Showing posts with label Elroy Crazylegs Hirsch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elroy Crazylegs Hirsch. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Mystery of a Cut Signature Solved.

2007 Leaf Limited Cuts Signatures LC-12 #d 40/50
 Well. When I first got this card from a group box break I didn't think to hard about where the signature had come from. It looked like it was from an autograph book, or a post card of some kind. I was glad it was NOT "from an older card". I really hate when they cut up some of those Hall Of Fame cards, even if they are only worth about .50¢ It is the thought that they cut up a perfectly good piece of memorabilia like they do with the jerseys and the pants etc to get the Game Used cards.

Well it did come from a Post Card. Like I said I never really thought too hard about the origins of the signature on this card, but the sad thing about it is now I know it came from a post card so it is sort of coming from an older card.

Back to solving the "Mystery of the Cut Signature Origin". I was searching around Ebay when I found a copy of this old post card of LA Rams HOFer Tom Fears.

Tom Fears Autographed Post Card
Date Unknown (circa 1960s?)
I noticed that the Tom Fears post card was a pen and ink lined drawing image. It got me to thinking. Even though I didn't think too much about the Elroy Hirsch cut signature card much, that lone line to the left of his signature I was curious about and the other little lines I couldn't quite tell what they were yet, but I had some suspicions about them. I eventually found a website  that had the Tom Fears post card and I did a search for a version with Mr. Hirsch, actually I think I did a Google search. I found a similar looking post card for Elroy Hirsch. I eventually found a website or the remains of a website  that sold both post cards for way way too much money. (www.footballcollectible.com I can't seem to get to that site just cached google searches from from it something about the animation timing) Something like $80 or $90. Too rich for me, but I would eventually like to have those post cards, even just unsigned ones.

Notice the defensive man on the right. Check out his left hand and left leg/knee. Notice the angle in relation to the ground line. Now rotate slightly and...

Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch Autographed Post Card - Sample 1
...you will notice that it matches with my cut signature. On this next sample the autograph is in about the same place where the autograph from the cut signature would  be from the post card that was sacrificed for just the autograph.

Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch Autographed Post Card - Sample 2
When I made this discovery I was thrilled and a little disappointed. I was thrilled that I had discovered where the signature had come from since it was obviously not from a check and wasn't from a more obvious overproduced no-value Hall of Fame series card. I was disappointed and a little annoyed that it came from a rare post card probably from the 1960s or '70's or earlier.

Well Now the Mystery is SOLVED! Sort of I just would like to know the actual age of the post cards and what series they are from. Probably from some set of post cards that was available for sale at the gift shop at The Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Monday, November 22, 2010

1954 Bowman Football (Mostly Rams)

I got a few 1954 Bowman Football Cards from the Bay (Ebay) for $5.00/each on average. The lowest was $3.00 and $5.00 was the high. The Los Angeles Rams cards I got from the same dealer so I saved on shipping.

I think part of the appeal to me on these cards is the early color photos. They seem to be hand colored from black & white photos, maybe early machine colored. I'm not a photo expert so I don't know exactly and don't really care other than I enjoy them. I also like them for the team logos.

8 Norm Van Brocklin Rams
 

20 Tom Fears Rams

32 Elroy Hirsch Rams

127 Joe Koch Bears

The dealer that I got the Joe Koch from also sent me a couple of  "bonus" cards. He at least was keeping with a theme as the cards he sent were Chicago Bears, although more modern ones. Some dealers send bonus cards that make no sense other than the fact that they are sometimes the same sport (I'll get into that with another post soon hopefully). The "Bonus Bears" I got were a 1990 Fleer Neal Anderson #288 (a player I collect since he has a similar name to my brother but spelled different) and a 1991 Pro Set Brad Muster #105. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to collect the rest of the 1991 Pro Set. Back in the day I had collected quite a few, but over the last few years of being a member of various trading card forums I have traded a few away. As for the 1990 Fleer. A few months back I bought a full set of them along with the All-Pros Sub-Set. So I have at least one dupe of this Neal Anderson card.

1990 Fleer 288 Neal Anderson Bears

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Some Favorite Hi-End Cut Sigs

One of the relatively recent trends in the trading card world has been "cut signatures". I'm not sure which company started this madness or how long it has really been going on but basically what the card companies do is take an autograph of a sports (or entertainment) personality, cut it from it's original source be it a check, letter, autograph book or in some stupid cases an older trading card; and they encase it into, or paste it on a card. Many of these cards are also of very limited numbers. Some are 1/1 while others are serial numbered to something else sometimes the uniform number if a sports player.

When I first saw these types of things I hated them, and I still hate the idea of taking an older card cutting it and putting the signature on another card seems sort of stupid and redundant. Plus those signatures on a previous photo look really bad. I don't have any examples of cut sigs from a card in my collection to show so I'll have to borrow some examples from the internet.

Wow here is actually an example of a good cut sig from a card. If all of them were were like this Red Grange (probably from some sort of retro Hall of Fame card, or possibly a promo photo) I would have no problems.

 Photo from http://www.canadacardworldblog.com/2010/09/product-preview-2010-leaf-limited-football/

But alas most of the cut sigs from cards are terrible like this example from a Tucker Frederickson card from a 1969 Topps card #15.
 
Photo from http://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/cut-signatures-and-cardboard-irony/

I will do my best to avoid getting any of these terrible poorly cut ones like the Frederickson. I have been fortunate that so far I haven't gotten any bad ones but I have gotten some really good cut signature cards and all of them were from group box breaks. 

The following cards are part of my PC (Private Collection) and will most likely never be sold during my lifetime. The first two are 2007 Leaf Limited - Limited Cuts, The third one is a 2009 Limited - Limited Cuts. The Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch signature is from some sort of index card or autograph book, it might be from a black and white card or picture eek I don't know for sure. The Clark Shaughnessy autograph appears to be from a check as is obviously the Sammy Baugh auto. These are my three fave cut autos I've got. I think they are the only ones I've got right now, wait I might have a baseball signature lost in my collection that I haven't yet scanned.

 2007 Leaf Limited - Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch

2007 Leaf Limited - Clark Shaughnessy

2009 Limited - Sammy Baugh