The World of Autographs, Adult Autograph Seekers, and The 10 Most Expensive Autographs in The World
Good on that 11-year old. Milk that Paul Skenes autograph card for all it's worth. Hopefully his right arm doesn't fall off this year and render your signed card completely worthless.
There's a lot of things out there that hold great monetary value for reasons I don't fully understand. Take diamonds for example. Somewhere along the line, society deemed diamonds to be a stone of the utmost importance. You can fund an entire insurgency in Sierra Leone by pulling the right types of rocks out of the ground. It's never made sense to me how the demand for diamonds got to be so insanely high. I know they look cool. I know they're rare. I know they're harder than Jennifer Aniston's nipples on the set of Friends. But the value of diamonds seem to drastically outweigh what diamonds actually bringing to the table.
Autographs I can understand a little better. At least there's history (or an opportunity for future history) behind them. But the value of an autograph still seems to greatly exceed what an autograph actually is. Because a baseball passed through Babe Ruth's hands for 10 seconds in the 1940's, it increases the value of said baseball by over one-million percent (currently selling for $125k online).
Just because an item was in an athlete's possession long enough for him to scribble his name on it doesn't magically give it value to me. At least not THAT much value. But luckily, that's not for me to decide. The market dictates what autographs are worth, and autographs are big business. All things considered, the autograph market is pretty niche. If they couldn't resell the baseball, most people of the world wouldn't pay $100 for that Babe Ruth signature. It doesn't mean shit to them. They'd rather have a nice steak dinner than a piece of Major League Baseball history sitting on a mantle in their living room.
But enough people value autographs that there's real money to be made from them. And anytime there's real money to be made, there will be unhinged people who go to insane lengths to get it. Adults who seek autographs have the reputation of being some of the worst people to exist. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single good word said about them across the entire internet. It goes child predators, adult predators, murderers, beaters of women, adult autograph seekers.
Advertisement
Just terrible PR for those guys. People really hate them. The dad's who stick their 9-year old children on athletes so they can make a quick hundred bucks on eBay. Guys who don't even have kids, but will shove their adult way through crowds of other people's kids, because if they don't get Patrick Mahomes' autograph right fucking now they won't be able to pay rent. The group of men who have recently obtained U.S Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas' travel schedule and are stalking her through airports.
The prospect of making a lot of money for very little work makes people lose their god damn minds.
I don't think this jersey was technically signed, but remember the dad who made it onto the court with his small child after a Spurs game and swindled Victor Wembanyama into a jersey swap? Only to put the game worn jersey for sale online with a $10k price tag…
That dad was crucified on the internet. Adult autograph seekers are so aggressively hated that sometimes I wonder if we've maybe lost sight of what it is they're actually doing. That maybe they aren't all quite as deplorable of people as we make them out to be. Take Spurs dad for example. If I were to play devil's advocate, I'd say it's kinda funny how we automatically assume what a piece of shit dad he must be. Everyone assumes a game worn Victor Wembanyama jersey would mean sooo much to his son. He's wearing a tiny Wembanyama jersey, so Victor Wembanyama must be his idol. Surely that jersey would have been a cherished memory he carried with him for the rest of his life. What kind of scumbag would take that away from his son?
But who knows if that kid, or anyone in his family actually gives a shit about basketball. Not everybody cares about sports. Him and his dad might not be Spurs fans at all. The dad could have won some Spurs tickets through a raffle at work and told his son, "Hey kid… I got a plan to pay for that trip to Disney World you've been begging for."
Advertisement
That would be a pretty fun father-son bonding experience in it's own right. The time they convinced the tallest athlete in the world into thinking they were his biggest fans, and some idiot stranger on the internet gave them $10k for a shirt 10 sizes too big.
