What's your oldest autograph...not the card, the autograph

[Kirbyfan34]

It's pretty awesome to see all this really old traditions still going. My daughter, who turns 12 on July 1st has been going to Brewers/Twins games since before she was born. Finally, last year she was able to sit through a whole game without needing to go do other stuff at the park, so don't give up on your girls dads! Regardless, the time spent together is what they will remember. And on just a side note we are going to Disneyland in June and managed to score tix to the Halos Twins game in the Big A! Should be a great time.

 

[KCLJ520]

Awesome! I have a daughter too, so hopefully she will enjoy the games too!

 

[Beachbum]

ttt

 

[Beachbum]

All of us old guys on here and nobody has autographs from the childhood?

 

[Beachbum]

Changing the name on the thread to see if there some good stories or pics out there that someone can share on their old IP auto experiences.

 

[chieftazmisty]

I can tell you all this much As a kid my twin brother and I use to go to the Pirate games at Forbes field in Pgh. Do to the fact that our dad and Dick Groat,s Father were very good friends. we use to go to the games early with Mr Groat and my dad . Got to sit in the pirate dugout during bp and talk to some of the players. I dont have them now but at one time had about 100 or so of Roberto Clemente and most of the Pirates from the late 50,s and a lot of the opposing players also They were great times

 

[Beachbum]

I can tell you all this much As a kid my twin brother and I use to go to the Pirate games at Forbes field in Pgh. Do to the fact that our dad and Dick Groat,s Father were very good friends. we use to go to the games early with Mr Groat and my dad . Got to sit in the pirate dugout during bp and talk to some of the players. I dont have them now but at one time had about 100 or so of Roberto Clemente and most of the Pirates from the late 50,s and a lot of the opposing players also They were great times

Awesome story Chief! I bet you have some amazing memories from those days.

 

[HockeyBrawler]

I'm part of a younger group, but I still have all of mine from when I was a kid. The first seven or so...

1991: Joe Charbonneau on a free Xeroxed photo at a card show at the Great Lakes Mall in Mentor, OH; Mark Lewis on a game program roster insert at Cleveland Stadium; Pat Hentgen on a ticket envelope at Cleveland Stadium.

1992: Derek Lilliquist on a card from a GLM card show, Sandy Alomar Jr. on a card TTM, Carlos Baerga on a card from a show at Euclid Square Mall.

1993: Cory Snyder on a card TTM.

After this I was a casual collector for a few years until I started TTM'ing hockey in the late 90's and then doing everything on a serious basis in 2003.

 

[KCLJ520]

Cool stories guys, I cant say I have much that is old, as I have sold EVERYTHING I used to collect, and have started over on a very limited basis.....the TTM/IP bug I had for my first 25 years turned into the "lets see what I can get for this" bug in the last 8! It has been fun though! I have donated a lot too, our dear friend who Baptized Ellie (2012)and myself (1981) and married Laura and I (2006) is a Priest on the North Side of Chicago, and we have given him a lot for his parish fundraisers.

So in answer to your question, Brian, I dont really have anything from my childhood, though I will say that those items sent our family on 3 vacations, one to Europe, one to Colorado, and one to Missouri (Johnson's Shut Ins/Elephant Rock state park: Ellie's first vacation in our camper last summer!). Those memories are what I cherish, I never look back at what I sold (lots of entertainers, many now dead: Dean Martin, Anthony Quinn, etc.) Honestly, I do think that I probably got more out of them financially than I had ever invested, and the memories last forever!

Now that I have told you my life story and philosophies on collecting and selling (!!) my oldest item is probably from 2005, when we met Bruce Weber when he was head coach at Illinois, he was recruiting during his Final Four season, and he very kindly signed for us, also got Roger Powell Jr. that season too, our favorite Illini player, which was awesome!

God Bless,

Kevin Mc

 

[t.rooster]

Those are great pages on the Reds program. My earliest auto is a Roy Gallagher 1975 topps card IP. But not signed in '75, signed as I started TTMs a few years back. But Gallagher turned out to be my daughter's HS history teacher and he is quite a hoot in person....

