20 replies to this topic

[kh barton]

i have just found my old autograph book dating back to the 70,s ealy 80,s, the book contains the autographs of john newbold,dick greasley,eddie roberts,pat hennen,steve parrish,mac hobson,dave potter,kevin stowe,steve manship,derek chatterton,charlie williams,stan woods,barry ditchburn,barry sheene,ron haslam,tom herron,dale singleton,graeme crosby,wil hartog,teuvo lansivouri,tony rutter,bruce hammer,rolf biland kenny williams,chas mortimer,george o,dell ,cliff holland,alex george,mick grant roger marshall,vic soussan, and jock taylor signed the flying scotsman jock taylor
if anybody knows if this is worth any think please leave apost

[Paul Collins]

i have just found my old autograph book dating back to the 70,s ealy 80,s, the book contains the autographs of john newbold,dick greasley,eddie roberts,pat hennen,steve parrish,mac hobson,dave potter,kevin stowe,steve manship,derek chatterton,charlie williams,stan woods,barry ditchburn,barry sheene,ron haslam,tom herron,dale singleton,graeme crosby,wil hartog,teuvo lansivouri,tony rutter,bruce hammer,rolf biland kenny williams,chas mortimer,george o,dell ,cliff holland,alex george,mick grant roger marshall,vic soussan, and jock taylor signed the flying scotsman jock taylor
if anybody knows if this is worth any think please leave apost

Its hard to put a value on something like that, all the collectors I know trawl ebay daily so probably the best way is to stick it on there and see what interest you get.

[picblanc]

Sounds like a nice collection, the one with the most value is Barry Sheene.

[Classicpics]

Having a day off work, decided to have a look through my boxes of M/C collections.

One of my "finds" was the 1957 Shell-Mex and PB Motorcycle Personalities Past and Present book by Sallon of the Daily Mirror.

I thought I might share a few pages with you.

A wonderful set of illustrations, the bad bit is I can remember most of them!




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[picblanc]

Thanks for sharing.

[SgtPepperoni]

Sounds like a nice collection, the one with the most value is Barry Sheene.

Well, that is subjective really. Personally, I'd rather have Herron's signature than Sheene's. Maybe that's just me.

[Paul Rochdale]

I've not collected autographs for a while. I began a few years ago when I decided to try to get the autographs from each of the World F1 Champions. I located their addresses one by one and sent them a small photograph - the shop behind the grandstand at Brands sells a series of them - a letter and either a stamped addressed envelope or an International Reply Coupon. In just about every case, the pic was returned to me. Fangio was quite a thrill for me. Damon Hill eventually returned the pic a year later along with a note saying he was too busy to sign.

I then began to het copies of pictures from Morton's and sent them to riders I admired - Agostini, John Cooper, Geoff Duke, etc - as well as going to the Goodwood Festival of Speed to try to see the former riders. I visited Derek Minter as he lives not far from me.

So all in all I have quite a collection. This thread has reminded me to get some more - Michelle Duff, Dan Shorey, Chris Vincent, Paddy Driver are four which spring to mind.

[GD66]

Damon Hill eventually returned the pic a year later along with a note saying he was too busy to sign.

What ? Did he sign the note ? How hopeless...

[Paul Rochdale]

No, I got the impression he just dumped a load of accumulated fan letters onto a friend who sent out printed replies. Emerson Fittipaldi also failed to return two photos but perhaps the addresses I had were wrong. Mika Hakinnen's was returned after a year and his signature resembles a childs drawing of a ball of string. Fangio and Jackie Stewart's are beautifully signed in fountain pen ink. I remember reading what Jackie once said about autographs, that they were the only thing that fan would have of him so he wanted to make a decent effort of signing stuff.

Geoff Duke took the trouble to write a few lines about the Gilera comeback which was nice. Lance Weil posted me a couple of excellent signed B&W photos when I was a teenager (50yrs ago). I'm still waiting to bump into Ralph Byans. I have signed books by Jim Redman, Michelle Duff and Colin Sealey. I've only ever paid for two autographs - it goes against the grain - Mike Hailwood and Michael Schumacher.

[picblanc]

I dont like the "modern" way of signing in large marker pen & putting race number after it, biro in programme on the day was my favorite, I have many from the 1970's & now I collect signed books not only of riders, got quite few of my photos signed at race meets to as well as those postcard type things that riders sign.

[Paul Rochdale]

I met Steve Hislop at a book signing in Douglas IoM and he signed a book as well as a rather nice photo I'd bought earlier. He was killed a few weeks later.

I don't like 'footballer's' scribbled autorgraphs either hence what I said about Fangio and Stewart. A derisory Magic Marker squiggle is just awful isn't it?

[picblanc]

Yep agree Paul, if you see these sports stars & celebs now they just put a squiggle, but I suppose when you have hundreds thrust under your nose & your on your way to some function thats good enough, but it aint a signature!

[graham houlihan]

Well, seen the thread and guess I should put on my anorak and own up to having a "bit of a collection". Even got a website...www.motoags.com

Started collecting when I was a kid in the 1970s, and just never stopped

I guess around 8 or 9 thousand signed pics from GP/TT riders including all the World Champions from 1949 til now and every TT winner back to the mid 1920s and even earlier ones.

But I can see me stopping in the next few years. Firstly, it get's more embarrassing every year to ask the latest 15 year old wonderkid to sign some photos. Secondly, as some of you have said already, when the riders get to the top they just sign a scrawl which seems a waste of time and effort to get.

