Who Are The Pioneers Of The Baseball Autograph Hobby?
 

Just curious as to the history of collecting baseball signatures. Who was first? The most prolific? When did collectors start gathering baseball signatures? I got to thinking about this when an old photo of the 1904 Husker baseball team with Doc Steen popped up in my facebook memories today. He was actively seeking baseball player signatures in the 1930s, but I'm sure there must have been other hobbyists much earlier than him.

As far as I know autographs have always been popular, although they were more geared towards collecting signatures of people you knew for intrinsic value and not celebrities for monetary value. Autograph books go back to the Civil War period. There are countless photos of Ruth signing autographs throughout his career and being surrounded by immense crowds. Even more people collected Hollywood signatures. I don't know the specific names of people but it seems like they've always been out there.

Basically collecting baseball autographs did not exist until the mid-late 1920's. It emerged as a hobby in the early 1930's and expanded in 1932 when the Watermans fountain pen company gave away free books to kids all across America and gave them instructions on collecting signatures as a hobby. After that contest, it really took off!

One of the guys who posts here from time to time, Tom Hufford, is one of the pioneers of the hobby and his stories are absolutely amazing and go back to the 1960's. He was a co-founder of SABR and literally has a story about every single ballplayer I have ever mentioned to him. I have told him he needs to write a book, but that thing would be bigger than the baseball encyclopedia. I dont think anybody has been bigger in the hobby for as long as he has.

Rhys

Here is an article about King Kelly signing baseballs in the 1890s

http://blog.robertedwardauctions.com/?p=725

I also have seen many GPC from a Collector named Nate Mindel from the late 20s/early 30s. I have never seen a GPC dated earlier specifically just for collecting a sports autograph. The collection has since been broken up.

10 cents for King Kelly....:eek:

Great info fellas. Thank you.

In the early 70's, when The Trader Speaks was the monthly journal, and SCD was just starting Max Schrager was the big autograph dealer. He had a monthly article and was at every Anaheim Convention. The ones named above were obviously before him, but he was probably the first big dealer when the hobby was starting to really explode.

I would also throw Dr. CG Steen into this category.
Somewhere on net54 there is a terrific entire thread on Dr. Steen, who was a dentist that, during the 1930's and early 1940's, would write to players asking for them to sign a Baseball Magazine supplement featuring the player.
Here is my Vandy response letter and signed supplement, that I own thanks to others on net54.

I can't imagine a conversation about collecting autographs without mentioning Jeff Morey, that I believe is still alive. Definitely an autograph pioneer and he is the author of a publication called The Autograph Review on collecting autographs. He amassed one of the largest collections in the hobby before selling it a number of years ago.

BTW, Jim Stinson would be a great one to answer this question, if we could get him to weigh in.

Conrad Anderson. Undoubtedly spent hours and hours sending autograph requests starting in as early as the 50's and maybe sooner. Sent large quantities of items to players over and over and over and over and over.

If you run across earlier items that are signed to Conrad or Connie, they most likely originated from him. He had to be one of the first big time dealers and you can find his ads in old SCD's. If anyone is interested, I can try to dig up an old SCD ad and post it so people can see his prices and the type of players he had.

I used to buy from Max in the mid 1960s. He along with me and a handful of others would go to the hotels in NYC to get the visiting teams. I bought alot of rare HOFers from him. Ruth was $35. Unfortunately in 1968 I gave the hobby up for many years and sold my collection to Max. Everything I got from him plus all the players that would sign through the mail back then plus the wives of the deceased players that would send cancelled checks etc. I would love to see what I had back then as I forget what I had. Know I had guys like Jimmy Collins, lot os Jackie Robinson on Topps cards etc etc. He did take advantage of me when buying back my collection but I was still a teenager and wanted the $ for other things. He was the only adult who showed at the hotels looking for autographs. Often times there were only 3 or 4 of us and we waited in the lobby. The Dodgers were the most crowded when we would get 8 to 10 fans.

I'd add Dr. John Davis Jr. to the mix. I have a great Dutch Ruether from his collection. Here's a short link to a story about him.
http://washburnlaw.edu/library/colle...boutdavis.html

There may be members here who knew this gentleman and might know more about his collecting interests, but I think I read or heard that he had signatures of every player that ever played minus a handful of real early ones and maintained that as years passed.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/her...0934&fhid=5809

Just found this searching for details too...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=151976

I am happy to report that Jeff Morey is still alive and well. You can listen to an audio recording of an interview I did with him 10 years ago on my website at:

http://www.signedt206.com/jw-morey-interview/

The focus was his experiences getting deadball era baseball cards signed by players. Among other things in this 30-minute interview, Morey described his visit with old time New York Giant pitcher Hooks Wiltse in 1954 and his encounter six years later with Ty Cobb in Cooperstown, New York. I share a few images of items Morey had Cobb sign over breakfast in Cooperstown on June 27, 1960.

