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Crazy price of autographs.

What do the members on this forum think of the price of some autographs,do you think its fair or outrageous.my opinion is its a joke when a kurt cobain autograph or john lennon is valued at thousands.I dont have thousands to spend on an autograph but if i did i still could not justify spending that on basically a piece of paper with someones name on it.The problem is if some people are silly enough to pay these crazy prices then sellers will ask these crazy prices.This is not me being bitter because i dont have bags of money to pay these prices i just think its out of control and collectors should make a stand and refuse to pay these mad prices.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 9, 2018 at 3:04am

Back to the start - I might get some vintage Bowie's for $49, but things need not be $$$ to be enjoyable. This Laurie Anderson signed ticket from 1997 was about $2, shipped and I love it just as much:

Click for full image.

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on January 7, 2018 at 10:51pm

Referring back to the original question, I don't think that autograph prices are any more ridiculous than in other collecting fields such as comic books and baseball cards: There are probably only a handful of autographs that would cost more than a "grade 9.8" Amazing Fantasy 15 for example.

That said, I have my own mental "pain barriers" when it comes to the cost of individual collectables. I rarely go above $1,000 on a single collectable and very, very rarely get near to $5,000. In the autograph field I don't think I have ever spent more than $4,000 on a single item, which is obviously a lot to many people but is absolute peanuts in some areas of the market (e.g. signed Beatles LPs).

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on January 8, 2018 at 8:47am

The highest Heritage price for Amazing Fantasy 15, the 1962 comic that launched Spiderman, is currently £454,100 including buyer's premium. It was actually graded 9.4.

AF 15 is by no means the most expensive comic ever sold. Heritage have sold a couple of "Golden Age" (1930s/40s) comics for around a million each and there was a "Silver Age" (50s/60s) comic that achieved even more than AF 15 (XMen 1 at a cool $493,000).

Have any autographs anything like these levels (excluding signed historical documents of national or international importance as documents in themselves)?

Personally, I find the prices for comics, which are basically throwaway popular culture items, far crazier than those for autographs. This applies to baseball cards too. One of these also fetched over a million at Heritage in 2016.

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Permalink Reply by sling on January 8, 2018 at 9:02am

i agree

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Permalink Reply by Bjorn VDB on January 8, 2018 at 11:46am

It’s indeed a question of supply and demand. I always wondered though how some (a lot of) dealers ever sell something with prices that are sometimes 4-5 times the value of an item (I agree value is no exact science, but rough estimations can be made if we compare similar sold items). I guess they just don’t intend to sell and don’t need the money. Or there are indeed crazy buyers out there. I mean, there are still sellers asking 2000 dollar for a Springsteen.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Halloran on January 8, 2018 at 1:32pm

I think it is to possibly artificially inflate prices higher then they sell at. If you see them on ebay listed high, then subconsciously a buyer might think that is the price (without looking at sold listings) remember most new collectors/one time buyers might not look at auction results etc for what that signature actually goes for sold.

Also if you list high with a best offer you can dictate what you sell it for. They can counter and still make the buyer feel like they got a win.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Baldock on January 8, 2018 at 2:23pm

I agree with a lot that has been discussed here and would like to add the modern signings are out of control. Ford for 800 bucks a shot, Hamill has hit 300 bucks. Ben Affleck is now doing a signing with Official pix starting at 299. Not to mention the photo with charges now at cons $