[Paul Rochdale]

Holy Moses Graham, that's very impressive. You clearly had to buy many of those signed photographs as you weren't even born when they were around and that's something I tried to stear clear of doing. I just enjoyed hunting around for an address, then getting a photo and posting it off with fingers crossed. I discovered Fangio was Honory President of Mercedes Benz in Buones Aires so sent the photo there. It was back within a week. Nelson Piquet owns Jacuapagua race circuit so I sent it there and that worked to. A very impressive collection you have though.

[graham houlihan]

Holy Moses Graham, that's very impressive. You clearly had to buy many of those signed photographs as you weren't even born when they were around and that's something I tried to stear clear of doing. I just enjoyed hunting around for an address, then getting a photo and posting it off with fingers crossed. I discovered Fangio was Honory President of Mercedes Benz in Buones Aires so sent the photo there. It was back within a week. Nelson Piquet owns Jacuapagua race circuit so I sent it there and that worked to. A very impressive collection you have though.

Yep Paul, I've bought some things over the years, but the majority of the old stuff has been given to me over the years by families and colleagues of old riders. A good example would be a letter I wrote to a New Zealand rider, John Anderson, who rode in Europe in '58. He signed some TT photos that I sent him, but also sent me an old Guzzi postcard signed by Dickie Dale and given to him by Dickie himself. But I was writing (and visiting riders) back in the 80s and 90s, when I sent hundreds of letters and not many other people were contacting these guys. Now there are many writing just to get things to sell on ebay.

I've had lots of the famous F1 guys autographs over the years, like Ascari, Farina, Clark, etc but these have all been exchanged for bike racers. Still have Senna though.

[Paul Collins]

when I was about 13 years old my neighbour gave me his autograph book, he had picked up most of the major 60's UK guys and a few continentals, he had then started racing himself and I took custody of the book and continued collecting through the 70's.

I found it recently and smiled as I went through it, particularly as I looked at the neat schoolboy writing where my neighbour had proudly written his name and address on the first page sometime in the 60's, and I wondered could he have even dreamt when he wrote it that he himself would go on to be as well known as most of the names he had collected

[picblanc]

Excellent Paul.!

[mfd]

It's funny but I didn't always think when I was "goforing" there was an opportunity to collect so I never generally bothered with autographs. However I'd always collected Motocourse & my very first was bought with Barry Sheene's signature already on the inside fly page. So later when I got Kenny Roberts to sign his three editions, probably at the Scheckter meeting I'd started a ball rolling... Slightly bemused when KR remarked he was missing the 1978 year himself.

Nothing further until 1987 when I was tasked with providing "Racing Service" for Arai at the first Donington GP. It seemed like a perfect opportunity as I had a van in the paddock & was there from Thursday onwards, so I wouldn't have to lug them around. Tick 2 x Freddie Spencer, fairly easy, made me reasonably happy, as he disappeared off the scene about that time.

It wasn't until a couple of years later that I got the Lawson books signed. Rob Mac took them into his motorhome for me, as Lawson didn't seem to want to answer my knocks on the door. The surprise was that Lawson brought them out himself & he said he had to, because he didn't have many fans in the UK & wanted to see one for himself!

A year or so later, I picked off Wayne Rainey & had my second Sheene edition signed - another easy one, as by that time I'd done a few things for him. Surprisingly was while I was talking to BS, I got tapped on the shoulder by Gardner who asked me if I had one for him to sign too!

The last two missing were Lucchinelli & Uncini & they took a lot longer. I heard Marco was going to be at the first ever Superbike race at Donington, so fortunately that happened, right time etc. It was some years later for the final one I needed & fortunately a friend (safety car driver) hussled me into the Donington race control where Franco Uncini was working, so eventually a mission accomplished!

[picblanc]

Great story Mike I just sold my last Motocourse the first edition so I no longer have any.

[mfd]

Great story Mike I just sold my last Motocourse the first edition so I no longer have any.

Sadly they have lost their collectability with today's fans

[Paul Rochdale]

Well twelve years have passed since this thread was started and for me, things have moved along at quite a pace. I discovered that I could find excellent images of champion drivers/riders on Google Images and I could click onto and save in my Google Images. A trip to the local Snappy Snaps and I could usually get sharp pictures of those drivers and riders I wanted to collect. My collection of World F1 Champions now reaches 26 in total so about eight more needed to acquire the complete set. My World Motorcycle Champion collection is burgeoning and must now be in the 'hundreds'. Only today I've returned from Snappy Snaps with images of Dieter Braun, Dirk Raudies, Toni Mang, Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey which Ill post off in the next few days. With the loss of International Reply Coupons I go to a local foreign currency place and obtain some 5 Euro or US dollar bank notes and include on in each of my requests. Searching for the addresses of the Champions - I generally only collect World Champions - is for me part of the fun and involves sometimes hours of searching on line. Some riders had started small businesses so I write to them. Some have emigrated to Australia and New Zealand and whilst not champions, Brian Kemp and Barry Ditchburn rate highly in my eyes. Sadly some have passed away - Dan Shorey only recently - and some simply fail to reply even when there is a bank note included. Recent successes are Colin Edwards, Neil Hodgson, James Toseland, Troy Corser and Peter Hickman but I don't just stick to the tracks. Arthur Lampkin, Jeff Smith were added to my Dave Bickers and Sammy Miller. Alf Hagon is in his 90s and the great Eddy Merckx turned up after twelve months.I keep my signed photos in 4-ring binders, and mounted with photo corners on coloured cards in plastic pages all from W.H.Smith. There ya go ;-)