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Have any autographs anything like these levels (excluding signed historical documents of national or international importance as documents in themselves)?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

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Duncan on January 9, 2018 at 6:32am

I also collect the original Series 1-16 Wacky Packages (1973 -1977).

The prices of the "rarer ones" are ridiculous.

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