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.
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