 

[DaNotoriousNIC]

Given that I'm 28 I don't have anything extremely old. As a kid I got Hulk Hogan, Sting, Ultimate Warrior, basically all the big names back in the early 90's. My uncle use to run a gym in California and we went and visited them and I guess I got everyone that was anyone one day going to work with him. Don't really remember it all that much other then meeting Hogan and Sting with no face paint and I didn't believe that was him, according to legend though my uncle called all the guys that wrestled and frequented his gym and asked them to bring as many wrestlers to meet me. Those autogaphs have been lost since we moved in 1996 to never be found. To my knowledge the earliest baseball autographs that I still have is this West Michigan Whitecaps hat that was signed in 1997. The hat itself is still from when they were the Oakland A's affiliate though.
On the top of the bill is Pedro Santana (played 1 game for the Tigers in '01), Tigers legend Jim Northrup and ?? #17


Bottom of the bill has my favorite Whitecap, didn't wanna sign the top since he didn't think the red would show up good which kinda dissapointed me but was still excited because he was my favorite, the infamous Robert Fick, known for his wonderful attitude in the big leagues. Was the last person with a hit at Tiger Stadium which was a grand slam.
Scott Sollmann #16, ??, Rob Fick, Romulo Martinez, Apostol Garcia.

To bad I didn't know the in's and out's like I do today, could have gotten 4 more guys that made it to MLB. Chris Wakeland, Dave Borkowski, Willie Blair and Francisco Cordero

 

[jakegarber]

I love the older autographed items like this, very cool.

 

[TideFanDan]

I'll have to scan the cover of the 1979 Astros-Mets game. It was my first big-league game and I went with my dad and grandfather. We had seats close to the dugout in the Astrodome. I was six years old. I even got the batboy and bullpen catcher's autograph. Looks like maybe Luis Pujols and Tom Dixon as well.

I read somewhere that Tom doesn't sign anymore. That is a shame.

 

[Beachbum]

Great stories in here, anybody else ?

 

[Beachbum]

I just reread this thread, anybody else have good old time autos? The whole subject makes me wonder how it ever even started...asking pro ball players to sign their cards.

 

[KCLJ520]

Brian, interesting question, here is an Encyclopaedia Britannica article about the history of autographs I thought might shed some light on part of your question about how it all started!

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/44793/autograph

God Bless,

Kevin Mc

 

[HockeyBrawler]

Just got a new old one. My dad gave me all his old cards when I was in Ohio last week along with a photo of George Brunet, a longtime pitcher who lived next door to my dad when my dad was a kid. It's from some point in the early to mid 60's. The photo is signed on the back. Brunet autos are hard to come by in the US as he played from 1972-1989 in Mexico, and died there in 1991. I'll see if I can post a scan of it tonight.

 

[Beachbum]

Just got a new old one. My dad gave me all his old cards when I was in Ohio last week along with a photo of George Brunet, a longtime pitcher who lived next door to my dad when my dad was a kid. It's from some point in the early to mid 60's. The photo is signed on the back. Brunet autos are hard to come by in the US as he played from 1972-1989 in Mexico, and died there in 1991. I'll see if I can post a scan of it tonight.

Sounds interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

[sean69]

The oldest I have and that I remember is going to a Mall show and getting Harmon Killabrew and also Chris Zorich.

But the biggest one for me as a kid was Richard Petty.
We would go to the Brickyard every year since 1994. We went to the Busch race or Nationwide race and was going through the pits with a friend of ours that worked in the industry. He actually knows Richard personally and we walked right up to him. He signed a card for me and I was speechless.

I know most are baseball fans and as I kid I loved all sports.
I grew up watching racing and being at the track about every weekend. So that was huge for me getting the chance to meet him.

 

[mrmopar]

I started going to Mariner games in 1978 and continued on and off until I graduated HS and left for the USN (1987). Back them, it was fairly easy to gather signatures at BP if you got there early enough, but I was more focused on the opposing teams, so I never had much in the way of too many hometown signatures. That is something I regret now. I was fairly successful early on getting the likes of Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice, Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, Gaylord Perry and a variety of lesser players on balls, stubs, programs, sheets of paper (some I remember off the top of my head were Ron Kittle, Scott McGregor, Bill Caudill, Scott Bankhead, Ed Yost, Joe Niekro).

My "best" experiences were probably the Winfield (someone tossed a nearly new practice OLB and Winfield sweet spotted it), Yaz (I've told this a few times online, but got Yaz on his birthday when some friends came to see him at the park and brought him a cake. I tried to do the same the next year w/ no luck, but at least he signed for me the prior year) and a Equitable Old Timers game where i got a good 15-20 signatures on the program sheet and a few cards.

One of my favorite oddball items is a business card for a card shop in the Pike Place Market called Golden Age Collectibles. I got Palmer and Perry on the back. A pair of Aces!!

My first actual player appearance/signing was when Bob Feller came to Pacific Trading Cards in Edmonds, WA. around 1983-84.