Is This Possible?

Interesting collecting, I find it hard to believe that it is possible to do, it would be more realistic if there was at least one autograph missing. It would be interesting to find out how they were acquired.

https://www.collectauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=2434&searchby=0&searchvalue=None&page=0&sortby=0&displayby=2&lotsperpage=100&category=1&seo=1974-90-Topps-Baseball-Complete-Signed-Set-Run---17-sets-(14%2c000%2b-cards)

Lee

I would say impossible without some fake, clubhouse or secretarials in there somewhere.
In additin there are some folks in that run that may have been deceased by the time the card came out so "complete" is relative as well.

If you read the description they mention the tougher sigs that are missing like several Munson cards are unsigned, etc. They also state that 99% of the cards are signed. The title is easy to misread. You would need some serious baseball contacts and lots of detective work to all these sigs and I just can't see how one person could do it without a there be a lot of fakes. Really, could Spence or any of the other top autograph people actually verify half the sigs on the commons as legit? You are taking a huge leap of faith on this lot.

With something this significant, you'd think there would be a huge back story as to have this collection was amassed. This is another reason to be suspicious of collection. Imagine if REA or Heritage were selling it. It be all about how this collection was put together.

Ok, I finally see that all the cards are not signed but this statement got me started "Offered here is a run of Topps Baseball sets (with Traded sets), from 1974-1990, with every card signed by the pictured player." and I see the claim that 99% is signed. But other than the fact he did not have 2 Munson cards signed, strangely 75 and 77, which means to me that he didn't get them each year. This year makes it even more fascinating that the tough sigs would be legit. The really of really tough sigs makes no claim the signatures are in the lot.

As with Memorabilia, this autograph business is such a leap of faith. I wish I had the kind of money to take these leaps of faith.

Lee

This is why some provenance to the collection would be really good. If it was one collector, how do you get the rare 79 Munson but not the other two. Wouldn't you have brought those along at the same time?

how long did it take psa to look at those 14,000sigs and certify them all with their examplars?

Let's see, assuming all sigs were verified and it took 3 minutes per card to verify, grade, and slab it would take about 900 hours to finish. 40 hours per week it would take one person about 22 weeks to verify and slab all of these cards. Realistic? No.

If PSA took 15 seconds to verify, grade, and slab it would take about 2 weeks. Probably more realistic.

On top of the time table at $5/card it would cost $70,000 to grade them. Damn, that's a lot of dough for those cards. An incredible collection without a doubt but how this can be done efficiently or accurately is beyond me.

Not real familiar with this but there is a site that has many major leaguers address's are on and it is a program called TTM-through the mail. It is a pay sit. I have even heard of cards coming back years later. Not sure what the ratio is but if you send 1000 cards out with self addressed stamped envelopes, you would probably get a couple hundred back and do this for 10 years. I am sure you could build quite a collection and buy the real toughies on ebay or auction houses.

Autos are just to easy to fake and I just am not into them but more power to the guys that send these cards out and get them back-pretty killer style of collecting

I am sure you can get some at the ball park too.

I probably missed something about how this collection was assembled. Presumably as a labor of love.

Many of these auto cards could probably have been bought or traded in quantity, especially during the 1970s. So I say, knowing very little about how to chase autos or where to buy, "yes, it's possible."

Circa 1980, a friend met Dave Miedema (sp?) at the old chicagoland shows, and began to buy auto cards from his mail list. As I recall, the prices were reasonable, or about 50 cents to $3 each. Of course, inflation and all since, but still. A look at old hobby pubs will show that auto cards could be purchased in great quantities inexpensively during the early or mid 1970s (10-25 cents each, with dozens of some players available). Another couple of friends were active in mailing to the addresses listed in SCD in the early 1980s with great response rates. Pretty successful. Finally, another friend used the addresses in the early 1980s from the Autograph Review, again with some success.