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On the rest sometimes there is just a single 9 visible or sometimes nothing legible at all down there. The best ones (mostly but not all from UDA) you can read the 99 he usually writes below his signature.
#Autograph collecting full
Yet if you compare the signatures, there are sloppy ones, neat ones, shorthand ones and full name ones. The rest were obtained in person by me or someone on my behalf (most at golf tournaments, but also at the team hotel when Gretzky was coaching). A few are from Upper Deck Authenticated, one is from a paid signing by Gartlan, one is from a paid signing with Gateway cachets. I am quite sure that is a much better selection than any of my competitors. On I currently offer 46, yes 46, different Wayne Gretzky autographed items from cards to photos to magazines to pucks to jerseys, and even a glove. If anything, Gretzky’s autograph is even more inconsistent than Marino’s. In an earlier blog post I wrote about how my favorite NFL player Dan Marino’s autograph was impossible to authenticate due to inconsistency. What’s interesting is how inconsistent his autograph is. Since then I’ve seen him at other golf tournaments and he’s been pretty good about signing at all of them. In 2000 he hosted the LAPD Golf Tournament and signed up a storm. The first time I got him was at a roller hockey rink grand opening in Escondido (just north of San Diego) around 1998 or 1999. On the way back, he assumed that everyone had gotten him multiple times and refused to sign despite my pleas.īut after moving to San Diego I more than made up for that bad luck. One year he signed for everyone, and I mean everyone, on his way to morning skate - but I was at work. I always had bad luck with him in Dallas. One player I never got in Dallas was Wayne Gretzky, obviously considered to be one of the best players in NHL history. I did live in Dallas when the Stars moved from Minnesota, and obtained dozens of autographs in person from the Stars and visiting teams during the 1990s. Even the local minor league team, the Gulls, went defunct in 2006. My adopted city of San Diego has never had an NHL team. I’d be lying if I said I was a big NHL hockey fan. I was willing to sell you his autograph all along, but you only wanted to buy it immediately after he died to get a bargain price. I canceled a few orders, but this time I don’t remember anyone getting terribly upset. However, it seemed to me that these customers (none of whom had every bought from me before) were taking advantage of the situation.Įight years later, a similar thing happened with the shocking announcement that Steve McNair had been murdered.
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As I have always prided myself on providing excellent customer service, it was not an easy decision to cancel the orders. At least one of the customers got very irate, calling me greedy, and threatened to sue.Īs a precaution, I got some advice from an attorney and confirmed what I suspected, which is that merely placing an order is not an enforceable contract, but legally represents nothing more than an offer to buy. I thought about it for an hour or so and decided to cancel the orders, sending out polite explanatory e-mails. Three of the 4 customers attempted to order 2 autographs. Within 15 minutes of the official announcement, faster than my website host could publish my price changes to the live site, I received 4 orders. The first time I remember this happening was with Dale Earnhardt Sr., who died in a crash near the end of the 2001 Daytona 500 race. As a result, a certain type of people - a kind term would be “opportunists,” a less kind term would be “vultures” - try to buy up the dead celebrity’s autographs at the old prices. Sometimes by a little bit, sometimes by a whole lot, depending mostly on the celebrity’s age and sometimes the cause of death.Įspecially in the internet age, the news of a celebrity death travels at the speed of light, much faster than I or any autograph dealer can increase the prices. When a celebrity dies, his or her autograph immediately increases in value. Perhaps the trickiest and most difficult part of being in the autograph business is dealing with the death of an athlete or celebrity whose autographs you have for sale.