Autographed NFL Book

[Aragorn243]

There's this Reuzit shop I go too often multiple times a week to buy military books. I've posted a few of them here on occasion. I stopped in yesterday and military books were slim pickings, but I spotted this one and I always like NFL history, so I picked it up to look at it. I was just getting ready to put it back down while leafing through when I spotted what looked like an autograph. So I stopped and looked and was going back towards where I saw it when Walter Payton's page came up and I about flipped. Walter Payton is one of the few NFL players I idolized as a kid. Can't be real but I checked online and it looks legit. Went back to the first autograph and thought maybe they were printed on but it imprinted the page. Now I'm really interested, and I found the other three player pages with autographs. For $5, why not. No certifications but I can't imagine anyone doing this for a fun fakery. The signatures were all over the place, some upside down like they were signed in a hurry. I've been there, done that although I do my best to get the page turned the right way.

Brought it home, checked all the signatures, they look the real deal. Leafed through it some more and found the front-end page with three signatures, one I recognized immediately as Bob Griese's. The other two no idea but my sister of all people found Gene Upshaw's. I asked her how and she said dumb luck, she's a voting supervisor and has to examine signatures for voting so she's good at it. But the last one remained a mystery until I posted it on an NFL autograph Facebook page. In five minutes it came back as not a player as I had assumed but Coach Hank Stram.

I get lucky with non-military things sometimes too.

All of them are Hall of Famers, several are now dead.

[Salt Flat]

Now you've done it - I see another collection beginning.

[Aragorn243]

This isn't new, I have a lot of autographs. Been collecting them for almost 35 years. My first was OJ McDuffie, Penn State player who was drafted by the Miami Dolphins, my college and NFL teams so it was perfect. Never went to one before and they advertised 12:00 start time so I showed up at 11:45. I didn't know any better. All the tickets were sold out. But again, I didn't know any better so I asked if I could stand at the end of the line and there was extra time maybe I could get an autograph. They said sure but no guarantees. I got the autograph; he signed about 30 extras at the end.

Then I started NASCAR and later NHRA and those two are most of my collection. I have thousands of them. I have an entire file cabinet and a 5' wide shelf full of notebooks.

I have baseball, TV personalities, a few hockey, outdoorsmen, bands, no rhyme or reason to it just like my military collection.

NASCAR kind of went dead after Winston left so I don't have many recent ones. NHRA is still active as I have a track 10 miles from my house. I used to average 400-500 NASCAR per season but now I'm lucky if I get half a dozen. NHRA I get around 100 per season, all on one day. My most recent was Abdul Carter three weekends ago. He's a Penn Stater who is likely to be a high first round draft pick. I didn't know it at the time and showed up at my normal time for this event which puts me in the top 10 in the line, I was almost 100 back for this and almost didn't get an autograph because they allowed 5 per person and there were only 250 tickets to be sold. Then he showed up 2 hours late which made for a long day. I spent it with my Rifle kids that where holding a fund raiser with the boosters so it wasn't bad.

I have four Jerseys, a tennis outfit, a large Terry Bradshaw, small Jack Ham and another Penn State players photos on my living room wall. Jerseys are Ruettiger "Rudy", Dan Marino Jack Ham and Nick Foles. Jennifer Capriotti is the Tennis star. I have two bands photos on the wall behind me along with the female lead of the 5th element, Milla Jovovich.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Than is a gem. Thanks for the memories.

[Salt Flat]

I know, it becomes a passion. I have collected about 130 football helmets from all levels, from 1890's to present. Some are signed.

[Sapper740]

Good to see Emmitt on the front cover. I'm not big into autographs but I have a book signed by Lt. Col. Oliver North and a hardhat signed by Tuff Hedeman.

[Aragorn243]

I know, it becomes a passion. I have collected about 130 football helmets from all levels, from 1890's to present. Some are signed.

That's one reason I try to stick to flats with my autograph collecting. I started collecting them before I got serious with the military stuff. But even then, I was conscious about space. Cost was another issue. I had one brief foray into getting 1/24 diecast cars signed by the drivers but ended it around a dozen or so. I still have them but never got back into getting them signed. I can have a stack of 300 flats in the same amount of space as three signed cars.

And then I went and bought a 1/64 scale car with the packaging signed by Jeff Hammond on Friday.