Obviously I have no idea what that family's story is. I'd imagine the kid is probably too young to even know what's going on. I bet it was the dad's plan all along to make a "Victor Wembanyama will you swap jerseys with me?" sign, then sell the jersey on the internet. I would like to think if the dad thought the jersey would actually mean something to his kid, he would have held onto it. But who knows. Sorry, I don't mean to get into defending adult autograph seekers. Maybe Spurs' dad really is just as much of a scumbag as all the other autograph seekers who sincerely are some of the worst human beings on the planet (i.e. the guy who harassed Jason Kelce on behalf of all of Philadelphia)
But sometimes I think if you take a step back and look it from the angle of, "a father-son duo tricked a multi-multi-millionaire into taking 30 seconds out of his day so they could make some money"… I'm just saying… if they aren't overly harassing anybody… there are worse things in the world. It's kinda funny. I'm not necessarily shedding tears for the rich & famous athlete who got fooled by someone into giving him a game-worn jersey.
On an very different autograph related note, there's been another fun/slightly bizarre development in the world of autographs. It seems the trading card company 'Topps' is now dabbling in autographed cards from well outside the world of sports. Last week they dropped the first ever signed Robert Oppenheimer.
According to Topps' Twitter account, the Robert Oppenheimer card will be put into circulation. Meaning, the signed Robert Oppenheimer card could be pulled by anyone. Anyone willing to pay $5,999 for a '2024 Topps Transcendent Collection Box'.
Advertisement
Topps - Find 10 exclusive packs of 2024 Topps Transcendent Icons
Chrome cards in each case!
Brand new configuration!
• 4 Transcendent Icons Chrome 8-card Packs
• 2 Autograph Cards
• 2 Autograph Patch Cards
• 2 Rookie Autograph or Rookie Autograph Patch
• 2 Autograph Relic Cards
• 1 Jumbo Patch Relic, Dual Patch Card, or Triple Patch Card
• 1 Additional Hit
The Robert Oppenheimer card was announced last Thursday. The following Monday, Topps dropped another highly-sought after autrographed card of Hall of Fame Biologist, Charles Darwin.
Along with Oppenheimer and Darwin, if you purchase the $5,999.99 Topps Transcendent Collection Box, you'll have a shot at pulling an Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, George Bush, or Harry Houdini.
If those cards are up your alley, and you're looking to get even more historic with your autograph collection. If you aren't worried about silly little things like, "authentication", and are one of the most gullible human beings to ever exist, for the mere price of $15,00 on Facebook Marketplace, you can apparently purchase a signed Jesus Christ photograph.
I've never dabbled in the world of autographs. From I understand, purchasing an autographed trading card isn't a bad investment. The market continues to go up. Kinda seems like autographs are "having a moment" right now. Fingers crossed for autograph havers that the autograph community doesn't collectively wake up one day and say to themselves, "Wait a minute… why do I care that LeBron James wrote his name on this basketball again?".
Advertisement
One more thing. Just for fun while I'm going down a rabbit hole of autographs. According to an article I found on Finances Online (written last month), here are the top 10 most expensive autographs in the world.
What is the most expensive autograph in the world? Or rather the most expensive autographs, as George Washington’s signatures on his personal copy of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the First Congress are priced collectively at $9.8 million and known as, George Washington’s Acts of Congress. This is followed by another U.S. president’s signature, that of Lincoln for the Emancipation Proclamation. Here’s our updated list of the most expensive autographs in 2025:
- George Washington’s Acts of Congress: $9.8 Million
- Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: $3.7 Million
- John Lennon’s Murderer Signed LP: $525,000
- Babe Ruth’s Baseball: $388,375
- Jimi Hendrix’s Contract: $200,000
- Joe DiMaggio & Marilyn Monroe’s Baseball: $191,200
- Albert Einstein’s Photo: $75,000
- Jimmy Page’s Guitar: $73,000
- Jesse James’s Photo: $52,000
- John F. Kennedy’s Newspaper: $39,000
George Washington's personal Constitution went for $9.8 million in 2012, so I'd think that would have increased significantly by now. Of that whole list, the John Lennon's Murderer Signed LP is the most interesting to me. John Lennon's signed an album for Mark David Chapman, and later than day Mark David Chapman put two bullets in John Lennon's back. That's a hell of a piece of history right there.