[drcy]

Dr. John Davis Jr. (died 2002) was a Topeka optometrist and well known old time/old school autograph collector. He carried his custom personalized index cards with him in his pocket. He got his first in person autograph when he was ten– President Calvin Coolidge. When he was 72, a newspaper reporter asked why he collected autographs and he said because it’s a hobby you can enjoy whether you are ten or 72. In that interview he said he never sold his autographs, though he donated his Supreme Court collection to the Washburn University School of Law where it is on public display.

A particularly interesting old time/old school autograph collector was M. Watt Espy. His day job was an Alabama lawyer and death penalty researcher, and he and was, and still is, considered the world's foremost authority on the history of capital punishment. His name and researched is commonly referenced in academic articles and scholarly books. But, as a hobby, he collected thousands of autographs, mostly through the mail, from everyone from Ty Cobb to John F. Kennedy to Elizabeth Taylor, many personalized to him. And it should be neat to have a politician's, movie star's or Nobel Prize winner's autograph personalized to a noted historian.