As a kid, sport autographs were my favorite to acquire. As an adult, they’re my least favorite. I won’t delve into all the reasons why, but it makes the fact that this is the third story I’ve written about the Tom Brady missing jersey all the more frustrating. And I hate the Patriots!!!!

I wrote about it being stolen. I wrote about it being recovered. I thought that would be all that was needed with this story, but when I found out about how it…

It's been kinda slow in Northeastern Ohio as the concert season slows down in the winter months.  However, there were a few that came to town and a program at the Rock Hall which enabled me to add to the collection.

First, the Rock Hall hosted a movie screening of the documentary Take Me To The River and had a panel discussion with a few musicians, the director and producer after the film was shown.  It is a very good documentary about Stax records that had some young rappers…

Just sitting here watching Conan O'Brien (I'll never forget the time he held up a copy of Autograph magazine to talk with Will Ferrell about a story I wrote about him). Anywhooo....he talked about the autographed Playboy magazine that sold for $4,900 (which is way over-priced and will never be worth that). Conan's joke was, "It was inscribed 'To my good friend Dr. Ben Carson...

Anyway, that's not why I'm writing this blog at 11 p.m. It's because I went to a mall I hadn't been to in…

CinemaCon is a big movie convention in Las Vegas that’s attended by many movie theatre owners and people in the business. Unlike ComicCon, it’s not something the casual fan would want to attend (not to mention the tickets being a 10 times the price of ComicCon). They have trade shows that show off various products that theatre owners might be interested in…

Collecting autographs has made me crazy. For example, I can’t look at a photo of somebody famous without a signature on it, and appreciate it. The picture just looks...so naked without a dark black Sharpie signature across the top!

Speaking of naked...there was a music website where a guy was bragging about a photo of Jim Morrison he purchased for thousands of dollars. It had never been published before, and the person with the negative was only…

I notice that while there are often beginner collectors looking for advice on specific autographs or tips on starting out in the hobby in general, one thing that seems to be overlooked in the "Autographs 101" department is how this website functions. By that, I mean that new users come to this website without a basic understanding of this hobby and what to expect from this website, and sometimes they walk away (for good) frustrated because their venture into…

I did a blog about the Tom Brady Super Bowl jersey that disappeared. I thought it would only be fitting (no pun intended) to do the follow up.

A media executive working for the Mexican media named Martin Mauricio Ortega is the suspect. He’s the former director of the tabloid La Prensa. He went to the Super Bowl as a working…

No autograph is more popular than Mickey Mantle's. And no autograph is forged more.



Many Mantle forgeries are easy to identify, once you know what to look for. Telling a skilled forgery from a genuine Mantle takes a lot…

Everyone is talking about the death of rock ‘n roll legend Chuck Berry. Well, a few days before his passing, another legend died. Hardly a household name, but he certainly was in my household.

James Cotton was Muddy Waters harmonica player, who in the ‘60s, played a lot of shows at the legendary Fillmore. As a kid obsessed with…

I have always had a passion for autographs, collecting, and handwriting, along with a passion for America's…

The Chuck Berry signature on the neck of a guitar I own is one of my prized possessions. He’s the original rock ‘n roller.

Now, as a movie critic, my two favorite movies featuring Chuck Berry would be “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n Roll.” I only saw it once, and seem to recall Keith Richards got punched out in it.…

I was listening to KFI 640 AM, a Los Angeles radio station. I often like to listen to “talk radio” when I’m driving, but have no interest in hearing people discuss politics. They have a lot of shows with interesting hosts, and they delve into other topics. Yesterday on the “Gary and Shannon” show, Gary talked about being…

Last I heard, there were no genuine, intact Beatles-signed guitars known. The only one was reportedly destroyed in a Malibu, Calif. landslide about 15 years ago.



RR Auction sold one a Beatles signed guitar around 2010, but the owner had tapped the autographs down with an awl to, um, "preserve them."…

I’ve written about cars before, and I’m always a bit perplexed with a car sells for millions, merely because it was used in a movie or once owned by somebody famous. Now, I’m not saying I’d kick an original Batmobile out of bed….errr….out of the garage. It’s just odd that some people think these cars are worth so much. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer…

On April 12, 1961, Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space. Launched aboard his Vostok spacecraft, Gagarin orbited the Earth and beat American Alan Shepard into space by 23 days. 

On March 27, 1968, Yuri Gagarin was killed in a training flight crash at the age of 34.

Despite not being as much of a "household name" as Alan Shepard, John Glenn or Neil Armstrong, Gagarin is a tremendous historical figure and there is strong demand for his…

For the longest time, Wilt Chamberlain was my favorite basketball player. That’s because as a kid, the Lakers were my favorite team. Once they drafted Magic Johnson, he quickly became my favorite player.

I was lucky enough to get Chamberlain’s autograph when I sent him a letter after reading his autobiography. Magic was a lot…

I rescued a box of paperwork that was going to the dump from a Real estate clean out after bank repossession. Full of old paperwork from the mining days to find out that it had about 30 years of information from a man named W.R. Palmer who was a Arizona state senator. He was also A patented Inventor western Indian expert, A mining Engineer, and hard rock drilling expert. Also the man that patented a process he perfected turning cast iron to harder structural steel forever changing the…

All of you autograph collectors will understand these two things. The biggest celebrity you ever got a signature from after never thinking it would happen (mine would be Paul McCartney; took me 10 years). The other thing we all love is that autograph project we’re working on. It might be that “American Graffiti” movie poster you’re trying to get signed by the…