How strong do you think our hobby will stay?
 

I ask this question because for example in regards to HOF players, most of this generation that collects meaning the younger collectors, know and collect mike trout, ronald acuna jr , albert pujols, bryce harper, yadier molina, justin verlander, etc but some dont even know who hank aaron, willie mays or nolan ryan are! (true story) of course we all do, but the new generation can care less about a booby doerr autograph or a bob feller autograph or a luis aparicio autograph, they want a trout or harper autograph! so do you think for those that collect HOF autographs there will be much of a market for them in the future as there seems to be less and less of the younger collects that collect them like we do. what do you think?

When I was a young collector in the 90's I only cared about Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. As I got older and matured I of course still cared about those players but grew to have an appreciation for the Ruth's, Mays, Aaron's, Koufax's etc.
I think thats the way it will always be.

"Booby" is weeping in his grave right now...

I have also posed the same question. The non HOFers will lose interest. I do not think there wil be many 1954 Bowman set collectors for example. In general collecting is down. How many of the young folks collect stamps and coins? There will be some HOF completist collectors but overall numbers may drop. mantle, dimaggio, jackie, willie, babe etc will hold strong. Not sure about Doerr, Marquard, Rousch etc. Only time will tell

It's the same thing for Hollywood autographs or football autographs - you can get a Jim Brown for cheap, arguably the greatest football player ever. But Tom Brady is expensive. Point is that it's not just baseball, or sports only. It seems to be a progressive shift of generations.

I think autographs as a hobby will remain popular, and even obscure ones can retain interest if they are displayed well.

A 3x5 in an authentication slab is ok, but that same signature, framed and matted with a period photo can be beautiful and interesting.

I've tried to come up with some sort of logic on this. There are things that one can point to such as players who you saw live, players your parents saw and may have spoken about fondly etc, but can't really figure it out. I know some have looked at trends for other hobbies such as stamp and coin collecting (both of which I know almost no one who has any interest in... though that just be the people I know).

Obviously, I think time will tell. I do find that as people get older many collectors of newer cards or items start to appreciate the older stuff.

I think the values of autographs will collapse except for stuff with rock solid provenances in the near future. The forgery problem is going to be harder to get around once AI machines that can duplicate handwriting like this one become cheap enough for everyone to own:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsZH7SS_lfQ

Similar machine signed fakes are already in play. It's really just a computer driven version of an Autopen. They are detectable if you know what to look for.

I'm not too concerned about future demand for early vintage autographs. Those signatures are works of art. Any sports fan can easily recognize the signature and appreciate the history behind it.

Autographs of current day athletes are another story. These signatures are rarely more than a quick scribble. I don't see the same mass appeal for these.

I'm not sure that the reason people buy autographs is for the aesthetics of the signature (though I am sure some do). I think the bigger issue with modern items is that the players sign insane amounts of items, and everything remotely connected to each player or game is saved, so finding things that are legitimately rare will be tough in my opinion.

I think signed cards will appreciate more. As it is now simple to find any card on Ebay, the hunt for a tougher challenge presents itself.


Also, errors and variation, much like the coin market, will appreciate more.


My modest opinion

Yes, but it won't be long before developers figure out what autograph experts look for and figure out a way of spoofing that too.

I mean, if its a vintage Ty Cobb signed in ink 100 years ago that would be an obvious difficulty. But for contemporary players using contemporary ink on contemporary material? That is going to be easy.

Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate them as as you bring up some very good points. Before reading these this thread, I was leaning toward collecting HOF factory certified autographs because companies like PSA are just one big scandal away from making all those slabbed autographs worthless! and i thought i would be safe with lets say topps certified autographs because after all Topps is Topps! if you cant trust Topps who can you trust in our hobby, was my thinking and logic. my thought is the day that the hobby cant trust a company like Topps is the day that i feel the hobby will no longer be.(who in their right mind would want to collect then) PSA is just an "opinion" service and if Topps cant be trusted, why collect autographs?

Wow, very sad! :( Sorry you feel that way
Collect what you enjoy

It is sad that the autograph hobby if filled with so many fakes (I read online that an estimated 75% of all autographs in our hobby are fake) how can I enjoy what I collect when all it takes is one bad scandal and everything touched by PSA or Beckett would be worthless? And now from what I’m reading we can’t even trust companies like Topps or Upper Deck in regards to autographs being real. Either players having their friends and girlfriends signing their autographs, to companies not actually witnessing players signing (sending players stacks of cards or sticker sheets to sign) to now crooks using high speed printers to print out autographed cards with factory authentication stamps on them. Is anyone else worried about the direction autograph authentication is going in our hobby?

If PSA or JSA or Beckett or ABC or whomever get rocked by scandal all you have to do to stuff they've "touched" is crack the slabs. It's not hard and takes less than a minute generally. If it's stickered just remove that if you choose, some are harder than others but they all come off.

You don't really seem like you are gung ho on collecting autographs, so don't. It's not everyone's cup of tea and that's perfectly fine.

Find something you enjoy and that doesn't worry you. Collecting is much more fun that way.

Good luck,

Mike

As it is, PSA encases trimmed cards and give their top submitter's preferential treatment for grades and letting them flip cases like they flip hamburgers at Tommies.

