Enjoyable article in today's New York Times by author Ray Robinson about collecting autographs in the thirties.

http://tinyurl.com/5qq5t7

Is this the same collection that Barry is selling?

Dan- I was talking to my consignor yesterday and he pointed out this article. He mentioned how eerily familiar this all sounded.

He even told me an additional story: turns out at one point his father approached Babe Ruth for an autograph with a fountain pen. The pen malfunctioned so Ruth shook it, promptly getting ink all over his white shirt and sports jacket. He turned to the kid and said: Don't ever ask me for an autograph again.

And even Ray Robinson has a similar story. Very strange. But this is a different collection.

Barry: Didn't mean to distract from your sale. Hadn't had my first cup of coffee yet. Saw the Times article. Thought to myself "What an awesome scrapbook!" Logged on, read your e-mail, thought "Wow! This is awesomer ! Allow an old man to digress . . . I used to collect autographs outside the Yankee Stadium clubhouse back in the fifties (wish I had had the savvy and the chutzpah to go to their hotels); alas, all my siggies and Topps beaters and Action Comics and my coonskin cap are buried in the aptly named Fresh Kills, or perhaps they're part of the sludge mass inching its way across the Atlantic (Thanks, Mom). . . On account of suffering from the current epidemic of pecuniary strangulation going around, my erstwhile humble autograph collection will remain erstwhile, id est, this old kid is not going to be the new steward of the Kid's scrapbooks. I do envy the guy who will be.

Hi Dave- no distraction at all. The two stories were so similar that I too was taken aback.