General Forum

I have some on card autographs that came in a collection I bought. No clue on authenticity. They would mean a lot more to me had I gotten them signed in person. It is a great story I'm sure to tell of when you met the specific person. 

If it's for your personal collection, I'm all for getting a base card signed IP. I only have 2 AU'd cards in my collection that aren't certified/authenticated by a manufacturer or re-seller. Both are of Torry Holt (now-retired NFL WR) and I watched him sign both of them. It was a week after the STL Rams won the Super Bowl in January 2000. Since he was a rookie in 1999, I only had base set RC cards. I got him to sign one card of him in a Rams practice uniform and one card of him playing in a game for NC State University. I still have both cards, plus the newspaper article that mentioned that he was signing for free in his hometown (where I lived at the time). I have one other IP AU that isn't certified/authenticated, but it's on an 8x10 photo. Oddly, it's another WR from that Rams championship team. I found out that Ricky Proehl was doing a signing in another small town near me a few years after that. He was playing for the Carolina Panthers then and I didn't have any cards of him in a Panthers uniform yet. So I bought a photo of him in a Panthers uniform at the signing and got him to sign that. When I got home, I framed it and stuck the receipt inside the frame (the signing wasn't free and the picture was part of the receipt). It was totally worth the $23 I spent! I talked to him for a couple of minutes, got a picture of him with my sister, and I got to hold his Super Bowl 35 Championship ring from 2000 AND his NFC Championship ring from the 2003 Panthers. It was amazing and I'll never forget it. I was planning to get a signature of Sam Mills the day before that, but sadly, he lost his battle with cancer 5 days before the signing. He was the first person in the Panthers "Ring of Honor", has a statue of him outside of the stadium, and is where the Panthers mantra of "Keep Pounding" originated.

Oh, there is one more IP AU, but it's not a player. I was at Bank of America Stadium for a Panthers/Steelers game years ago. After the game, I went to the Team Store to buy some stuff. Then I saw "Catman" in there. He is the Panthers Superfan that got inducted into the Hall of Fame back in 2004 when the NFL picked a Superfan for each team and inducted them into the HOF. I got a picture with him and had him sign my game program (which he signed "Catman  HOF  2004!" and with whiskers on each side of Catman). I took the program and the photo and framed them, with a backdrop of Panthers Blue with type on it noting when they were acquired.

Although, as I mentioned earlier, I don't collect personally signed autos, I do collect autographed cards as part of master sets.  Some of my favorite autographed sets that I'm working on or have finished include the 1999 and 2000 Topps Traded & Rookies, the 2000 Skybox Autographics that was sold across all of their brands, and any of the Greats of the Game auto sets, especially the 2004 Etched in Time, 2006 Autographics, and 2006 Nickname Greats (anyone have the Trout without the "Rainbow", lets trade!).

 I agree 100%.   But if you are into autos, you should by all means get a card signed.   If you are worried about future value of card, then don't get it signed.     Everyone collects something different.

I got a few cards from my fathers collection with signatures that are questionable in their authenticity simply because I was not there and although I doubt they gained any value as a result of the auto, I doubt they lost any either since they are two bit players. That being said the cards hold emense value to me personally and thats all that matters to me.

As for me personally I would love to get certain autos for my personal collection. Having an auto signed by my favorite player on any bit of merchandise is far more valuable to me than any signature I got out of a box or that came with a certificate of authenticity. However I would never buy an auto anything without authentication. A picture with the athlete and the card together would prove to me that it was real, but I still wouldn't pay anything beyond what the card and signature were worth i.e. a 1.00 card signed by Gretzky at a fan greet for $50.00 is only worth $51.00 if I were buying. Of course on the other end if I personally got that same card signed myself the value is priceless to me.

One more auto set I really like is the 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends.

One other autograph story - as a kid in the 70s, we were down to Anaheim one year to visit Disneyland, but also went to a Dodgers game.  Before the game the cast of Happy Days played an exhibition game with a local radio station.  Some of the cast members ended up sitting in our section, so I would sneak down and get their autographs (the ushers were keeping people away).  I think I got the actors playing Carmine, Potsie, Arnold, and Joanie to sign my program, which I still have somewhere.

If you are getting the autograph for your personal collection I say go for it, it is a nice addition.