I don’t personally have/own any autographs. But, in my profession, I have currently a baseball signed by Cy Young, a signed Thurman Munson baseball, A land grant signed by Thomas Jefferson(not by a secretary), a check signed by Samuel Clemens(no relation ).
I have had baseballs in the past signed by the Pirates team who won the World Series in 1960, a Cleveland Indians baseball signed by Satchel Paige, A real photo signed by Henry Ford, literally hundreds of movie star photos with signatures, and a baseball signed jointly by Babe Ruth and Tris Speaker.
I’m fortunate to work in a field when I can “own” these treasures for a short while, and then let others enjoy them
Since my contribution to the 2004 thread, I have added a few noteworthy items to my collection of autographed books, and remembered a couple of items I didn’t include in that post.
I have a letter that Peter Schickele, creator of P.D.Q. Bach, sent me in response to a letter I wrote asking about the availability of sheet music. He started, “Thanks for your misguided interest in the music of P.D.Q. Bach.”
I also have a large mounted photograph of John Young and Bob Crippen, the astronauts who flew STS-1, the first Space Shuttle mission, signed by both.
As for new autographed books in my collection, I acquired the following at James Randi’s Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas in 2006:
Daniel C. Dennett: Breaking the Spell Murray Gell-Mann: *The Quark and the Jaguar * (paperback) Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage: Mythbusters (paperback) Phil Plait: *Bad Astronomy * (paperback) James Randi: An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural and The Truth About Uri Geller (paperback) Jamy Ian Swiss: Shattering Illusions
Others: Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Infidel, Nomad, and The Caged Virgin Walt Kelly: Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years of Pogo Mark Okrand: The Klingon Dictionary (paperback) Roger Penrose: The Emperor’s New Mind Jean Shepherd: Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters Dava Sobel: Galileo’s Daughter (first edition) and Longitude (paperback) Victor Stenger: God: The Failed Hypothesis Richard Thompson: The Art of Richard Thompson Elie Wiesel: Night
I have dozens of other autographed books by friends, colleagues, and various others, including my father, but few are “celebrities” that many people here would recognize.
Dave Barry: I sent him a news story I found amusing, expecting nothing in return; he responded with a scrawled postcard officially declaring me an “Alert Reader.”
Riders In The Sky (three signatures): At my written request they sent me a signed 8x10 glossy with a personalized message (provided by me) to married friends of ours who are seriously dedicated fans.
Kinky Friedman, on a snare drum head
Alan Dean Foster, paperback of Star Trek Into Darkness
John DeLancie, on a vinyl figure of Discord, his character on My Little Pony (where he’s basically Q from ST:TNG)
Lauren Faust, on the same Discord figure
Ursula Vernon, hardcover copy of Digger (2012 Hugo winner, graphic story)
Tony Levin, several CDs
John Mayall, CD
Plus several more I doubt anybody here would have heard of.
I have two window cards from the Broadway show 5th of July, signed by their lead roles: Christopher Reeve (gotten at the stage door) and his replacement, Richard Thomas. I got the latter at the Broadway Flea Market, where he was signing autographs at $5 each. He looked at the window card, then looked at me and said “I don’t have one of these.”
I also have a first edition copy of the book Whistle Down the Wind, signed by author Mary Haley Bell. Her daughter Haley Mills starred in the Disney movie, and the book was turned into a (flop) musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman. Good songs, though, including one called Annie Christmas
My sister once wrote to him asking why people from New York are New Yorkers, and people from Boston are Bostonians, but people from Liverpool are Liverpudlians. She got a postcard back from him with just six words: “Hell if I know! Dave Barry.”
A buddy and I had a mutual friend whose family moved up to Portland area his senior year of high school. We took a long weekend and drove up (from Baltimore) to see him, and being a pair of schmucks we sent a letter to SK (via his publisher) beforehand, saying, Hey, Steve-O, can we drive by and say Hi! while we’re visiting? (What a pair of dweebs ) No response, not really expecting one. Months later, after the trip, here comes a post card in the mail from the man himself, saying, Sorry; we were in Colorado at the time, but hope you enjoyed your trip to Maine!
I ‘had’ the first SupperBowl Champion Green Bay Packers, both autographs and autographed ball. Gave them to my nephew. They had to go somewhere and I couldn’t sell them. He’s an avid fan.
I waited in line a long time to see Bruce at Project A-kon many years ago, and got my picture taken with him and an autograph. He gave a lecture later that afternoon, and imparted great wisdom:
[QUOTE=Bruce Campbell]
The movies that are the easiest to make are the hardest to watch.
[/quote]
He also admitted to being in several movies that were pretty easy to make. I (much) later attended a book signing of Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, and got my copy autographed.
I don’t usually “collect” autographs on purpose. In fact, I have Michael Wm. Kaluta’s autograph on an issue of Starstruck completely by accident. I bought an issue second-hand from a used comics bin to complete my run of the original series, and he had signed it inside.
Other comic writers/artists I have include Adam Warren (Empowered), Kenichi Sonoda (Gunsmith Cats), Ben Dunn (Ninja High School), and David Willis (Shortpacked!).
I have a couple of prints hanging up here signed by Bowling for Soup (Jaret, Chris, Gary, and Erik) and by The Dollyrots (Kelly and Luis), as well as a couple of The Dollyrots’ albums. I also have a copy of The Donnas’ Spend the Night on CD signed by all four girls.
My son and I went to a Dallas mini-con and met Ralph Macchio (Daniel), Billy Zabka (Johnny) and Marty Kove (Kreese) from The Karate Kid. Ralph Macchio is older than me, but looks younger - and he is nothing like Barney Stinson.
We were very lucky, I have to say. SK appeared on a panel at a scifi/fantasy convention in 1979 in Fort Worth, and the three of us were at the end of a very short line seeking autographs afterwards. I think he must have been bored, or amused to discover he had teenaged fans, because he talked to us for a good twenty minutes & fielded questions about the set of The Shining, and the new book he was working on (The Stand). We ran out of questions eventually and left.
The next day we were asked to leave a room where L. Sprague de Camp was doing a Conan reading, but that’s a completely different story.
I have the autograph of Ben Collins, better known as The Stig from Top Gear (white Stig 2003-2010). It was at Silverstone race course in September 2010 during the 6 hour race, he had just released his book “The Man in the White Suit” and was driving an RML LMP2 at the time.
).
