Value of Les Nunamaker signature?
 

I have the opportunity to pick up an old scrapbook from someone associated for a long time with the Lincoln minor league club and there is a signature in the book of Les Nunamaker who was manager for the Lincoln team in 1930. I can't seem to find his signature anywhere on the net except for my own team signed baseball with his signature. Does anyone have a good value for his autograph?

Thanks

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Doubt I will be much help as I found only one offered example by Jim Stinson (in 2013) among the past 10+ years of dealer price lists saved. That would include prior sales listings published by Jim Stinson, Quality Autographs/Kevin Keating, Bill Corcoran, Ron Gordon, MVP Autograph/Doug Averitt, and less frequent lists rom Richard Simons, Prewarsports/Rhys Yeakley, Rich Albersheim, Mike Gutierrez, and Jodi Birkholm. Unfortunately, I did not keep a running record of auction listings and results. That might have proven more useful. Seems to me that a example may have been offered as part of a group of vintage 1912-15 Boston Red Sox autographs by Hunt Auctions in the past two-three years. But my memory fails me if that is accurate.

Regardless, the one item from Jim Stinson was offered in his 10/23/2013 Autograph Update, and reads as such:

111) LESLIE NUNAMAKER HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED 1914 BASEBALL STATISTICAL INFORMATION BUREAU QUESTIONAIRE Measures 3x5. Extremely RARE AUTOGRAPH ! To the best of my knowledge this is the ONLY Nunamaker autograph that has EVER been offered for public sale. A catcher for the 1911-1914 Boston Red Sox, 1914-1917 Yankees, 1918 Browns, and 1919-20 Cleveland. He Helped the 1912 Red Sox win the World Series and later accomplished the same for the 1920 Cleveland Indians. Comes with an unsigned 8x10 pictured in Cleveland uniform and smaller unsigned photo in Yankees uniform for display. He was only 49 years old when he died in 1938 !!!!! $3,500.00


Please keep in mind this listing is from 2013 and therefore possible that other examples have since been offered. But I think given Jim's years of experience, it quite reasonable to assume that you have an rare autograph within your 1930 Lincoln scrapbook. Congrats on your find !!!

Thank you for the info Vincent. I wonder if it actually sold for that? I got a PM telling me the price is way down from that today.

There have been at least several Cleveland team signed sheets that came up for sale which included Nunamaker. It is definitely quite rare, but that would certainly bring the price down to "normal" range. For what it's worth, as a longtime deadball collector, if one came up, I would expect to pay $500 - $750 for a good Nunamaker signature.

I've got Nunamaker on a 1920 Indians team sheet. No idea of the value, though.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ps202angbd.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...psweirpjl2.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...pszlw4dxoo.jpg

A word of caution, as other dealers of vintage "non HOF autographs" can attest to, the prices of non Hall of Fame signatures, even rare ones, have fallen drastically over the past 5-10 years for a variety of reasons.

I have two theories:

1.) The MacAlister collection flooding the market

2.) There just aren't enough collectors out there looking for this genre of autographs anymore. Pretty much everyone who is looking for certain debut year, team, etc. autographs have purchased the autographs needed for their collections or have given up and gone onto another subject. Also, the history of the game just does not resonate with the younger collectors.

That’s nice David. There are several tough signatures on there including Pinch Thomas, another member of 1912 Red Sox. Nunamaker and Thomas are on most 1912 Red Sox want lists.

The vintage autograph market is strong, but VERY thin. A rare signature can be $1000 to the first guy, then $700 to the next guy and then once those two have him, it can be a tough sell for a few hundred bucks. I know of 3-4 Nunamakers and I had never seen the impressive team sheet David posted. If this was the first ever found, I would think $1000-$1500 would be a realistic asking price but once 3-4 have made their way into the advanced collections, you will be in the $400-$500 range I would think if you could even sell it for that. You never know, just an estimate, but I would think that is a fair analysis.

Rhys stated my thoughts better than I did.

Actually Fred, I thought your comment that history doesn’t resonate with younger collectors was also great. I think it helps explain the decline in early books also.

Nunamaker and Thomas
 

I’d be interested in knowing how much you want for the Nunamaker and Thomas autographs if you’d entertain selling them?

Vintage baseball autographs seem to sell pretty well on ebay from what I've seen.