E bay sells & PROMOTES fake autographs. Their call center is in the Philippines. What do you think the future is?

I think a nice little recession and PSA turning into GAI will take care of everything.

enjoy cracking the slabs that hold all your trimmed cards...LOL

I won't lose any sleep over it. It's a hobby and this stuff is not the Magna Carta. People take this hobby way too seriously.

I just think people (myself included) feel like, why buy autographs that are not real or that have a high chance of not being real? Most people I know don’t have money to just throw away on autographs. I just think it’s a shame that big companies like Topps autographs might not be real (based on the comments here) TPAs have always been “just an opinion” but if you can’t trust Topps, Upper Deck, etc then who can to trust? May I ask, if all the autographs in your collection one day turn out to not be real (even though they are PSA slabbed and certified by companies like Topps, Upper deck, Steiner etc (if you have those) would you have the same attitude then? Would you still think “it’s just a hobby” and take a huge financial loss on what you paid for your autographs? I’m not saying you at all but a lot of people say “it’s just a hobby” until it hits them in the pocketbook.(when they go to sell their collections and can only get like 20% of what they paid for it or when PSA, Beckett, etc get exposed as the next GAI and their autographs aren’t worth much after that) would like to hear your thoughts on that. Thanks

It's serious when the top seller blatantly has friends breaking cards out of stupid cases and altering them, then resubmitting for higher grades.

I don't take it seriously. I could care less if the guy is crooked. I just don't buy and move on to something else. Like collecting 100 bills again.

actually, many of my nice large framed autographs are faded off and pretty much worthless. They are real however as I actually learned the signatures myself and don't rely on those companies. I have a tub full of Mint baseballs 15- Mantles. 15 Dimaggios 10 koufax's 5 Williams, and a few more that are put away. They have been personally vetted by me and there are ZERO forgeries left in my collection. Others are displayed in my office and some are also fading right off the ball. PSA is GAI in my opinion when it comes to cards. A few of my autographs have PSA or JSA, but many don't have anything, which I would rather have. (Only about 50K worth of junk, worth nothing)

I never bought them for an investment, just bought them to have for fun and to brighten my home office. Something for my grand kids. If they want to sell them, that's great. There are instructions in My trust on who to sell them with. Someone with integrity that frequents these boards. (AND IT AINT BRENT MASTRO) That's good enough for me.

I have fun. Get burned sometimes (every one knows that here :-). If it's expensive, rare or highly forged I ask here. For Bobby Doerr (who I never saw play, but wanted to collect) I look at exemplars and have fun deciding myself. Figuring it out, learning and texting with an expert community like here is part of the fun.

Another example is I learned an awful lot about paraphs on this site when I found out my Cobb cut was not real.

I think think this is a bigger problem in our hobby than most care to admit.a lot of people in our hobby turn the other cheek on this subject because there is an financial incentive for them, meaning they sell autographs on eBay or sell autographs for a living or a side business.

What do you want those people to do? Stop their business pr collecting because you aren't comfortable? Of course fraud is a problem in the hobby. Any hobby that has monetary interest has fraud. If you don't want the risk, you don't participate in the hobby. Many people are fine with the risk and enjoy this hobby anyways.

It is not turning the other cheek. It is learning as much as you can and being willing to assume the risk involved. Anyone that blindly trusts any entity such as the ones you mention, Topps, TPA's, etc., are simply setting themselves up to be burned. One should never have blind trust in a human or in entities run by humans generally. Heck, 50% of all marriages (not sure of the number, I made up a generalization just like you did when deciding that all autographs would be instantly worthless if a TPA is scandal rocked) end in divorce, but that doesn't stop people from taking the marriage risk, and that has far more at stake than autographs.

I've been at this a long time, I study sigs a lot, and I still get burned from time to time. Does it stop the joy I receive from collecting? No. Do I crawl away and swear to never collect again? No. I try to learn from my mistakes in hopes of making better choices the next time.

I also remove the item from circulation by destruction usually so no one else gets burned by that same item. Aghast, even if it has a TPA that would make it so easy to pawn off on someone else.

That's not turning a blind eye to the problems, that's not protecting a monetary stake, that's being a good hobby steward and trying to do the right thing for a hobby that I enjoy.

Here's a PSA/DNA one that had to go

https://youtu.be/u-XqbbfLG6c

Here's a fake Muhammad Ali that met it's demise

https://youtu.be/pjjVPY7WwyY


And here's the blowing up of a Charles Manson signed check that many feel is real but I did not so it had to go (I realize you cant see the check itself in the video but I have several pics saved showing where I taped it to the Tannerite)

https://youtu.be/BsM7xZq_EBU

An autograph is either real, or it's not, matters not what company it came from or what TPA certed it. Don't pass your problem pieces on to others and don't be so tied to the almighty dollar that you do questionable things or buy "bargain" autographs.

If that's turning the other cheek to the fraud in the hobby in order to make money or protect a stake, I just shake my head in amazement.

Great post, Mike.

Great points Mike!

Al and Steve,

Thank you

Mike

You have been collecting for a very long time Mike and I respect your advice and opinion very much. Thank you again.