The New York Times puts their two cents into the Jeter memorabilia story

T206Collector · #1 07-16-2011, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

Thanks for strengthening my point! There never was a market (shall we say "demand?) for $600 Feller signatures. Why? 'Cause he never stopped signing for nothing (or next to nothing.)

Koufax obviously has better things to do with his life than set up shop at the concession stand at Land o Lakes park every day in March for the rest of his life.

As long as there is a demand for his signature (shall we say "market") you would require the athlete to flood the market with free signatures until the demand was covered? You fault the athlete for monetizing his signature. In what other industry do you intentionally dilute your market?

David Atkatz · #2 07-16-2011, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T206Collector

You fault the athlete for monetizing his signature. In what other industry do you intentionally dilute your market?

Of course I do. They never should have created the "market" in the first place. (Then there'd be nothing to "dilute.")

T206Collector · #3 07-16-2011, 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

Of course I do. They never should have created the "market" in the first place. (Then there'd be nothing to "dilute.")

Here you actually fault the athlete because a fan sold his signature.

David Atkatz · #4 07-16-2011, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T206Collector

Here you actually fault the athlete because a fan sold his signature.

What are you talking about? If the athlete keeps signing for free, there's no market for the sold signature. A few will sell, but not many, and not for high prices. Only the athlete has the power to create a real market, by not "leaking."

T206Collector · #5 07-16-2011, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

What are you talking about? If the athlete keeps signing for free, there's no market for the sold signature. A few will sell, but not many, and not for high prices. Only the athlete has the power to create a real market, by not "leaking."

D'oh, we were so close to an agreement here.

I think what you meant is "only the athlete has the power to dilute his market." This might be chicken egg territory, but I think the market arose from collector behavior, and the athlete can either try to tap into that market, or spare no effort to dilute the market. I think most athletes do a combination of both. And I certainly think, for the record, that Koufax is no worse than Ruth would have been in that department.

David Atkatz · #6 07-16-2011, 11:37 PM

You can keep believing whatever you like. Unfortunately, while we can imagine what Ruth might or might not have done in some alternate reality in which he meets Brandon Steiner, we'll never really know, will we?

T206Collector · #7 07-16-2011, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

You can keep believing whatever you like. Unfortunately, while we can imagine what Ruth might or might not have done in some alternate reality in which he meets Brandon Steiner, we'll never really know, will we?

Never really knowing didnt seem to prevent you from making all sorts of gross assumptions and hyperbolic statements above. All I did was try to provide a shred of circumstantial evidence to challenge your apparent knowledge of Ruth's futuristic autograph altruism.

Exhibitman · #8 07-18-2011, 07:35 AM

I understand David's frustration with the commoditization of autograph collecting but it is seeing the past through rose-colored lenses [and terribly naive] to believe that the elite athletes of the past would not have embraced the current system had it been there. A lot of it comes down to personalities. Jeter falls into the Joe DiMaggio mode ["Gods do not answer letters"; a quote about Williams but aporpos here] of being a distant, regal personality. Having him engage in a 'sterile' signing is probably the only way it will happen; I bet that once his playing days are over he will be the sort who rarely does a show unless he needs the money. Babe Ruth was a big, gregarious personality who seemed to like people and signed a hell of a lot. That's unusual; he could handle it. Sandy Koufax is not. He's a shy man who's found a way to deal with fame and autograph seekers as painlessly as possible. Koufax could be out every weekend collecting big appearance fees and making commercials right and left if he was so inclined. He isn't. He does sign for free, BTW, but only for people he knows [a client who is a childhood "friend of Sandy" from Brooklyn got him to sign and personalize a ball for me several years ago*]. Bob Feller clearly had some personal need to be out there pushing all the time, meeting, greeting and signing away. He may have devalued his autograph to the point where it is almost a nuisance [dammit, Bob, put away the pen], but other than the odd quip about a Feller card not signed by Feller being a condition rarity, I don't hear any real complaining because he did so. I also don't hear anything bad about Stan Musial, who charges pretty good for his autograph [$100 for a flat TTM through his web site] but who delivers a winning personality when he does a show or deals with fans.

* Good story there: I had a Nolan Ryan inscribed signed ball that a cousin who worked for Bristol Meyers got for me during an Advil commercial shoot. When my client told me he was seeing Koufax and asked if I wanted a Koufax signature I asked him to have Koufax sign the same ball with the same inscription. He [client] called me and said "Sandy won't sign. He said 'what the f** do I want to be on a ball with Ryan for?'" It was a joke, of course; he signed it and it is a treasured baseball in my very modest collection.

mark evans · #9 07-18-2011, 08:59 AM

I should add to my last comment that star players can almost certainly afford to sign for free in my view and those who do so, if any, are worthy of admiration. I think one of the reasons more players don't sign for free, aside from greed, is due to a cynicism that developed some years ago, and later perhaps fueled by the internet, when it became apparent that a significant percentage of autograph seekers had commercial motives.

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