[QUOTE]Originally posted by X:
Upper Deck made him artificially scarce, however despite all four of his Rittenhouse autos being 'very limited', they are all very easy to find.

He was one of the most requested hold-outs RA could not secure for the longest time, and unlike many celebs they interacted with, RA repeatedly shared he had flat out refused to participate.

He's a great actor and will be returning in No Time To Die as well. His cards are criminally under-priced IMO and can go REALLY cheap in eBay auctions.QUOTE]

Sometimes certain autograph signers really annoy me, often for different reasons. Affleck annoys me because he seems to deliberately change his paid signatures so that they don't resemble each other and the result is that you can't tell when his auto is genuine or fake. John Cusack and Jake Gyllenhaal annoy me because they agreed to sign paid autographs that fans are expected to pay a fair amount of money to get and the signatures are total lazy junk. And Jeffrey Wright annoyed me when he refused to sign autographs for anybody, period. Maybe it annoyed RA too, since they went out of their way to say that he refused them.

Jeffrey Wright is a good actor, but he was never a star celebrity actor. He is not getting mob on the street. He wouldn't be recognized very much on the street. Photographers aren't following him around and fan mail isn't pouring in. He should appreciate fans who know his work and are willing to ask or pay for his signature as a memento. For all that time, and maybe still now privately, it was against his principals to sign for anybody. He works in a profession that needs the public, but wanted nothing to do with them personally. Until he changed his mind and that annoys me too.

Then he suddenly decided to do paid certified autograph cards and guess what? They are cheap, because the only thing that put his Bond autograph card in such demand was the fact that it was missing. He was in demand because there was no supply. Once there was a supply, demand was met and they were no longer especially valued or desired cards since he was just another good supporting actor in Bond.

Good. I'm still annoyed with him and I agree his autograph Bond cards are undervalued. I can still wait.

To be fair to Wright, he never owed anyone his autograph.
It would be wonderful for collectors if all actors wanted to participate in card sets, but there can be a myriad of legitimate reasons they may not want to.

I wish Connery didn't have an axe to grind regarding his perceived treatment by the Bond producers, and had signed for RA. I wish Timothy Dalton didn't have his weird (sign anything but Bond) personal rule for autograph requests but the situation is what it is. What annoys me are the legit missed opportunities...

- Christoph Waltz and Andrew Scott signing for UD, but not RA.
- Diana Rigg signing stacks of Unstoppable Avengers cards at a convention but Steve/RA couldn't make it happen for Bond (I understand he tried).
- Michael Lonsdale signing at a show, but no cards.
- And we have Robbite Coltrane on record saying he hates signing autographs, was another flat-out refusal for RA, and is now due to attend London Comic-Con (if it goes ahead). Another who would have been great on some RA cards.

Don't see much point in being annoyed with Jeffrey Wright - especially when he did agree to sign in the end. 'Better late than never' and all that.

My beef with Wright wasn't that he wouldn't participate in card sets. It was that for a long time he refused all autograph requests from anyone, be it paid or for free. I agree with you, he never owed anyone his signature. It just would have been nice if he was more fan friendly, given that he was not some superstar who couldn't handle all the attention.

Robbie Coltrane and Diana Rigg I have no problem with. Maybe its because I think their bodies of work are impressive enough to give them a pass or maybe just because they have been consistent about it. I don't know about Coltrane being at Comic-Con, but I wouldn't expect that the floodgates will open for either one of them, as has become a norm for many actors in their later leaner years. See SMG below.

For Waltz and Scott, maybe UD's deal appealed to them in a way that RA's did not. Maybe they got more money. Maybe they signed less. Maybe they just preferred signing for UD. Maybe it was just the timing that was more convenient. Who knows?

Why wouldn't SMG ever sign for Inkworks? I always had a problem with her too and you see how she's changed now. But I was not so annoyed as to not pick up her RA auto/relic card, which is another card that I think dropped enough to be a good buy. It has a full SMG signature and a relic, so I see that one as her best Buffy RA card in terms of value.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Why wouldn't SMG ever sign for Inkworks? I always had a problem with her too and you see how she's changed now.

Of course I will probably never know but I tend to the think the downward turn in her career may have opened her up more to the idea. Not that she isn't working but she has had nothing close to the success and fandom of Buffy since the show ended.

