I have yet to see a single example I'd be comfortable with owning, although I've certainly owned my share of Anderson autographs on other media.

Herman Hill is another one. He drowned during winter ball in 1970, and his rookie card is in the 1970 Topps set, so he certainly couldn't have that many in circulation. Also, someone mentioned Mike Miley. I grew up in Louisiana and had the chance to watch Miley as the quarterback for LSU. He was well loved in the state, so it could be that he signed a lot of cards for fans of him as a football player. Sadly, four LSU quarterbacks died in the 1967-1977 time frame including Miley, Butch Duhe, Carl Otis Trimble, and Trey Prather (who kept Terry Bradshaw on the bench in high school).

Hi - I have a bunch of TTM autographs I'm thinking of selling, most from the junk wax era, and I'm wondering if some of you kind, thoughtful folks would update this list in case I have a diamond in the rough....

I remember seeing Brian play during 88-89 in the Cal League. We were living in San Jose and had season tix in 89. He spanked the heck out of most any S.J. Giants pitcher he faced. Even Rod Beck....... I wondered where he had gone.

I was not into getting autographs at that time. That did not happen until the 90's when we moved to Colorado Springs and followed the Sky Sox. I have ~3500 cards autographed of many players and coaches in the PCL between 93 - 2000 +/-

So if anyone is looking for some obscure minor league autographs of PCL players I may have some.

Butch

Trax has cards. I have the 1991 Topps MLB Debut signed.

I guess it probably isn't possible for a signed 1970 Topps Miguel Fuentes to exist?

I guess in this digital age it is harder for players to just "disappear", and more and more guys seem to do private signings now and remove themselves from this list. Any player still living could suddenly become quite attainable for a price, and once set collectors are satiated the market all but disappears. Examples that come to mind are John Christensen, Al Pulido and Jim Traber.

A few guys in the popular 1987 Topps set can be very pricey on that specific card, but cheap to downright common on other issues. Players like Tony Bernazard, Mike Brown (the Seattle pitcher), Rod Scurry (also insanely tough on 89 UD) and Frank Wills come to mind in that regard.

That said, a couple toughies that have yet to be mentioned in this thread are former Mets infielder Kelvin Chapman and Astros pitcher Mark Lemongello, even though the latter recently did a fairly expensive private signing. His story is definitely worth looking up if you are unfamiliar.

This references 1950's cards, but a good example of a player who was once considered very tough - almost Holy Grail tough - and then became common was NY Giants utility infielder Foster Castleman. His signed cards retailed in the hundreds of dollars, and then it was discovered that if you made a modest contribution to his church, he would be happy to sign. He died a few years later, but by then, anyone who wanted Foster Castleman had Foster Castleman.

Okay, I'll admit that I really like saying Foster Castleman...

I believe you're correct. Fuentes was killed on Jan 29th, 1970, and the set would have been released sometime after that. You can occasionally find a 3x5 signed by him.

Dave Revering and Allen Ripley are in this category too. It was long believed they were completely non-responsive to mail requests, but turns out that bad addresses were out there for both of them. Once their correct addresses were discovered, they quickly and consistently started answering their mail. Before he passed away, Ripley had even commented that he had zero problem signing autographs and often wondered why he didn't get more fan mail.