...sometimes when they are the only option, I am grateful we have them.

Years back I said I would never buy them but I have softened and have a few in my collection now. Don't get me wrong, on-card autos are far superior because the signer has the room to sign properly, no need to worry about how obtrusive the sticker may look/is not applied well, and I like that the star has handled the end product and know what they're signature is going on: the card.

That said, in some instances I can see past all that and have just picked this up. Gandolfini was a phenomenal actor and I am so glad he signed stickers so we have at least got some sort of official autograph cards from him:



I would not buy a sticker auto where an alternate on-card option was available but products like Pop Century have given the hobby some otherwise unavailable names, Al Pacino being one phenomenal example, or the late Gene Wilder. The recent Alien Anthology set gave us the wonderful Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt and Harry Dean Stanton after all these years, they may be stickers but this Alien fan will take what he can get.

I'm curious if any other collectors have softened on their collecting habits towards sticker autos in recent years because of the set/actor?

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

Only for deceased stars where no on card signature exists. Otherwise I will always hold out hope for an on card auto.

quote:

Originally posted by X:
I'm curious if any other collectors have softened on their collecting habits towards sticker autos in recent years because of the set/actor?

I haven't soften because I never took the position that sticker autographs were taboo in the first place. If someone has not yet signed a certified autograph on-card in a set or if they have, but the price is beyond reach, I can appreciate that a sticker signature is available. Because many are in the hodge-podge sets of Pop Century and Americana, the prices are often a fraction of the more desirable cards.

Now there are stickers I won't touch. It can be said that a genuine autograph is the same autograph no matter what it is signed on, but that is not always true. Stickers are small and we have seen several signers shortening their autographs and even putting down only their initials on stickers. Whereas the same people have full signatures in on-card examples. Something like that would cause me to avoid the sticker card because its not the complete signature. Also, if you have an on-card signature, do you have a need to get the same one on a sticker? I don't. I have a couple of Lincoln signed Walking Dead autos from CZE now as an example. I have no need to pick up one on a TOPPS sticker, if that's how the new ones will come out.

Finally, it also depends on the design of the cards. Some stickers blend in so well you can hardly pick out the edges. Others are just jarring with the background and look bad. Some signers stay on the sticker, others fly off with letters now being cut off at the top or bottom.

You really can't or shouldn't take a definite stance against sticker autographs because you will see one at some point that you desire. I can practically guarantee it. That Gandolfini is a nice remembrance of a good actor who is no longer with us.

I don't mind the sticker autographs. I prefer on-card, but the stickers open up opportunities that would not exist otherwise.

I wish they would try to incorporate the stickers into the design more. Why not make the card design account for the sticker itself, or make it like a cut signature card like Topps has done in the past.

I guess one thing that might make it better is if the stickers were bigger to give more room for the signature.

I am for a lot of things that get autographs of the athletes / celebrities I like.

I think Raven is dead-on w/ her opinions on sticker autos. I make a few exceptions i.e. Dennis Leary and Karen Allen, but not many....

I really dislike when the signer just initials, signs first name only, or makes only a pretentious doodle on that piece of tape.

The Pacino is a good example of what Raven is saying.

He has a high signature and so signing on a sticker leaves part of the autograph on the adhesive sheet while the rest is placed on a card. I will always dislike stickers because it confines the natural expression.

Still, if they don't sign for anything else I will settle for it. I almost picked up one of the Costner sigs until I found out that Topps did a Bull Durham tribute set. Kevin, Susan and Tim all signed on card. Plus its a great movie!

I have decided to collect what I want from Season 4 of the Walking Dead and then shut the door on the title. As much as I disliked about Cryptozoics marketing, the Topps product is not a step in the right direction. I can't even imagine Melissa McBride shoved onto a sticker.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
The Pacino is a good example of what Raven is saying.

He has a high signature and so signing on a sticker leaves part of the autograph on the adhesive sheet while the rest is placed on a card. I will always dislike stickers because it confines the natural expression.

Still, if they don't sign for anything else I will settle for it. I almost picked up one of the Costner sigs until I found out that Topps did a Bull Durham tribute set. Kevin, Susan and Tim all signed on card. Plus its a great movie!

I have decided to collect what I want from Season 4 of the Walking Dead and then shut the door on the title. As much as I disliked about Cryptozoics marketing, the Topps product is not a step in the right direction. I can't even imagine Melissa McBride shoved onto a sticker.

Turns out Topps is getting lots of Walking Dead Season 5 on-card. Their Twitter had images of McBride, including inscriptions.

I also dislike stickers. I dislike them so much that I attempted to purge my collection of all sticker autos. But over the years, my stance on them has changed. I still prefer on-card autos, and the majority of my collection is on-card, but I have come to accept a few sticker autos here and there. But what's interesting is that I have chosen some sticker autos over on-card for various reasons.

Subject matter: I have a Chris Hemsworth Star Trek on-card auto and an Avengers Assemble sticker auto. I ended up keeping the sticker auto because I love the Thor character. For some people, it's all about the actor, but for me, the character is just as important, if not more important.

Card design: I have a Heroes season 1 Hayden Panettiere sticker auto and a Heroes Archives on-card auto. Both are of the same character, but I chose to keep the sticker auto because I like the photo on it more. Plus the silver sticker seems to blend in very well with the card design.

