most significant deceased athlete auto

austinchau

Whom in your mind are the top most significant certified auto which features deceased great athlete, that they live just long enough to be involved during early wave of certified auto trend. These I have come to mind,

Dave Debusschere
Wilt Chamberlain
Johnny Unitas

can you all help with add to this list?

thanks

Twinsthreepeat

Reggie White was the first that came to mind. Don't know if there are any cert. auto though.

easttexascardsandgames

Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams both had early certified issues with Upper Deck and Score.

bjork73

Walter Payton and the Mick also come to mind...

schr1st

I'd go with Mickey Mantle as well. Granted some of his Score certified autographs are ugly looking cards, but even with print runs of 2000 - 3000 cards they were very hard to find back in the day and are undervalued (IMHO) today. Then there is the little matter of this card:



Even with Griffey's slide from hobby grace, this is still a great certified autograph to have, especially since a Griffey collector has hoarded a bunch of them for his collection.

jaybyrd

Talking about the value of dead athletes autographs has always been a subject that I have never been comfortable with. I remember hearing a story a few years back that a collector or dealer mentioned that he was going to be very wealthy once Joe DiMaggio passed away because his autograph would become more valuable.

Profiting from someone's death just seems to show a total lack of character. I am not saying this thread is talking about that subject specifically, but it just reminded me of that story.

Allen

Yeah I have to say Mantle or Dimaggio. Payton got pushed into tons of 99 sets because they knew he was dying.

Knuckles

Cobb and Ruth

oops I just saw 'certified auto' ignore me...

NickM

Does the '93 Nabisco Don Drysdale auto count?

If there are any Mike Webster autos from '97 UD Legends that are legitimately certified, they would be quite important too.

Nick

Futureman

<< <i>

If there are any Mike Webster autos from '97 UD Legends that are legitimately certified, they would be quite important too.

Nick >>



There was a seller on ebay that kept listing Webster Legends autographs one after the other. He was listing them with reasonably low BINs, and I picked up a pair. Knowing the background of the card, I asked the seller out of curiousity how he obtained the autographs given the circumstances. He said he was selling the cards for a friend that had worked with Webster. Webster gave the friend a bunch of autographed things (which included some of the Legends cards) as payment for the guy's help. I couldn't get him to disclose the amount of Webster autographs he had, but he assured me that they were all authentic and came directly from Mike Webster. I haven't seen him listing any recently, and I only wish I would have bought more. If I recall, he was listing them at BINs of $26.99.

Brian48

Roger Maris. Wasn't the superstar that Mantle was, but someone I've always admired more.



This card recently sold for about $1,700 on eBay. Was a bit out of my price range.

pandrews

its probably not very significant to many people except myself, but i have several Bob Hayes certified auto's..

Knuckles

Man that Maris is nice. Really nice auto. I hate the clips where the autograph doesn't fit in the designated area and some of the auto is clipped off.. Or you can see bits of other writing around it. That card exhibits none of that. Very very nice.

brianwintersfan

Reggie White has an auto in the new Playoff Prime Signature set that came out about a month ago.

Allen

Roger Maris was in the ground long before certified autos. We are talking about signed certified cards not cards with cut pieces of paper. If that was the case then the answer would be Ruth, but that would defeat the purpose of the question.

NickM

Allen - might the Lord Stanley 1/1 cut auto be more significant than the Babe Ruth autographs?

Nick

Gemmy10

Allen

I thought we were talking about peole who lived to see certified autos in packs and died soon after or had limited issues. If we get into cuts it defeats the purpose, you could go into the Presedential series autographs. You can have autographs of anyone. See what I am saying?

baird34

i remember back in 1993 Nabisco offered auto cards you could redeem by sending in $ & UPC's ... i got the whole set in 1993. the set included Don Drysdale... i believe drysdale passed away prior to signing all of the cards for nabisco & therefore there is a smaller number issued to the public

not one of the most expensive items out there (can be had on ebay for around 40.00), but one of my favorite pieces to my collection

Iseeyou

Warren Spahn if he did any. Winningest lefty of all time. 361 wins and the highest homerune total for pitchers not named Ruth if I recall correctly.

brianwintersfan

Spahn does have a few available.

kr580

Most significant to me: Derrick Thomas. He passed away in early 2000 after a car accident. Has only 21 different certified autos which is nothing.

I was lucky enough to find one of his autos on Ebay for really cheap. And I found a dealer at a card show that had an 8x10 of him so I have that too.

TheThrill22

My favorite autograph of a deceased player is Keith Magnuson. I was able to meet him a couple of times and he was just the nicest guy ever. He was my favorite player growing up here in Chicago. I used to watch the Hawks play on WGN on my little black and white 13 inch television and listen to Lloyd Petit call the games...good times. Now I have a 50 inch television and no hockey! Even when there is hockey, the Blackhawks home games aren't shown here.

yankeeno7

Dont forget Roberto Clemente

schr1st

Clemente didn't have any certified autographed cards produced before he died, which is what this thread is about.



<< <i>Dont forget Roberto Clemente >>

Iseeyou

Derrick Thomas' story always brings sadness and anger to me. He had everthing to live for. His death and the death of his friend could have been prevented had they just worn their seat belts. The passenger that wore his seatbelt went through the accident unharmed. You have to be a complete idiot to think that you will never get into a car accident. You may be able to keep from hitting someone, but you can't stop someone from hitting you.