Who's Famous Autograph(s) do you own?

Maybe it is a guy thing. I recently opened a book I bought at a thrift. First edition, signed by the author, not hugely famous but known. Read the book, didn't love it, dropped it off in the free library box down the block. One of our neighbours picked it up and then told me about the autographed book he'd found in the free library yeah. good for you buddy, sounds great.

The only signatures that interest me are on some Group of Seven pieces I've found in the wild over the years.

A sense of connection. I can relate to that. Thanks for explaining.

I love Thom Thompson's work. He was a member of TGoS, no? Im not familiar with most of the others.
I met up with his work when I met a New Brunswick Artist named tom Forestall . I was out doing some Plin AIr ner a quarry ite near Frederickton and he stopped and we talked and he invited me an Mrs F to a party that was really an opening at the Beaverbrook Gallery (lotsa free wine and CHEEESE) .It was sponsored by some heavyweight donors and supporters. On of the folks there was a collector of The G of 7 and I was amazed at the way the work was done. It looked a lot like Rockwell Kent's stuff but it was all done about the same time as his. SO, maybe there was influence back and forth?? But I lerned a lot about making board canvases and using different shapes and simplifying reality. Amazing evening.

Well, its only my opinion. I could be as fulla **** as a Thanksgiving turkey.
One collection topic I could never get was the urge to collect baseball cards. I didnt even like the bubble gum that the crds came with, I had a buddy who collected the cards and he gve me the gum. I piece of gum for 2 pennies and a card. hed spend 50 cents and thatd be like 25 pieces of gum . Of course I would try to chew em all at once and would either choke or Id get stomach purging sick.

Yes, Tom Thomson was Group of Seven. Of course, he died young so early Group of Seven. Lots of Forestall's in the Maritimes eh.

My brother Sam bought a new Impala off baseball card earnings.

Good post (I'm following along)..

Reminds me..
when I first moved to Humboldt County (what a change of scene from Venice Beach, ay yi yi), I had funds to buy some good old house I could fix up. The real estate woman arranged for me to stay in a sort of humongous tract house (I hated tracts back then, would rather have a small shack) to keep the heat on, have the house be lived in while it was for sale. Three or four weeks after I moved my worldly goods into the garage and some of the house, putting up some of my paintings so as to feel, uh, human warmth, and making bread, I got a call from the RE lady that she wanted to bring a couple to see the house. I wasn't worried as the house had been on the market for (I forget) a year or two. They loved it.. (oh, crap, now what?). The what turned out to be that I could stay at the new husband's old place until I found a place of my own. Which brings the paragraph to what the thread us about: the guy's many collections....

He had a baseball card room.
He had collections of vintage shaving cream cans along the top of the downstairs bathroom walls.
He had a collection of gums in a kind of round glass display tower. That was in the dining room.
Also in the dining room, a collection of pristine beer cans of some pedigree.
He had a ZZ Top canoe in the boat house/garage. I think it was ZZ Top but I think I only looked at the canoe for a few seconds and it might be some other name.

I may be forgetting more collections - this was 17 years ago. He must have trusted me.

Weird experience but I pretty much enjoyed it. I've written about my move and his collections before on a2k, but that was a bunch of years ago.

The only way youd know it was a ZZ Top canoe was if you were totally gooned on herb.

Well, he told me and I believed him. Not that I cared.. I had no idea who ZZ Top was.

there was a time when baseball cards were very very desired as a collectible. Today, only the really early cards and the very few really big names are even orth anything.
Its like Hummel Figurines Lladro porcelain, or "beanie babies" or "cabbage patch ****"
Everything has a time slot.
Ive seen in a Kovells manual that even Walt Disney stuff has tanked

My aunt and a couple of uncles were Disney people in the thirties and forties. The woman I used to call my hundred year old aunt lived to rue the days she routinely tossed what I think were called 'cells' in the trash.

I tried to sell some old collector stuff on Ebay. Nobody showed interest, except for an original Alley Oop strip from 1966.

I had a complete collection of Elvis Presley bubble gum cards. My mother threw the whole collection out.

Ebay is not always the best place for stuff like that. I've just done a quick google and there are specialist websites, I won't post any links for fear of spamming but they are out there, and they will need stock.

Since that time I gave away the best of it. It was just gathering dust.

Some of the real classic stuff that has NOT developed a huge market inflation (like a lot of Warnr Bros, Peanuts, or Alley Oop stuff) does retain or even lead to higher prices from collectors. BUT, I imagine most collectors of stuff like Alley Oop are at least Baby Boomers who are comfortable and a little nostalgic.

I had a large Shulz study (original done with old style mark -a-lots) illustration of the Kid playing his little grand piano. It was a special auction piece during a PBS fund raiser. because Shulz made a comment on the Illustration board, about "No matter how good you think you are, you still need practice" It was a hugely fought over piece and I, like an idiot, wound up with it.
I gave it to my son as a present when he got into his residency.

BUUUT, as things go, He needed to fix his car . It was really broke down, so he was gonna sell the SHulz to some ratfink who was gonna give him like 100 bucks. so I "bought" the SHulz back from him for the money it took to buy a decent used car. (Im keeping it for him as an inheritance that will have a family story).
Now, the market value of the SHulz is certainly not 2 times what I paid for it once, Its whatever its appraised at now,(Which has gone up a bit). But its certainly worth the price of a used Prius.

The one collectors thing I am holding onto and still enjoying is my Alley Oop and Popeye comic strip collections. I have about seven shelf feet of binders of these strips, some original, many ran off a copy machine. Alley Oop covers the entire history of the strip by VT Hamlin and some by later artists, who perverted the spirit of the original. It is missing some strips, but not enough to spoil the appreciation of Hamlin's genius. The two moon trips have missing material, but not enough to ruin it. The Popeye has his first appearance and the Jeep, which they named Jeep vehicles for.

I have about a thousand records, some bought as far back as 1958, but they have been used for enjoyment. The rarest among them has been played too much for collectors to care about them.

went to see Jeff Lemire, one of the best comic book creators, writers and artists in the business today


loving my autographed copy of Sweet Tooth Volume One