Many of my signed T205 and T206 cards come from Morey's old collection, which he sold on Mastro back in 2001.

There are a few Steen related threads on Net54, but the primary one that followed the sale of his collection a few years ago is here:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ighlight=steen

I would like to add Roy Pitts and James MacAlister. I bought thousands and thousands of items from the MacAlister collection when it was auctioned off over a period by Hunt Auctions. In retrospect, I wish I would've kept some of the stuff. It is amazing how the market for non-HOF signatures took a downturn since those auctions (especially letters). Then again, it seems that I sold the tougher items to the same 5 or 6 people weekly.
I kept a spreadsheet on the prices I got on all of the tougher older player sigs I sold from his collection. Unbelievable when I go back every now and then and look. I am not complaining, items from Mr. MacAlister's inventory helped me purchase my first house.
Also, you can thank the MacAlister collection for the glut of 3x5s and Rowe photo postcards that still pop up often.
As for Mr. Pitts, items originating from his collection still pop up.
Also, there was an old school collector from my area (Pittsburgh). I can't believe that I am unable to think of his name now. Anyways, items from his collection still make the rounds. Also, Jim Armstrong.

I was amazed it took so long for Pitts and MacAllister to be mentioned! Others:

Henry West
George Pabst, Jr.
Walter Danaby and daughter Peggy
Robert Luga
Bob DuVall
Jack Smalling
Loren McDonald

+1

I ran into Jack at spring training maybe 5 or so years ago. After buyoing his lists for so many years it was neat. His son was with him

M. Watt Espy. The foremost and most widely-cited authority on the history of capital punishment, and who collected all genres of autographs, including sports. I've had autographs from his collection by movie stars, political leaders, dictators, authors and many athletes. Personalized autographs from his collection are extra neat because they are addressed to a prominent historian.

His wikipedia bio

I love reading about all of these great autograph collectors! I really enjoyed the Ralph Winnie and Bill Zekus threads from a few years back so this is especially enjoyable. Does anyone have articles on any of the individuals mentioned so far? I'm looking forward to listening to the interview with Jeff Morey!

What can anyone tell me about Danaby? I own the photo below. Thanks in advance!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a0cd8f7b8c.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5f5a0674e4.jpg


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Thanks for mentioning me, Rhys, but I have a hard time considering myself a "pioneer." Maybe I'm a veteran - but not a "pioneer!" I didn't start collecting until 1969, unless I include my first autograph - Gordy Coleman, who signed my scorecard at my first ML game in 1964. My collection does now include the signature of every Major Leaguer who debuted 1925-2017, except for 10 1925-32, and three 2017 rookies. And, maybe about 2,000 who played before 1925 - but I only wrote to several hundred of those. The rest had to have been gathered by unknown (to me) collectors, years before.

I have to think that even though players were asked for autographs earlier (in person), collecting by mail probably didn't start until the 1920s. I have a lot of index cards and business cards signed and dated by players in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but don't know who collected them initially. I've seen numerous autograph books with player signatures from the 1920s, and sometimes they include the name and address of the original owner. I'm assuming that these were collected in person - whether or not these same collectors ever did any through the mail requests or not, I don't know.

I've seen numerous self-addressed government post cards that were signed and returned by the players. I always assumed these were mailed to the players along with an autograph request. But not always, I learned. I've had several veteran collectors (Jim MacAllister, Bob DuVall, Ralph Winnie) tell me that they used to carry a stack of those postcards, and would just hand them to players leaving the ballpark, the hotel, or at the train station, with a verbal request to sign and mail back the card (a good idea today, maybe, when a player passes by and says "sorry, I don't have time to sign.")

As to Walter J. Danahy, referenced in the preceeding post, I have numerous autographs in my collection that originated from him. Most were on letters written to pre-1910 players, who returned the letters to him, including their autographs and usually a note. Most of these notes usually offered their encouragement and best wishes for him to recover from his illness. I've always thought that the letters were written to the players by Walter's mother, Peggy, but Mark (above) lists her as his daughter. So, I don't know the relationship. I've always assumed they came out of his estate, but don't know the details.

