What is the toughest baseball HOF autograph to obtain?

[the-illini]

With the recent post about a possible Addie Joss signature, it got me to wondering who is the toughest HOFer to find a signature of - is it Joss? King Kelly?

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by the-illini

With the recent post about a possible Addie Joss signature, it got me to wondering who is the toughest HOFer to find a signature of - is it Joss? King Kelly?

yes, and yes, and rube waddell and a few others where there is 1, 2 or none known and mr. stinson can take over from here.

[packs]

I bet there aren't too many Ross Youngs or Candy Cummings around. Probably zero examples from the early negro league players like Pete Hill.

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by packs

I bet there aren't too many Ross Youngs or Candy Cummings around. Probably zero examples from the early negro league players like Pete Hill.

There were two Ross Youngs in the August Heritage auction (though that is an anomaly as he is extremely tough).

You're right about Hill and many of the early Negro Leaguers. Cristobal Torriente, Smoky Joe Williams, Bullet Rogan, now those are some hard to find autos.

[keithsky]

Ask the experts at Coach's Corner what the toughest one is to find and they will say none are tough to find

[JimStinson]

There are at least a dozen considered tough to impossible. About 2 dozen which only a few examples exist of , topping my list of perhaps impossible (at least at present) would be
1) Jose Mendez
2) Cristobal Torriente
3) Frank Grant

nearly impossible
4) King Kelly
5) Tim Keefe
6) Hoss Radbourne
7) Buck Ewing
8) Addie Joss
and probably a few others. But the top three "forget it"

I was researching #1 & #2 over 18 years before their induction into the hall, And was never able (even then) to produce a single lead. And that included knocking on doors and even making "cold calls" and being armed with information that even today I've kept secret

[prewarsports]

Here is a link with photos to the Keefe autograph, I am surprised Ron didn't remember this when it came up for sale, it was consigned by Keefe's family and the whole thing was written by him not just the signatures in the book (of which there are several). Signed by a bunch of other guys too.

http://www.huntauctions.com/online/i...=1149&lot_qual

[theshleps]

I have an Andy Cooper on a 3x5 hard stock piece of paper that I bought quite a while ago from negro league expert Wayne Stivers. It is a perfect match to the one in Keatings book. I guess my other rarity is Ned Hanlon that I bought from Jim Stinson

[mighty bombjack]

Originally Posted by theshleps

I have an Andy Cooper on a 3x5 hard stock piece of paper that I bought quite a while ago from negro league expert Wayne Stivers. It is a perfect match to the one in Keatings book. I guess my other rarity is Ned Hanlon that I bought from Jim Stinson

Damn, show those off man! I wanna see scans!

[theshleps]

They are in the bank vault. I should have scanned before putting them there. I am leaving for an extended trip soon and if someone reminds me this spring I will be happy to do it. Jim Stinson might have a scan of the Hanlon since it was in an old list of his

[HexsHeroes]

Originally Posted by theshleps

They are in the bank vault. I should have scanned before putting them there. I am leaving for an extended trip soon and if someone reminds me this spring I will be happy to do it. Jim Stinson might have a scan of the Hanlon since it was in an old list of his

Quality of my image of Jim's 8/1992 listing sucks,
but the print quality of my photocopy of the listing
leaves much to be desired. But I have no doubt
that the actual autograph item is quite impressive.

.