Anyone Going to The National?

[rwa12]

Wow, Jim! Amazing pickups! My rarest by far is a Campanella IC that was pre-accident, I have a few of the "old" guys, but no one tremendously rare. Just wow, can't wait to see the project complete!

[JimH5]

Thanks, and those early Campy signatures are really beautiful. Modern players (Mariano Rivera excluded) have such poor penmanship, I don't want to get into those guys as a hobby.

 

I've been at this for more than 20 years. During the late 80s and early 90s, there were tremendous card shows put on at State Fair Park (by BF.netter hofcs--thanks much for some fabulous shows).

 

This was during the great boom time for card manufacturers & dealers, and I was (thankfully) too cheap to jump in on some of the higher priced cards of the era. Griffey, Canseco, Mattingly, the Billy Ripken card, etc.

 

Instead, I took a liking to autographs of earlier era players. For the price of a Puckett rookie card, you could get a Hank Greenberg signature on a 3x5 card. I thought the Greenberg sig was awesome, and so I left one of those shows with a Greenberg at $35, a Judy Johnson at $15 and a Bill Terry at $20.

 

At the time, the National Baseball Library at the Hall of Fame would sell new prints of any of the photos in their archive for a pretty reasonable price. They still do. You would write them a letter, requesting a player (or team, stadium, etc.) and specify what kind of pose you were looking for, and they would send you photocopies of your guy in different shots. With some guys, they have 10-20 images to pick from, with others, maybe its just 2. You would return the photocopy of the shot you wanted, and they would send a pretty good quality reproduction of that shot on photo paper. Now they do it all by email, and the process takes just a few days.

 

Anyway, I bought pics of those three guys, and had them double matted and framed with those 3 x 5 sigs. 23 years later and I'm up to around 90 pieces. I have focused that project on Hall of Famers whose careers ended by 1950, and in the case of Umpires and Executives, guys who were contemporaries of those men. I like that as a project as it's really a finite list of subjects, with parameters that let me focus just on the list. I have only deviated a couple of times (for Satchel Paige & Jackie Robinson).

 

I have exhausted almost all of the lower priced guys (Lloyd Waner, George Highpockets Kelly, etc.), and now will have to hone in on just a few guys per year. This year was by far my biggest for making big ticket buys. There are some that I know I will never get, but that's fine. I'm not going to go broke or crazy trying to pursue a Pud Galvin autograph. And I'm also going to only buy from trusted dealers or auction houses, or with respected authentication.

 

Because of the prices of the guys left on my want list, I have also started to collect some early Brewers and other baseball notables. I don't plan to display those, but just like having things to check off a list. Lafayette Currence and Frank Lane are destined for a binder.

 

It's a fun hobby. I love the great care that Charlie Gehringer put into his signature, and I like the flourish that Ed Barrow put into his. And the tremendous eyebrows that Barrow has in the picture I paired with his autograph.

 

I have the Eddie Collins and Kiki Cuyler at the frame shop now, and will post some pics when I get them back.

[rwa12]

Awesome! I have a very few from that era. I have both Waners, Dickey and Terry, Hoyt, Ferrell, and a Bob O'Farrell (non-HOF, but I believe in that era. I haven't gotten around to doing anything with the ICs and others. My collection for a long time focused on HOF signatures and Robin Yount stuff. I've kinda stopped both for awhile. Hoping to get back into the hobby when my boys are a bit older. Can't wait to see the pictures, do you have everything displayed in your own HOF?

[JimH5]

I used to have everything out, but we did a major remodeling last year that required removing walls & cutting concrete in the basement for new posts, etc. Concrete dust gets everywhere, and drywall dust, too. So for preservation, I put much of it away. We'll get the basement back to livable in a year or two, and then I'll be able to get everything back out.

 

Your Paul Waner is pretty rare. I don't often see him on dealer tables. Lloyd Waner is still about a $25 autograph. Paul is $500-$750 or more.

 

One of the less expensive guys who turned out to be a big challenge for me was Ray Dandridge. His autograph is pretty plentiful, but not often on a blank white card or piece of paper. Once I set out to get him, it was probably 3 years (pre-eBay) before I found a good one that I liked, and his was still $30 or less.

 

Now with eBay and online auctions, it's easier to find what you want, but I still prefer to see something in person.

[Bikeage77]

So Jim, when everything is all set up and to your liking, can I get your favorite six pack, and I'll come over, have a few beers and take all this stuff in?

 

My friends all enjoyed seeing all my Brewers stuff and signatures (and my HOFers weren't even displayed), but you have a a true museum brewing!

 

My best signatures are probably Aaron, Koufax, and Mays on balls. About a month ago I found a Mantle signature in my mom's basement. It was in a scorecard that my step dad had. It was signed on a Marriott letter head and personalized to him. I got it graded at the National and it came back a 9. I was pretty happy by it all (though it was like 150 to have it aunthenticated).

 

My uncle has Jackie Robinson, DiMaggio, and I think Ted Williams and Mantle as well. Someday I'd hope he'd hand them down to me, but he's got a step son now, or my aunt will just sell it off so who knows.

[JimH5]

I would be glad to show it off to you and whoever else wants to see it. From this board, I've had Pedro and hofcs over before our basement was taken apart.

 

It will take some time to make the space presentable, but I'll let you know when it's done.

 

Your collection sounds great-- All of those guys from the 50s and 60s would look great displayed with some of the classic color photography of the era. Ozzie Sweet of Sport magazine is probably the most iconic guy. And autographs of Musial, Marichal, Snider, Berra, etc. are still pretty available and affordable.

 

I think if I were starting my collection now, I would go for that postwar era, and do it with color photos. Everything I have now is B&W, and while I try to choose interesting photos, when they're all grouped together, that's a lot of black, white and gray.