Welcome to the great world of Autograph Collecting! A fun and rewarding hobby!

I am a 44yr old, married, Disabled, father of 3 living in northern Texas. I love movies, television, music, reading, travel, sports, and politics and was looking for a new hobby that could incorporate as many of these activities as possible. I came upon the hobby of autograph collecting and was intrigued. When I was a kid, I had written to some of my favorite sports stars and had enjoyed good success in getting autographs from quite a few of them. I still have some of these autographs today and they are displayed on this blog.

I decided to give the autograph collecting hobby a try in late October of 2008 and decided to write a short letter to actor Karl Malden. I had found a number of websites that list addresses for thousands of celebrities and I quickly made my own database of addresses of celebrities that I would like to get autographs from, if possible. Being a huge “The Streets of San Francisco” fan, I wrote to Karl Malden and sent him an index card to sign along with a prestamped return envelope. Much to my delight, a few weeks later, he returned my card signed along with another signed card. That was it. I was hooked. I had originally intended on just collecting signed index cards that I could put into an album but quickly discovered that most celebrities would send a signed photo if you requested one or they would sign a photo that you mailed to them directly. So, armed with my list of addresses, I started randomly picking out Stars and started sending out letters requesting autographed photos. I always made a point to include a self-addressed, stamped return envelope and tried to write very short, honest notes to each celebrity letting them know exactly what I appreciated about their work or career. I wrote another letter to Karl Malden and sure enough, he sent me a signed photo to go along with the 2 signed cards he had previously sent to me. I also discovered a number of Stars that you can contact via email so I sent out a large number of email requests.

Slowly, but surely, the successes started rolling in. I started getting signed photos from people from all over the spectrum of Movies, Television, Music, Politics, and Sports. To this point, I have Actors, Actresses, Comedians, Authors, Singers, Models, Historical Figures, Governors, World Leaders, a former US President, Sports figures, Coaches, Writers, Producers, etc. etc. I have taken all my best photos and have framed them and have displayed them on the walls of our computer/guest room. The collection is quite impressive to most that see it in person.

I have found in researching the hobby that there are literally hundreds of thousands of autograph collectors around the world. Most celebrities are literally buried in fan mail each week. Even a Star who you might consider obscure or one that has not worked in decades, still gets a ton of mail from people seeking autographs. Some stars will charge for their autographs but most will still sign for free. Some stars sell autographs through their own websites. Other stars do not sign autographs at all. You dig around enough through all the autograph websites and you quickly learn who the good signers are and who the bad ones are. Many will only send you a photo if you have included a self-addressed stamped return envelope. Many will only sign if YOU send them a picture, many will not provide a picture for you. You will learn all the rules of each person as you dive into the hobby. Many Stars will reply quickly within a month or so, but many may take up to a year for you to get a signed photo back. Many of your requests will go unanswered and you will never get anything from the Celebrity. By what I have read, the success rate is about 60% right now. If you can live with never getting a response to 40% of your requests, then you may enjoy the hobby. Many collectors have no intentions of holding on to their autographs and only obtain them to put them on EBAY or other websites in order to sell them. I personally do not intend to ever sell any of the autographs that I have received. I really enjoy the ones that come in with my name written on the autograph so that it will be harder for my family to sell them on EBAY after I pass away…..

So far, this is a fun and rewarding hobby. It is fun to actually look forward to getting the mail each day. Out of the stack of bills that roll in, there is the chance that their will be a large manila envelope with another signed photo inside. The reward from the hobby is the sense that you are making a tiny little connection with the celebrity that you received the signature from. Some Celeb’s have written little notes along with their photos and a few have even personally answered my emails to them. Making this tiny little connection with these Stars makes the whole hobby very worthwhile.

Are they Real?

I have no idea. I have found that the hobby is one that is based very heavily on faith. Faith that what you have received was actually signed by the star. The only autographs that you can be sure are real with 100% certainty are the ones that you physically saw the star actually sign…in person. Every….EVERY…EVERY…. other autograph on the planet..including those sold in memorabilia stores, online, by dealers, by other collectors, on EBAY, etc……can never be guaranteed to be authentic and real. Someone can offer you a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) to prove that the signature is real….but unless you physically saw the star sign the photograph…yourself….you will NEVER know for sure.

I write my letters, I get some of them back with signed photos, and I publish what they send me. I trust that most of them are real and authentic and I am perfectly happy with that. If I could not live with that understanding then I am in the wrong hobby because I have not seen a single one of my autographs signed in person.

