There’s a venue here in San Diego (well, Solana Beach), that has the best concerts. It seats about 600, the acoustics are fabulous for no matter what type of music is being played…and it’s been around since 1974. The amount of bands I’ve seen here is in the triple digits, easy.

Since they get a lot of big names looking to play smaller venues, those tickets sell out…

David Letterman has only been retired a few days and he already seems to be enjoying his days off. The long-time race fan (and team owner) was at the Indianapolis 500 and of course, he was asked to sign autographs. He obliged for many fans before the race started.

I have two Letterman autographs. One is on a Late Night T-shirt. I bought it at a…

So, as the week is about to start, thought I’d write about some of the thoughts and stories popping into my brain. It’s almost 1 a.m., so forgive me if it’s not as clever as it seemed late at night, right before bedtime.

Since the guitar George Harrison played (I wrote about it a few weeks ago in a blog) recently went at auction for almost $500,000, I couldn’t help but…

Aloha-

Within my collection of my Bainbridge Colby documents I have a pile of prototype proposals and the full schematics for a braking system on trains dated 1930 !!!!!  Now our Government and our railroad officials denounced the idea.   However South Africa and several small stretches of RR lines actually introduced this system and it worked well.

In the past couple years the news has been reporting that there are recent attempts to develop and build just such a system acting…

I thought about doing a blog with a bunch of jokes that came to mind. Since the announcement was made about Tom Brady being suspended for four games for deflating footballs against the Colts, I immediately thought about Pete Rose and autographs. There was the time an entrepreneur got Rose to sign a number of baseballs with the inscription “Sorry I bet on baseball.”

The…

UPDATE: B.B. King passed peacefully yesterday, May 14.

I've been sad since hearing the news, that B.B. King is in hospice care. It was confirmed by a statement by King on his website, …

It was another good week for getting some autographs in Northern Ohio.  Last week, Jay Leno performed in Cleveland.  I used to get Rolling Stone magazine back in the day and I kept some of them from the late 80's and early 90's.  I happened to keep the one with Jay and Arsenio Hall on the cover, so why not try to met him?…

The biggest game the White Sox have ever been involved in probably involved the “Black Sox” scandal in the 1919 World Series.

Well, the game they played against the Orioles yesterday was the biggest game the Sox will play this year. That’s because the game in Baltimore at Camden Yards had no fans in the crowd, which is a first for major league baseball.

All of…

I always like pointing out autograph scenes in movies. The latest is in “The Age of Adaline” (you can read my review here: http://fox5sandiego.com/2015/04/24/the-age-of-adaline/  )

There’s a scene early in the movie where Adaline needs some fake IDs. She goes to a kid that’s living with his parents. He’s got a few autographed baseballs that she glances at. At first I thought she was going to say, “Oh, Willie Mays. I…

The Rock Hall Inductions were held in Cleveland last weekend.  Inductions are on a 3 city rotation- Cleveland, New York and LA.  This is the only Hall of Fame in the country where inductions are not held where the museum is located!  Why-- who know!!?  Could you imagine if the baseball hall of fame inductions were not in Cooperstown, or the football inductions not in…

There were a few autograph stories the last few weeks. One of them involved Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She was on David Letterman, and showed a picture of a guy that held up a sign asking for an autograph. It said, “Will Work for Julia Louise autograph.”

She thought it was cute and of course, signed the autograph for him (she’s always been a good signer). She did mention how he spelled her name wrong on the sign, which got Letterman and the crowd laughing.…

It’s a shame that even after the great movie The Imitation Game (my review here: http://fox5sandiego.com/2014/12/23/the-imitation-game/ ), Alan Turing isn’t a household name. Well, even if he’s not, it didn’t hurt the bidding from Bonhams in New York. His handwritten notebook just went…

http://www.ebay.com/sch/bluersx04/m.html?item=191551136085&hash=item2c99566155&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

And look at his past items sold on his feedback list.

There are many great things about living in San Diego, but for fans of autograph collecting, one of them is the many opportunities the residents all had to meet Mr. Padre – Tony Gwynn. The Hall of Famer passed away last year, which was heartbreaking for this city; especially since it came on the heels of Mr. Charger – Junior Seau, killing himself.

Gwynn would sign for…

At a pet adoption charity auction recently at Bloomingdale’s in Michigan, there was a football autographed by Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. It’s always nice when athletes donate things to charity. Not so nice when they don’t receive a single bid!

The “Chosen Man’s Best Friend and Factor Felines” event didn’t exactly have a football crowd. The items that got bids…

Last week, 2 events happened on the same evening.  A screening of Jesus Christ Superstar, featuring a Q&A before the film with 3 of the main cast members- Ted Neeley, Barry Dennen and Bob Bingham, and an autograph signing afterwards.  Barry Manilow- the guy who writes the songs, was also playing in Cleveland.  My wife is a big Barry fan and she actually…

The week started off with a very funny “Bizarro” cartoon by the very talented Dan Piraro, who was nice enough to sign a draw a photo in a book I got at Comic Con one year. I was lucky enough to attend a party with him the following day, too. Class guy. But I digest (just ate dinner).

The comic strip showed a fly in a suit, and somebody has their arm extended with…

Hello Everyone,

I am looking to buy this from another collector and wanted to know your input on this. I have compared this to additional Jeter signatures that he signs his middle name in and inscribes "Yankee Captain" on and it all lines up. It also comes from Steiner if you see the bottom left hand of the picture.  Your thoughts on this?…

This article originally appeared in my blog, Steve Zarelli presents: The Collecting Obsession.

James Stewart was a willing through-the-mail signer for many years. However, after suffering medical problems in the 1990s, his office fulfilled mail requests with secretarial signatures and an Autopen machine.

The proxy signatures -- typically signed "James…

The first story I ever wrote for Autograph Magazine was called “David Crosby Flipped me the Byrd.” I was proud of it. I simply asked for his autograph, he was rude, and I had some choice words for him. He had a choice finger for me. It was the middle one. As he walked away, I told him he should be more worried about his drug use, as he got a kidney transplant for that…