You mean her appearance on The Big Bang Theory hasn't totally revitalized her career?

I can hardly believe it!?!

And you're forgetting her bestselling cookbook, "Fun With Food". We may never know what changed her mind!

I can't imagine a celebrity getting paid much to do autographs for a card set. The card companies don't seem to like paying artists for sketches. There must be some negotiation going on about the money weighed against how much the celebrity wants to contribute to further promoting the show/movie. There's also the tedious task of sitting and cranking out 100 or 200 or however many signatures without ink smears or coffee stains. I think it's just seen as an additional hassle to some celebrities.

I remember Steve Martin didn't give autographs for a long time. He used to hand out pre-printed cards that said you had met him. That seemed partly out of his sense of humor and perhaps some resistance to giving away his signature for some reason. Was it simply a feeling of surrendering something a little too personal?

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
There's also the tedious task of sitting and cranking out 100 or 200 or however many signatures without ink smears or coffee stains. I think it's just seen as an additional hassle to some celebrities.

I can agree that celebrities aren't getting rich from signing but hardly find signing a couple hundred autographs as a tedious task. 6 signatures a minute and you are done in 40 minutes. So another way to look at it is if they are getting $10 a signature it equals out to $2000 an hour.

Yeah, that sounds like a good payday to me but maybe milk money to Sara Michelle Gellar at the time. I think if I were a celebrity, I would do what Leonard Nimoy did. I'd sign the cards but would also negotiate for the card company to print me up a batch of special autograph cards for my own use. It would be a photo of me in a scholarly pose with a pipe using Cardaddict's bookcase as a background to make me look even more scholarly.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
There's also the tedious task of sitting and cranking out 100 or 200 or however many signatures without ink smears or coffee stains. I think it's just seen as an additional hassle to some celebrities.

I can agree that celebrities aren't getting rich from signing but hardly find signing a couple hundred autographs as a tedious task. 6 signatures a minute and you are done in 40 minutes. So another way to look at it is if they are getting $10 a signature it equals out to $2000 an hour.

I recall Yvonne Craig and Kevin Sorbo having some of the RA cards at their tables. Always wondered what the standard deal was on how many cards they could keep?

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Yeah, that sounds like a good payday to me but maybe milk money to Sara Michelle Gellar at the time. I think if I were a celebrity, I would do what Leonard Nimoy did. I'd sign the cards but would also negotiate for the card company to print me up a batch of special autograph cards for my own use. It would be a photo of me in a scholarly pose with a pipe using Cardaddict's bookcase as a background to make me look even more scholarly.

Jess

Just don't light that pipe, no smoking here.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I can't imagine a celebrity getting paid much to do autographs for a card set. The card companies don't seem to like paying artists for sketches. There must be some negotiation going on about the money weighed against how much the celebrity wants to contribute to further promoting the show/movie. There's also the tedious task of sitting and cranking out 100 or 200 or however many signatures without ink smears or coffee stains. I think it's just seen as an additional hassle to some celebrities.

I remember Steve Martin didn't give autographs for a long time. He used to hand out pre-printed cards that said you had met him. That seemed partly out of his sense of humor and perhaps some resistance to giving away his signature for some reason. Was it simply a feeling of surrendering something a little too personal?

I read, I think on here years back, that someone got in conversation with Madeline Smith (of Bond, Hammer Horror etc.) at a UK convention where she said she got paid $1.50 or $2.00 per signature for her Bond auto cards, and was frustrated that her A49 and WA25 cards were selling for £70+ on the secondary market at the time.
She would have been charging maybe £15 at conventions around that time.

Smith had signed her Very Limited 40th and Women of Bond autos in Quotable Bond, and a Limited full-bleed in Dangerous Liaisons at the same time I believe. So we're talking 700 cards at a minimum, to 1,100 at a maximum, given RA's disclosed print ranges for those rarity designations.

700 cards at $1.50 = $1,050 or $2.00 = $1,400
1100 cards at $1.50 = $1,650 or $2.00 = $2,200

A couple dollars per signature doesn't seem a lot I guess, but even so, a couple grand for an easy gig is surely tempting for anyone? But maybe annoying to see collectors pay so much more for your signature on a licenced collectible.

Makes me think how much money RA must have to put into their sets that are built up of huge autograph runs, even for less expensive signers.