In the hobby, autographs can be classified as Authentic, Pretty sure it’s Authentic, I think it is Authentic, Pre-Printed, Autopens, secretarials, signed by Elephants holding sharpies, forgeries, etc. As stated before, the only one’s that you will ever know are 100% authentic are the one’s you see the star sign in person.

I have listed links on the right side of this blog that will take you directly to the autograph of each of the successes I have had to date. If you would like to give the hobby a try and find someone you are interested in, leave a comment with your email address and I will be happy to email you the address info that I used to obtain the autograph. All comments are moderated and I will not publish your email address on the blog. The photos that are posted along with the celebrities autograph I obtained were all gotten directly from the Internet.

After my first year of collecting, I had accumulated over 240 autographs, and this blog had generated over 650,000 views to date.

Good Luck and thanks for visiting! Have a great day!

LINKS TO EACH AUTOGRAPH ON RIGHT

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Debbie Reynolds (Born 1932 in El Paso, TX) is a Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Emmy Award nominated American Actress, Author, Producer, Dancer, and Singer. Her film career began in 1950 and has included roles in “Singin in the Rain”, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (Academy Award nomination), “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis”, “Tammy and the Bachelor”, “How the West was Won”, “Divorce American Style”, “Charlotte’s Web”, “The Bodyguard”, “Mother”, “In and Out”, and many others. Her Television credits include “The Debbie Reynolds Show”, “The Love Boat”, “Hotel”, “The Golden Girls”, “Wings”, “Roseanne”, “Will and Grace”, “Family Guy” and countless others. She appeared with, and danced with, Gene Kelly in the classic film “Singin in the Rain” when she was just 19yrs old. Previously married to actor Eddie Fisher, she is the mother of Actress Carrie Fisher. A successful businesswoman, she once owned her own namesake Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas in which she would frequently appear as the headline entertainer. She has a Star on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame.

Autograph #250 in Collection.

Emma Thompson (Born 1959 in London, England) is an Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Golden Globe Award winning British Actress and Writer. In a career that began in England in 1982, she has appeared in dozens of films including “Howards End”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “Remains of the Day”, “In the Name of the Father”, “Carrington”, “Sense and Sensibility”, “Primary Colors”, “Wit”, “Love Actually”, “Angels in America”, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban”, “I am Legend”, “Nanny McPhee”, “Stranger than Fiction”, “Last Chance Harvery” and many others. She has been nominated for 4 Academy Awards, winning the 1993 Best Actress Oscar for “Howards End” and the 1996 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “Sense and Sensibility”. She has been nominated for 4 Emmy Awards with one win and has been nominated for 8 Golden Globe Awards with 2 career wins. She is the only person to have won Academy Awards in both acting and writing categories.

Autograph #249 in Collection.

Steve Martin (Born 1945 in Waco, TX) is a Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominated, and Grammy Award winning American Actor, Producer, Director, Writer, Musician, and Comedian. He started as one of the most successful stand-up comedians of the 1970’s and released a string of very popular comedy albums. He won Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album in both 1977 and 1978. A song, “King Tut”, off of one of the albums reached #18 on the Billboard Top-40 Music Charts in 1978. He was a frequent guest on ‘The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and later was a frequent guest-host on “Saturday Night Live”. He has appeared on “SNL” a record 25 times as a host or guest star over the course of his career. His “SNL” created skits with Dan Aykroyd as “The Festrunk Bothers” (“We are….2 Wild… and Crazy Guys!!”) has remained as one the best loved series of skits in the shows history. Since the late 1970’s he has gone on to a highly successful movie career and has appeared in films such as “The Jerk”, “The Lonely Guy”, “The Man with Two Brains”, “The Three Amigos!”, “Father of the Bride”, “ParentHood”, “LA Story”, “Shopgirl”, “Baby Mama”, “The Pink Panther”, “Father of the Bride: Part 2″, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, “Roxanne”, “Cheaper by the Dozen”, “The Out of Towners”, “Cheaper by the Dozen 2″, “The Pink Panther 2″, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”, “House Sitter”, “Leap of Faith”, “Bowfinger”, “Grand Canyon”, “My Blue Heaven”, “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Sgt. Bilko”, and many others. He has been nominated over his career for 5 Emmy Awards and 5 Golden Globe Awards. He is an accomplished Banjo player and composer and won a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental making him a rare Grammy Winner for both Comedy and Music. Has hosted the Academy Awards twice and is slated to co-host the 2010 Academy Awards with Alec Baldwin.

Autograph #248 in Collection.