Fee-charging autograph signers haven’t hijacked this hobby…yet.
I counted five pages of prices in Harvey Meiselman’s 2013 Baseball Address List.
Bargains remain. Sid Bream, Dana Kiecker and Reggie Cleveland ask just one dollar per card autograph.
The top fees are $100 per autograph from two Hall of Famers, Yogi Berra and Bob Allen.
Oops. Wait a second. Hmmm…
Bob Allen. I looked him up.
Debut 1961 Cleveland Indians. Reliever for five seasons. Career 7-12, 4.11 ERA.
Wait! The page has a Bob Allen autographed card. Was that a $100 acquisition, too?
I contacted Sean Holtz, the talented founder, researcher and webmaster for the site. He replied:
As for Allen his signature is about 25 years old. Can’t remember exactly the year. I live in Florida, have my whole life, even went to middle school right next door to where the Expos did their Spring Training. Braves too. I would get countless signatures with all my friends. We would then trade. So I’d use a clipboard, put 3 cards across the clip, get them signed. My two other best friends did the same. We’d then trade! What I didn’t know was what a great idea that was decades later. Anyway, Bob had retired for a while. I didn’t have any cards for him, but there was a card shop there and we picked up a couple cards for him.
That is no typo, baseball fans. The figure is confirmed
.
I asked Harvey for his take on lavish Bob Allen. He responded:
I know Bert Blyleven asks for different amounts of money depending on what you want TTM’d, but he also donates all of money that he gets. Personally, I’d rather pay for a TTM autograph if I knew the money was going to charity, but that’s just me.
i would pay $100 for ed goodson to sign a copy of his 1978 topps card for me. it’s the only one i need for a complete signed dodger team set from that year.
I wrote to Allen before his fee was listed in the Harvey book. Not only is his fee $100, but he also stipulated it be via a US Postal money order. I thought at the time he accidently put one too many zeroes on the amount.