-- Update --

Just a follow up. I decided to get the autographed Hall and Oates album that Joe W. had mentioned in the post below. The idea was that we would purchase this so my son would at least have an autographed album and we could continue the quest to get a personalized one. So I decided to do the Roger Epperson quick opinion, even though it had the JSA Authentication, and then decided to buy when I got a positive reply. I even went as far as to get screenshots of the listed item, before refreshing the page after I purchased for some form of history (I can furnish these if needed for comparison).

The one issue is that I was sent a different one (V40896) than the original one (V40898), that I saw on eBay. I am not sure if I should be okay with this or not. Ian had commented that he didn't like the Daryl signature on the original eBay LP. I have taken a couple pictures of the received LP for possible opinions from the community (see attached).

I guess I could spend another $15 to get a quick opinion but this one is also PSA verified like the other one. Let me know what you think if you have the time, thanks.

-- Original Post --

Hello.  I am new to the forum and to autograph collecting in general.  I might be wrong but I think I have a situation that might be a little different from most.  I am seeking one single autographed item, a Hall and Oates “Private Eyes” vinyl cover for my now two year old son. I am posting here with the hopes that I could get some advice from collectors on how to proceed.  I hope it isn’t overkill, but I will outline what we have done so far to paint a better picture of our efforts.

The backstory, in a nutshell, is that we were trying to get my son acclimated to various music over the decades and he seemed to like a lot of hall and oates songs more than others.  At the time he was new to movement and would actually dance along to I can’t go for that. At this time we decided to pursue the idea of getting a “Private Eyes” vinyl album cover autographed by both Daryl Hall and John Oates.

Starting with almost no knowledge on the subject, we began by looking up the subject on the internet and managed to find an article on getting “Through The Mail” (TTM) autographs and also the Fanmail.biz database.  We then located the official Hall and Oates website along with their management company Wolfson Entertainment. At this point we noted that the Fanmail.biz mailing address was out of date and we decided to go with the address obtained from Wolfson Entertainment, which coincided with their Twitter and Facebook contact.  Since mailing the vinyl would be a little out of pocket we decided to give Wolfson a call to confirm that Hall and Oates did in fact accept fan mail and that we had the correct address. The conversation allowed us to communicate our goal with some favorable response. They advised that we send the vinyl, although they could not make any promises which we totally understood - it would be up to the artists.  

I hand wrote a heartfelt letter to the duo making the request on behalf of my son and kept the letter to a single page.  We sent this out to Wolfson, via UPS, with a prepaid return label enclosed in the package and threw in a couple of sharpies.  The package was signed for and accepted after a couple days of mailing.

Ten days later the package was returned, with the return label, but all the contents were still packed the same way we sent it.  It did not have a signature or any correspondence. We hypothesized that perhaps this was reaching too far since Daryl and John might be in different parts of the country so we refactored our plan a little.  

After doing some additional research, we looked into the social media further for each artist to see what our next move might be.  We decided to revise the letter and try to send to each person separately, starting with Daryl Hall who has his Live from Daryl's House in New York. The website also mentioned that Daryl does make frequent visits to the establishment, but I am not sure if this is mentioned for the fanbase or is a fact.  We repackaged everything with the revised letter and did the UPS thing again with the prepaid label. The package was delivered in mid November of 2018 and signed for at the restaurant / venue for Daryl's House. My wife decided to follow each on their respective social media at this time too for any possible fan meetups or signing opportunities.  

At this point we have been waiting since November of 2018 without any news.  At first I was grateful thinking it had a better chance since it was not refused or immediately returned.  I am guessing that we are in the standard wait and hope phase of the TTM process.

I looked over the web to see if anyone else had success with Hall and Oates autographs, finding very little information.  From what I have found, it would seem that Daryl is the harder of the two when it comes to getting an autograph, but I might be completely wrong.  The best case scenarios would seem to be either a meet and greet or a book signing in which both are present. My child is also too young to go to an actual concert so that would leave either of us with a slim chance of getting an autograph signed through a VIP pass.

We are both new to this and any advice would be greatly appreciated, as we are clueless on how to proceed.  I am more than happy to clarify if you have any questions. Thank you for your time.

Matthew