We are an eBay affiliate and may be compensated for clicks on links that result in purchases.

Anyone else notice that..

.. Ted Williams stuff seems to be declining a lot in price?

When I started really collecting less than a year ago, Williams stuff was pretty high in terms of price. Now I see baseballs signed going for less than $200 regularly, 16x20 photos going for less than $100 and cuts going for as low as $35.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 7, 2014 at 9:51am

unfortunately the legitimate dealers are forced to compete with the scum bags selling the forgeries.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Kaminski on February 7, 2014 at 9:58am

Yep, very true. At the same time though I've seen Mantle's price go up and DiMaggio's price go up even higher.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike P on February 7, 2014 at 12:10pm

I remember 4 years ago, Mantle baseballs were at around $250 with authentication. There were also dozens of Ted Williams graded 8 baseballs for $175 not even selling. DiMaggio was at $300, and was always the highest for some reason.

I do agree, that the forgers cause the prices of some memorabilia to go down, but in the case of Mantle and DiMaggio, I'd say it's more "collectors" coming into the market thereby driving up the prices. Even pathetic forgeries sell for $200 at times. Too many buyers that don't know what to look for.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 7, 2014 at 12:39pm

Of the big three (Mantle, DiMaggio and Mantle), Williams seems to be the weakest in terms of sustaining price. Probably due to several factors:

He lived the longest and probably signed the most
Red Sox does not carry same premium as NY Yankees
Forgeries diluting market value... and in my opinion, due to his messy signature at the end of his life, Williams forgeries tend to be tougher to identify than more consistent signers like Mantle.

That said, I'm not so sure DiMaggio is a whole lot stronger. DiMaggio baseballs are not cheap, but you can get signed photos relatively inexpensively.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Kaminski on February 7, 2014 at 1:00pm

You can also add in regards to signing the most that he was the only one (I believe, maybe other than DiMaggio with the wonky JD Enterprises) to have his own autograph company. I see lots of 10, 20, 50, 100 of the same signed print by Williams being sold sometimes.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GraphingMlb on February 7, 2014 at 1:07pm

Ya I think the Williams family kind of dumped so much inventory out there when he died. Kinda reminds me now of Stan Musial's Family and the Heritage auction was a fire sale and everything must go!!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 7, 2014 at 1:51pm

I think Dimaggio and Mantle did a lot more autograph shows than Williams. There are probably more Dimag and Mantle signatures than Williams out there. but even though I am a Red Sox fan, I have to agree with you that the Yankee stars are much more in demand than Red Sox. Look at today, with Jeter vs Ortiz.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Null on February 7, 2014 at 1:58pm

In DiMaggio's book it said that at one point Williams started charging $350 per autograph to price himself out of shows because he didn't want to do it anymore. So it does seem DiMaggio/Mantle signed longer at least at shows...

The interesting part was that DiMaggio always had to be the best (especially when being compared to Teddy), so his price at that time was $150/signature BUT if you had a photo of him and Ted Williams, he charged $375...

LOL. Joe D's autograph stories are crazy. I just read Reggie Jackson's book "Becoming Mr. October", Reggie said he asked Joe D to sign a ball for Buck Showalter, Joe D said "No. I signed one for him two years ago..."

After some Earthquake damage to his home in California his friend who owned a construction company said they would fix it for free if he signed balls for the construction men. Joe agreed. (He really did think he shouldn't have to pay a dime for anything...). After the $65,000 reconstruction was finished the friend asked Joe D to send some signed balls over. Joe refused. After a few days the friend finally got through to Joe (probably saying "WTF DUDE"), so Joe finally agrees, BUT requests all 20+ names of the construction workers to personalize each ball, no excuses, because he didn't want "those bastards selling it...".

LMFAO.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on February 7, 2014 at 3:26pm

the other thing about Dimaggio when he did shows, despite the ridiculous price tag for his signature, he had a huge list of items that was published along with the show ad, detailing all of the items that he would not sign. the list was nuts.