Here are two for starters.

In baseball, 1982 AL Cy Young Award Winner Pete Vuckovich comes to mind. He does not really do shows much and lives 1 hour down the road from me. I know a few people in his hometown, I have been told he turned down a neighbor once. He used to be the pitching Coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates during a time when I lived 5 minutes from Three Rivers Stadium, I was at most home games collecting autographs for a several year stretch. He was a bear. I always asked politely and he almost always declined, sometimes dropping the "F Bomb" on you, especially if you even showed him a Blue Jays item.

He seems to loathe autographs. Sometimes, a collector has to be resourceful and I fortunately found a way to get him a few times. He would appear at pre season Piratefest(not as an autograph guest) milling around. I would only ask him for an autograph if he happened to be in a conversation with Pirates Owner Kevin McClatchey, he would sign in front of the boss. He would usually sign an item, and then give a wink and say "nice job". He has a friendly side but is fairly guarded about showing it and does pen a nice signature when he takes his time.

Former AFL great(and 1962 MVP) Cookie Gilchrist in football is a very tough living signer. It has been a long time since I have even seen a real Cookie signature, I have never seen a signed mini helmet. He has finally relinquished for a private signing , he is pretty ill, his prices are off the chart............ The 6/15/07 signing was arranged by a collector. Signed 8x10's are $315, Minis are $325, you can send in gum cards, they are $250 a pop. These prices were negotiated down to this point, Cookie's original asking price was much higher if you can believe it.

You know who is a toughie living Football Hall of Famer? John Madden.

At the risk of being verbose in a blog sense, might as well get this discussion underway.

Here is a very public figure that has historically avoided autographs in person. For a stretch of time, he would only sign his books, his games, or advertising pieces and would look the other way when someone handed him a sports memorabilia item. He has softened this stance a bit. He has a phobia about closed spaces and groups of people(and refuses to get on a plane, hence the Madden Cruiser). Every East Coast Game he does as a broadcaster means a 7000 mile round trip on that bus with a small crew, no wonder it is equipped like something from "Pimp My Ride". He generally won't do shows, he probably would not enjoy the show spectacle with the public, he does not need the money, he is perhaps the wealthiest Hall of Famer enshrined in Canton due to sales of his video games.


He used to sign through the mail but a strange thing happened when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. BOOM! Everything that was sent to him through the mail after he was announced as an inductee still came back signed, but the signatures were clearly different.This has not been discussed much in the hobby(but will be in the future). Add to the confusion that some third party authenticators in their rush after Madden's induction, when they were swamped with submissions, authenticated items that are the "new Madden signature". It is highly unlikely that the now 71 year old Madden suddenly changed his signature overnight.

A particular item collectors should keep their eye on is his Goal Line Art Card. In my opinion(and many collectors may disagree-that's OK), there are probably more legit signed Al Davis Goal Line Art cards out there than legit signed John Madden at this point in time. Al Davis has made many trips to Canton over the years, and does sign here and there in Canton, albeit sparsely.

Both of these fellows signed 100 Goal Line Art Gold Edition cards which are individually hand numbered, there are your exemplars. Maddens Gold Edition Goal Line Art looks nothing like all these other signatures that have been recently coming back from him in the mail. Needless to say, many of these "new Madden signatures" for sale are claimed to have been signed in person. Ofcourse. There has been somewhat of a "dumping" of these signatures recently.

It is unfair for me to opine without offering visual examples.

Chris, if there is any interest in an example of what I am talking about, let me know and I will gladly send you scans of a Gold Edition Goal Line Art Card and a Goal line Art card signed through the mail. You will see the difference. Or, simply look on EBAY. There is a "signed" Madden Goal Line Art Card that sold for $29 last week. There is a EBAY store that has his Goal Line Art Gold Edition stamped card(exemplar #1). Price? $400. There is a reason for the price gap.

There is a slabbed, third party authenticated TOPPS Hall of Fame Madden card up this week on EBAY. Compare that signature to the same card that sold last week in the Certified TOPPS Stamped edition form(there is your exemplar #2), two different signatures in my opinion................Madden's real signature is more sloppy and varies slightly, the "New Madden Sigs" are always clean, always consistent. Make your own decision.

Agree? Disagree? I think there is enough evidence to atleast warrant caution if anything else.

Dave,
Could you send me scans of all the items discussed above?
You're right about the Madden's through the mail. They are very neatly written.
This is quite interesting.
I also heard that Al Davis only signed the black portion of the goal line art cards because he hated signing so much.
I have seen them signed in legible areas though, so this theory isn't necessarily true.
chris

Here's one that may or may not be true: Kiki Vandeweghe. Several times when I was a kid and he was with the Nuggets he stiffed me, Vuke-style. I still boo the screen when he's talking on ESPN.

Cardinal,

Booing Kiki on the screen reminded me of something else about Vukovich. He dropped the "F Bomb" on one collector who followed up by booing Vukovich with a "Vooooo, Vooooooo, Voooooooooooooo" from the time he got out of his vehicle until he went into Three Rivers Stadium. This happened like clock work for a four year stretch. If Pete(pitching coach) would go to the pitching mound for a visit in the middle of the game, I would hear this collector start the "Voooo" chant from where ever he was sitting in the bowels of Three Rivers. You could even occasionally hear this collector Voooooing through the TV broadcast .

Chris, Madden scans sent.

Other tough signers? Lynn Swann, Jake Scott, and John Riggins although all three of these guys have been doing shows recently.

For health reasons, I believe the following people have ceased signing: Jim Ringo,Steve Van Buren, Sammy Baugh, and Pete Pihos. There is a good amount of stuff out there on these four already in the market.

Doug Atkins announced around 2003 that he was no longer going to autograph anything.

Previously mentioned Dr Marshall and Al Davis, always super tough.

Basketball:Michael Jordan,Patrick Ewing,Connie Hawkins. Hockey: Mark Messier. Football HOF: Joe Gibbs, Jim Taylor, Art Modell(future HOFER) and Bill Walsh. Baseball: Randy Johnson(in my experience, does not appear to be a people person),Andy Messersmith, Willie Randolph,Paul Serna, Dorian Boyland, Byron McLaughlin(interesting story), John Denny, Enrique Romo(actually, all those baseball guys who leave the country after their career can be tough, thank heaven for Bill Corcoran).

I do not see Ahmad Rashad doing many shows, his vintage "Bobby Moore" signatures can be tough to locate.

Sandy Koufax. Interestingly, there have been some mail successes with him over the last few years. He would sign for people who were members of the Major League Alumni Association. Benefits to members included a privledge to to send items to the Alumni, and they would forward letters to players(with a special Alumni identifier so Koufax could easily identify the letter) but you could only send like three letters to players per year or something like that. I do not know if this is still working. George Brett signed this way too. Koufax also occasionally signed for a military member who wrote him a letter from overseas.

Former Angel/Yankee Alex Johnson was tough but he started doing shows, same with former Redskin HOFER Bobby Mitchell, a former super toughie who is now a show regular.

By the way, I just saw that the Cookie Gilchrist signing was advertised in SCD for those interested.

I am missing many, but those are a few toughies off the top of my head.

I see Ted Simmons is at Sportsfest 2007, he has always been a very difficult signer.