Other than the collectors already mentioned, I can't add a lot of names. Karl Wingler was from Damascus, VA, and was writing to players in the late 1930s. He worked for the Heilbroner Baseball Bureau (publishers of the Baseball Blue Book) in Ft. Wayne, IN and St. Petersburg, FL in the 1950s-60s. On the side, starting back in the 1940s, he wrote to former American League players, saying that he was compiling a history of the American League, and enclosing a biographical questionnaire which he (Karl) had already filled out with info that he knew. He asked the players to make any necessary additions and/or changes to the info, to sign the bottom of the page, and to return the forms to him. He also included two or three blank index cards, with the word "Autograph" stamped or typed at the top, and asked the player to signed those and return them, also. Karl also sent questionnaires to relatives of players he knew to be deceased, and asked them to also send an autograph from something signed by the player, if available. Karl seems to have given up his project in the mid-1960s, and evidently never got very far on his AL encyclopedia. All the questionnaires and signed index cards were found in their original envelopes in Karl's garage, after his death in 1996. They were obtained by Pat Quinn, and most have found their way into our collections by way of Pat's auctions. There was no indication of Karl having any interest in a National League project - darn it!

Another early collector that I'm aware of was Richard P. Stewart, of Pennington Gap, VA. I have several letters written to him in the 1930s by 1890's-era players. I don't know if he wrote specifically asking for autographs or not. The letters I've seen take the form of "Thanks very much for writing to me. I will list the teams that I played with below ....." or "My greatest thrill in baseball was ......" He later operated a garage and a movie theater in Pennington Gap, and died in 1961.

(Karl Wingler, Richard Stewart, and I all grew up in Southwest Virginia. Don't know what that might mean).

Another that I'll mention is Ambrose Edens. I never met him, or corresponded with him, either. What I have learned, after purchasing some of his collection, is that he grew up in Texas and started collecting autographs of local minor league players in the 1930s. After a few years, he started writing to major league players, too, He would cut player photos out of the newspapers, mount them on black scrapbook paper, cut the pages to fit in a business-size envelope, and mail them to the player. As well as using local newspapers, he would cut the photos out of Baseball Magazine, and later, the Sporting News. In the 1940s-50s, TSN would often do "where are they now" stories on former players, usually including the players current addresses.

Ambrose was a Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University for over 40 years. He was single, liked to travel, and in addition to writing to players, he would often travel around the country, visiting veteran players and getting their autographs. He seems to have stopped his collecting in the mid-1960s. In 1991, he donated his collection to his local church, and the church sold it at auction. He died in 2007, at the age of 87.

I'm sure there are more that I'll think of later.

Tom-

Thanks so much for taking the time write your insightful post. It gives us all a looking glass to go back in time to the collectors who inspired us and handed us the torch to keep the experience going. I look forward to reading any additional information you can provide about the dawn of our beloved hobby.

Tom mentioned Karl Wingler and his questionnaires he sent to ballplayers. Here's a photo of one of them he sent to Eddie Murphy from the 1919 Black Sox.

+1!

Thanks so much Tom. Ive been collecting bb cards for decades but only recently got into autographs, so I appreciate the context for this area of our hobby.

Just thought of a question actually...did getting baseball cards signed play a role? Or was the goal securing the autograph via whatever method was easiest/worked? Any insight into the use of bb cards by these early collectors would be great to hear.

Thanks again Tom.

Peter

Tom is too modest :) He knows more about the hobby than I think anyone who has ever dived into it regardless of who came first or who started it all. I have been a student of the hobby for about 20 years and am blown away every time I have a conversation with Tom.

One gentleman that hasn't been mentioned is Harold Esch. Mr. Esch started collecting in the late 1920's and continued into the next millennium! That's undoubtedly a record that will stand for years to come. A Florida resident, Mr. Esch spent many seasons obtaining signed 3X5s in-person during spring training. He would date each 3X5 at the time it was signed, offering a very unique collection once it was dispersed 10-12 years ago. He also obtained signatures by other means, but those in-person examples have certainly aided further understanding in the chronological evolution of many players' autographs. I've been fortunate to own many pieces of his collection, and lots more can be found in the marketplace today.

Can you share an example?


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This has been a great thread. Thanks to all who have responded so far.

Ten cents for a King Kelly. Wow. :D

Northwest based autograph collectors
 

Aside from the already-mentioned great collector/great fella Ralph Winnie, here are a few more significant early Northwest-based autograph collectors.

Gary Boyker
Mike Malast
Jim Greubel
Dave Voorhees
Gary Dalbey

Boyker started collecting in the 1940s, and the others from the 1950s-1970s. All built impressive and interesting collections.

Also worth mentioning is former PCL player Stan Gray, who played minor league ball from 1941-1951 in the West and NW, and started collecting in the late 1920s from his home town of Pasadena, CA.
A baseball lifer, Stan assembled an astounding collection of period-signed Burke photos in the 1930s, and thousands of other autographs in other formats. Of course, a number of these stellar items now reside in the collections of Net54 members.