Anyone collect signed photos anymore?
 

I noticed that on eBay signed 8x10s are selling so cheap right now (a buyers market) and I noticed at a card show I went to recently I didn’t see one signed photo in the entire show (and it was a HUGE show) so anyone still collect them?

I agree. 8 x 10 signed photos of players who made the show circuit in 80s and 90s are very cheap on eBay. In some cases the cost is the same or less than you would have paid for the auto ticket and 8 x 10 at the show. For a collector of autographs on this medium it definitely seems like a buyer’s market.

On the other hand autographs on vintage baseball cards have gone through the roof!

I have some notebooks full of autographed photos that I put out at the National and a Boston show I do once per year and rarely have anyone even look through them.

I guess the volume available just overwhelms the buyer market.

All the same, tired poses used for 8X10s signed on the show circuit over the last 40 years gets to be a bit repetitive. Nobody likes that. It's fully understandable that people have soured on them. Walking up to a dealer's table to see a binder of 150 8X10s with heavy duplication of a few common HOF names and familiar poses is an exercise in boredom.

Conversely, find me an 8X10 of a HOF player who died over 60 years ago and it's an entirely different feeling altogether. It's pretty hard to tire of something rarely encountered. I'm not talking Ruth, who is common in this format vs. most players who have been deceased for so long. Those don't tend to excite me. Give me an 8X10 of Kid Nichols, Eddie Collins...anything that you don't see very often.

And here's a hint to dealers: Don't put 50 copies of the same signed pose into one binder. People aren't going to be tempted to buy something that appears as common as toilet paper unless you're having a $1 sale. Idea #2: Have you been lugging those 100 Lou Boudreau 8X10s to every show since 1989 with no takers? Do yourself a favor and start giving them away to each kid under 10 who walks by your table. Your small gesture might help bring the love back for this dying medium to the demographic that is most needed to carry it forward. The kid's Dad might be more prone to buying something from you, and if giving away 100 signed photos manages to start even one young person on a lifelong road to autograph collecting, it will have been worthwhile.

I agree that signed photos of more modern players(from the 80's on) seems to have cooled off. In part because autograph shows, autographs are events( store openings, car dealerships, etc) the autographs are so so common.
I agree that pre 1980 and from players passed away is still strong because of the rarity
Signed cards up until a few years ago was not as in demand as it is now and the prices are thru the roof

I collect a lot of autographs, and I enjoy collecting vintage photos. The new stuff (1980 - on) not so much. I recently acquired the attached George Brace photo of Red Ruffing - it's an example of what I really enjoy.

I always have an eye out for signed snapshots from the 1930s through the 1950s. Here are a few of my favorites.

I think I'm with most people in not caring for modern signed photos that are readily available, but love them for vintage etc.

I bought collections of signed photos from the 1931 and 1934 US Tours of Japan. Doesn't have Ruth of Gehrig, but here are a couple of examples.

I collect signed & non signed snapshots. The images are more personal and different each time. The repetitiveness of 8x10s at shows is fatiguing. Easy skip.

Even if...it's a player I want to get auto 8x10, the show prices are freaking ridiculous! An inscription is almost the same amount as the auto itself.

Another factor is storage space. 8x10s take up more storage space than a 4x6, 3x5 etc snapshot photos.

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned that autographs have become virtually unreadable. It seems that each year it gets worse.

I'll bet that nobody stares at the average current autograph the way we all stared at all of the ones in this thread...


Actually, people do stare at newer autographs - in disbelief.

Doug,

As I've written elsewhere, I was always a "completest" collector: I wanted an autograph of every man to ever play in the Majors. While a complete collection is an impossible undertaking, I made very strong headway.

By the 1990's, the new players' signatures were becoming truly disgusting. Not as bad as the garbage from today's kids, but horrid enough that I finally said "Enough!". Sometime during that decade, I made the decision to stop wanting the modern autographs altogether and set a target end date with all the year 2000 debuts. That year had a very defining "The End" feeling, so a perfect finishing point. Coincidentally, I also lost any and all interest in following baseball around the same time the autographs started getting too nasty to enjoy. The 1994 strike was the nail in the coffin there.

This is something I've talked about in past threads. The new signatures are quite frankly terrible. We are long gone from the days of the picture perfect penmanship of guys like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, etc. I was at one point, interested in acquiring a Mike Trout signature, until I saw what it looked like. Absolutely terrible.

Back to the point at hand, I've collected some 8x10's, Mantle, Williams, and Aaron, mostly because of their prices. I think at this point I'd rather have them on baseballs though however.

As for their signature on cards? At this point, forget it. I wish I was around in the 60's and 70's when everything I wanted was available on the cheap!

i come from cards so i prefer signed pictures/photo over index and gpc anyways.

a new pickup, always nice to be able to get something from the esteemed Mr. Stinson.

https://i.imgur.com/Jh6aAmj.png

I still collect signed 8x10 photos but only if they’re personalized to me OR if they’re from older HOF players. My bank account thanks me for not being interested in awful illegible current player autographs.

^^^

Photos like that will never grow tiresome to look at.

If I ever see another signed 8X10 of Cool Papa Bell as an older man holding that oversized, novelty Willie Mays bat, or the Buck O'Neil where he has one knee on the top step of the dugout, or that colorized Ray Dandridge image, or the sepia toned Leon Day... It's like nobody ever took any other photos of these men. Same feeling applies to the higher quality photos of MLB players used ad nauseum for signing purposes at shows.

Phil Wood, a well-known Baltimore/Washington radio and TV guy, likes to tell the story of a show he promoted at George Mason University in Virginia in 1978, I think it was. It was well attended, with Joe DiMaggio the autograph guest attraction. The only problem was that few collectors would pay the $7 fee to get Joltin' Joe's signature. Phil said that he would look over and see DiMaggio sitting by himself behind his table and go over and chat with him because he felt sorry for him. People would come up to Phil and accuse him of highway robbery for wanting money for an autograph, vowing that they would never, ever stoop to paying to get a ballplayer's signature. I've heard other stories like that from the early days: people complaining about having to spend $5 to get Mickey Mantle at a show. Now they line up to spend hundreds for an illegible scrawl from relative nobodies whose name will never be mentioned in the same breath with the likes of DiMaggio and Mantle.

An interesting story, even when you adjust for inflation, a Joe DiMaggio auto at that price would be $31.42 in todays money. Perfectly reasonable, virtually everyone can afford it.

It's hard not to bring up money when it comes to the hobby, but I truly think things have gotten so out of hand. Kids cannot afford it, hell many adults can't either. I think the last signing for trout, was $700 a ball, $800 if you wanted an inscription. How's a 12 year old with a paper route supposed to afford that?

Or how about just pricing them to move, whatever that might be? And if there's no price anybody will pay, by all means blow them out as above, or do a "Buy one, get one free" sign. Conversely, for collectors who are always starting "what's smart to buy now" threads, you could probably do worse than look for such bargains on selected players that don't have much demand now, but didn't live long enough to flood the market with so many thousands of the same photo that they will never be worth much. It doesn't make sense that 8x10s, which can make great wall displays, aren't sought after the way signed baseballs and cards are, it's just a matter of price and supply and demand. As for the modern players, with their two line scrawls and five-circle scribbles, they will be cranking those out for so long that when the apocalypse hits, their value will reside in stoking fires to keep people alive. I can see it now: "Honey, we need more kindling. Can I please have the Ohtanis and Sotos now?"

In the immortal words of Mark Zuckerberg: "Learn code."