Autograph Hell

  By Brent Briggeman Advertisement Every time a fan pulls out a phone and asks Michael McKenry to pose for a selfie, it makes him laugh. It reminds the Rockies catcher of "The Goonies," where one of the young characters created a device that holds the camera out in front of him. "When you think about it, he's the one who invented the selfie stick," McKenry said of the kid in the 1985 film. "And it took all this time for technology to catch up." Technology has caught up, all right. Roughly 100 million selfies are taken daily according to a study from Google, those making up part of the nearly 900 billion photos snapped in a year according to Agence France-Presse. The Internet is filled with surveys that tell what your...

Michael Kahlig of Arlington scored a helmet-full of autographs in just one day. By Stefan Stevenson/Fort Worth Star-Telegram They arrive long before the bustling begins. Globe Life Park is usually still a quiet, peaceful place when the small group begins to gather on the grass by some trees at the lip of the tunnel where Texas Rangers players and officials enter a parking garage under the stadium. There, a group of diehard Rangers fans, typically no more than a dozen, all wearing team colors, sit and wait. They’re autograph seekers and there’s a group just like them at every Major League ballpark. Of course, autographs are nothing new to sports fans. Baseball players can be seen before most games signing along the first and third base lines at home or on the road. It’s part of the history of the game, one that players generally ...

A   Secret Index Autograph Investment Report   published by   Paul Fraser Collectibles   of Bristol, England, tracks the forty rarest and most investment-worthy autographs in the world. The price of the average autograph from the PFC40 rose 14.84% per year. And, he notes, "The rising trend shows no sign of stopping." Calling autographs a "mid- to long-term alternative investment that you may not have thought of before," Paul Fraser believes the market for collectibles is gaining strength, and he cites several reasons: 1) baby boomers are "nostalgia investors" who have a lot of wealth; 2) China is a nation of enthusiasts; 3) there are an estimated 200 million collectors in the world, and that is predicted to double in 20 years; 4) leading collectors continue to fight over the best pieces; 5) museums are still actively acquiring; and 6) there is a finite supply and growing demand.   Some of the autograph examples PFC offers in the Secret Index (recently ...