Makes me wonder what kind of price the likes of Halle Berry, Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan got per signature from RA.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: X,

Maybe years ago when the certified autograph market was still new, celebrities didn't know much about it. Now I'm sure most do and certainly their agents and lawyers do. Signing cards or stickers is an easy gig compared to making a personal appearance or attending a hobby show or Con. Sure they would get paid a lot more for mingling with the public, but some would just settle for signing 100 - 200 cards at their leisure for an extra paycheck.

And of course it depends on the status of the celebrity and how valuable the card maker thinks they are to their product. Common signers may work for the minimum or scale price per card and be happy to be asked. Since they will sign the highest number of cards, even a couple of bucks per card could add up to a nice bonus for them. On the other hand stars will sign fewer copies, but be paid more per card. By now their agents know, even if they themselves might not, that those cards will be premium hits that may go for triple figures on the secondary market. The deals will be good, especially since the various people from a show are probably talking to each other about what they are being paid.

Celebrity autographs aren't like sketch artists. Artists are paid peanuts unless they have a reputation and can produce a small number of really outstanding sketches. More over, artists are most valued in sketch centered products. For products on TV shows and movies, card makers know that they must get autos from most, if not all, of the starring actors. If they don't have those 2 or 3 main actors that product will be DOA.

I think Game of Thrones is a good example of a product where set after set, RA has been able to get and store enough autos from nearly all the stars, including ones with inscriptions that must take longer to complete. Some of them may be doing it for fun or were promoting the show at the time and there are quite a few common signers too. But RA still made enough from the card sales to keep paying for all the signers, big and small.

But you can't tell me that the stars aren't getting paid pretty well for the amount of time it takes. They wouldn't do it otherwise.

I don't know. One thing to consider is no one hand writes anymore. What's it feel like after signing your name continuously for five minutes or fifteen minutes without the regular exercise of writing with a pen? I'm old enough that I wrote school reports and even college projects in pen and still did some writing after that (still writing out notes on lined paper in pen at a work meeting). It took years to lose the callous on my right middle finger at that last knuckle before the fingernail.

To me it seems like the average celebrity is going to think it's a hassle but might do it because it is nice to be asked and $2000 covers some work on a car or a gift for a spouse. Someone like Patrick Stewart isn't going to notice another $2000 paycheck. It might be amusing to him and "Star Trek" has been good to him. He might not mind signing cards to help celebrate the old show or promote the new one.

Jess

I bought a Mini Master set of Harry Potter cards direct from one of the actors. It was his payment for signing cards, so they do deals this way. Its a win win for both I guess.

Random!
Can you share any more details?

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I don't know. One thing to consider is no one hand writes anymore.

Jess

Yep, they don't even want to teach cursive handwriting anymore. You see it in signatures already. Some of the autographs you see on cards now can look like a combination of both script and printed letters. Some are just printed and many of the added inscriptions in that design are entirely done in print.

Perhaps future generations will just be told to make an "X" and identification will all be done by finger prints and retinal scans. It will kill the autograph card, but it could be replaced by the new premium hit. Eyeball Scan cards. Now that might hurt if you had to do 1000 of them in 3 hours.

quote:

Originally posted by X:
Random!
Can you share any more details?

No one famous sadly just one of the guys who played a death eater. There was a letter in the binder from Artbox which basically said thanks for signing here is your set as payment.

Getting back on topic, was reading up about the upcoming Lord of the Rings Tv series being filmed by Amazon and noticed Robert Aramayo has been cast in the lead role replacing Will Poulter.

He played a bit part in Game of Thrones as Young Ned Stark and signed a couple of cards. Picked a few of these up between £3 and £11 seems like a good gamble as those prices.
His general career seems to be on the rise at the moment with another series and a few films to come out.

Just one thing to add to the conversation is the secondary collectible market bears little on the arrangement between a signer and manufacturer. Especially when dealing with what we are calling the "common" autograph. A card manufacturer must operate within the set price for the entire box and not just the one signature card. It's not as if what the market does with open product is going to kick back to the card manufacturer.



Just picked one up for $10, thanks for the heads up.

quote:

Originally posted by Neilsy:
Getting back on topic, was reading up about the upcoming Lord of the Rings Tv series being filmed by Amazon and noticed Robert Aramayo has been cast in the lead role replacing Will Poulter.