top tier heavyweights in the 1930's, and I was aware he fought Max Schmeling in New York back then, but I didn't know he fought Louis for the heavyweight championship! Wow!

So I looked into it more and sure enough, he did fight Louis for the championship. I was intrigued and it started my fascination with boxing in general. I researched this fighter and the history of heavyweight boxing in general. I found out that thomas fought Louis in Chicago, not New York, and that the world almanac was in error. I sent them the correction, and they thanked me and subsequent issued featured the correct city for this fight, chicago, not New York.

So arriving back In Minnesota, I wanted to learn all I could about this fighter from my home town, who I learned passed away in 1971. So during my spare time for the next two years I researched him and looked for memorabilia relating to his boxing career. I found autographs, photos, newspapers, one short film of an interview he gave, tickets, programs, press passes and the like. I know knew as much about this guy as anyone around.

But collecting his autograph was fun and started me off on collecting boxing autographs. I decided I wanted to collect every heavyweight fighter who ever fought Joe Louis for the championship, either challenger or champion.

So I ended up collecting Joe Louis autograph, and started in on the championship opponents of joe louis. I bought several from Jim Stinson including a a few scarcer ones, like Jack Roper. Over the next coupole of years I had them all except for Al McCoy. It would take me 15 years to find a McCoy signature and finish that collection.

But during this time I learned all I could about boxing signatures and how to tell real from fake. It was a long, long process that took many years and corresponding to many toher collectors and dealers in the hobby, soaking up information. I subscribed to BCN, a publication for boxing memorabilia and autograph collectors. It helped a lot.

I learned, traded, bought and exchanged information with some of the boxing hobby's greatest collectors and dealers, Stinson, Shochet, Schutte, Whiteman, Shaffer, and more. There was no psa/dna back then but we vetted our autographs, we took time to learn them, and people that sold them backed them up.

lesson to be learned - real autographs will always be real whether they have a coa or not. do your homework and you will have greater success than if you trust a third party cert just because it is a third party cert.

look for part 2,
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 08-20-2012, 09:17 AM
maniac_73's Avatar
maniac_73 maniac_73 is offline
CostA Kl@d1@n0s
Member
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Santa Clara, Ca
Posts: 626
Default

Wow great post! Can't wait to read part 2!
Reply With Quote
Reply



Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
My new autograph classification scheme! David Atkatz Net54baseball Sports (Primarily) Vintage Memorabilia Forum incl. Game Used 3 01-02-2011 08:16 PM
Collecting Autographs in the good old days RichardSimon Net54baseball Sports (Primarily) Vintage Memorabilia Forum incl. Game Used 31 09-03-2010 08:31 PM
Beckett Comments on Upper Deck cut autograph cards Archive Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions 8 02-21-2009 06:47 PM


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:43 AM.


ebay GSB