Please show me your favorite autograph!! :-)

Hello everybody!!

I absolutly love when members here at AML post examples of beautiful autographs that they have in their collection. So I thought I should start a thread where everyone who wants, can post a photo of their favorite autograph and maybe write some info about why you especially like this one!

Hopefully some members will chip in!! :-)

Ok, I´ll start:

My favorite autograph is a 10x8 photo signed by Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven, Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons & Gary Tallent from The E Street Band:

I wanted this so bad when I first saw it, because I´m a huge fan of Springsteen. But unfortunally me economy usually sucks, so it took me a long time to save up enough money to buy it. And every day that went by, I were worried that someone else would buy it before me. So when I finally bought it, I were extremely happy!!! :-)

Someone else??

PS. Sorry if this has been done recently, but I can´t remember seeing a simular thread. I know that there is a thread about the rarest autograph, but that´s not the same thing... :-)

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on November 30, 2021 at 3:10pm

This is a very nice autograph, Prashant. Very nice indeed!

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Permalink Reply by Cogo on November 30, 2021 at 6:43pm

That’s a really great one Prashant!

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Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on November 30, 2021 at 10:51pm

It's always hard to pick a favorite autograph -- there's a lot of stuff I have in my collection that's so esoteric and/or niche that it may be highly valuable (for instance, I have a signed copy of a Canadian gold magnate's commemorative hardcover book, produced for his retirement, which functions as his semi-official biography, of which less than 1,000 were created, and is the only copy I've ever found period, let alone signed), but which I can't really put a value on.

If I'm to do justice to the topic, I'll have to describe the most sought-after piece in my collection, and what is currently the most "valuable" from a cultural/monetary standpoint (the latter of which was a very recent acquisition).

The first is my signed limited-edition copy of Pierre Trudeau's "The Essential Trudeau", the last book he co-authored before his death in 2000.

(Above: Copy #84 from an unrelated listing.)

I've spoken in the past about this, but not how I acquired it.

It's fair to say that chasing signed Trudeau memorabilia became one of my primary collecting goals when I first started collecting signed stuff. I always had a fascination with the guy -- did presentations dressed up as him in primary school, had a handful of pieces (non-signed) related to him growing up, and even had the opportunity to meet several members of the Trudeau family (including a very... memorable encounter with Margaret Trudeau where I'm told she tried kissing me on the cheek when I wasn't looking). I made it my goal to try and find a signed copy of his memoirs, which were released in 1993. (Note the above number.)

I spent more than three years searching for a reasonably-priced copy, to no avail. I opened more copies of that book in thrift stores than I care to admit. I had a couple of promising leads fall through, and I simply didn't have the budget to consider paying $150-250 for an inscribed copy of the book.

I tended to check buy-and-sell websites up here in Canada, and I ended up stumbling across a listing for a book that read "essential trudeau limited". The seller had only posted a couple of (extremely) blurry pictures of a maroon case, and the description read something to the effect of "only 100 made". That was it. The guy wanted $25 for it.

I had no idea what it was, and my attempts to run search terms for it came up with precisely nothing, so on a lark, I decided to give the seller a shout and told him I would pay what he was asking for it.

I ended up having to take a half-day off work, travel way the hell to the other side of Toronto to meet this guy at a halfway point, and found myself in a busy coffee shop nervously shotgunning a dark roast when a kid, who had to be a first-year college student, stumbled in and identified me (I had told him what kind of jacket I was wearing). I paid him the $25, and he practically tossed the book at me with a gruff note of thanks. Didn't want a coffee when I offered to buy him one, nothing. He simply went on his way.

I spent a good hour poring over this book in the coffee shop, and afterwards, I was able to glean several details from it -- namely, that it was indeed one of 115 (not 100) copies made for publication, it was only sold at a conference held here in Ontario for Trudeau aficionados (a conference exploring his life and legacy), and that the proceeds from the sale of the book (which went for $1,000 a pop) went towards establishing a scholarship at the university the conference was held at, which is awarded yearly to this very day.

It has current pride of place in my collection, and is easily one of the most valuable titles I own -- the last one sold for more than $1,300 at a Canadian auction. I call it "the book I always needed, but never knew I wanted" -- it has the same number as the publication year of his memoirs (which I would acquire later, for a very affordable price, as covered in another post on this forum), and I still feel very privileged to have found it, even if I still can't believe it.

The second, as posted here a few weeks back, is my current "top dog" when it comes to my most... I guess I would say, "accessible" autograph from a value and prominence standpoint.

As I now affectionately refer to it, this is "Tommy Boy Redux" - a dual-signed Chris Farley/David Spade auto discovered inside a copy of the 1994 book "Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years". I have a strong reason to believe this book was signed during production of Tommy Boy, as parts of it were filmed here in the Greater Toronto Area, which is where this book was found.

I never thought I'd be able to own an item such as this -- then again, there are several items I've purchased with the help of this forum that I never thought I'd get, including the book-tour specific David Gilmour "Theatre For Dreamers" dual-signed photo -- so to have the opportunity to pick up something that, far as I can tell, is on the level was quite a treat.