Availability: Some autographs can only be obtained on stickers. I sold the Peter Cullen Optimus Prime auto and then ended up buying it back again because there was no other alternative. I put Megan Fox in this category too. Desirable auto, but only available as stickers. Sure there are alternatives, such as signed 8x10s, but I prefer sticker autos over those as well.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Booker:
I have a Chris Hemsworth Star Trek on-card auto and an Avengers Assemble sticker auto. I ended up keeping the sticker auto because I love the Thor character. For some people, it's all about the actor, but for me, the character is just as important, if not more important./QUOTE]

It's also about the set the card is from and the print run of the actual card. For a long time the Star Trek Hemsworth was regarded as a common and could be had for $40, whereas all of the Marvel Hemsworth Thor autographs came out in the over $300 range. Now some of the Thors seem to have dropped a little and the Star Trek card is asking around $100.

So as you say, while we all pretty much agree that an on-card signature is preferable to a sticker it does not necessary make the on-card signature the more valuable or desirable of the two choices.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan Cracknell:

Turns out Topps is getting lots of Walking Dead Season 5 on-card. Their Twitter had images of McBride, including inscriptions.

Interesting, still with Topps you never know when they will switch it up on you. Just like Star Wars. I don't know if the .pdf flyers are showing the final card design. Cant say I am all too crazy over that either. And now there is some kind of over priced premium release. I wish em all the luck but they can go on without me.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

So as you say, while we all pretty much agree that an on-card signature is preferable to a sticker it does not necessary make the on-card signature the more valuable or desirable of the two choices.

That does seem to be a strange anomaly with this hobby. Very strange how an unpopular title alone will crush the value of a big name autograph. One of the things with upper deck is that if you are only interested in the autograph cards, you are much better off paying even as much as $300 than to sift through their product of crazy insert ratios.

I'm fine with stickers. An autograph is an autograph. They look nicer on-card, but the fact that the actor "held the card" doesn't mean much to me, especially since it probably didn't mean much to them.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:
I'm fine with stickers. An autograph is an autograph. They look nicer on-card, but the fact that the actor "held the card" doesn't mean much to me, especially since it probably didn't mean much to them.

Not to mention that they handled the stickers, so they did touch the thing you get. It seems like a lot of splitting hairs to complain about stickers vs. on card, full bleed vs. bordered, etc. We all have preferences but the disdain that some express for some of the cards out there is crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by Obi Wan Chrisobi:

Not to mention that they handled the stickers, so they did touch the thing you get. It seems like a lot of splitting hairs to complain about stickers vs. on card, full bleed vs. bordered, etc. We all have preferences but the disdain that some express for some of the cards out there is crazy.

I don't think it's that crazy. People want quality products. On-card autographs take more time & effort to produce than sticker autographs - hence higher quality.

It would be like comparing football jerseys with stitched lettering vs screen printed lettering. If jersey manufacturers charged the same price for both types, you can bet people will complain about it.

You can split hairs over the whole is it better the celeb touched the sticker or the card debate, but logically, it makes little difference. But I do think the traditional on-card auto will always win out - they look better because of their simplicity.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that even an obvious looking sticker can work, the original Topps Heroes Season 1 autos mentioned above look very sharp with the bright silver sticker against the black and blue background. But sticker autos will always be the poor relation for the reasons Raven touched on: their size doesn't allow for good and/or full signatures.
Check out Gary Dourdan's on-card autograph cards for CSI vs. his recent sticker autos for Alien Anthology... they look nothing alike.

The manufacturers know collectors generally prefer on-card autos otherwise the likes of Topps wouldn't tout on-card sigs as a draw for their premium products like Masterworks. Yet those same manufacturers also still push stickers, which they imply are inferior!

I get that it takes more time and effort to get signers on-card every time, but I don't care. Why should I accept a company being lazy just because it makes things easier for them when they are capable of making BETTER cards? And what does it say about a company's 'non-premium' products that make use of on-card and stickers, sometimes even in the same release?
The money needed to acquire aside, why buy a Harrison Ford sticker auto if the next set may be on-card? Collectors can say there is no difference between an on-card vs. sticker autos but is that still the case when manufacturer tells us there is?

If these manufacturer's insist on using stickers, why oh why don't they use bigger stickers and/or make them blend with the card designs better? Or just put them on straight? Yeah an autograph is an autograph and signers don't sign on-card signatures perfectly straight, but an obtrusive looking sticker, applied wonky, makes what should be a premium product look very shoddy indeed.

I have wondered from the Entertainer perspective when they sign stickers but don't know what the end product looks like?

I have seen auto stickers placed on some really bad images or dismal art work.

Just curious how the anti-sticker collectors feel about modern cut signatures. I am referring to the cut signature, which is actually a sheet of paper they had someone sign to insert into the card.

I like them myself just fine, but to me it is simply a slightly better version of the sticker auto.

No judgment here. I am just curious because I don't mind the stickers and others seem to loathe them.

quote:

Originally posted by fuchaldream:
Just curious how the anti-sticker collectors feel about modern cut signatures. I am referring to the cut signature, which is actually a sheet of paper they had someone sign to insert into the card.

I like them myself just fine, but to me it is simply a slightly better version of the sticker auto.

No judgment here. I am just curious because I don't mind the stickers and others seem to loathe them.

I think that cut signatures are worse since the signatures were never intended to be for an autograph card. Many are taken from old correspondence, cancelled checks, etc. At least the stickers were signed with the intention of using them on autograph cards whereas cuts aren't.

quote:

Originally posted by fuchaldream:
Just curious how the anti-sticker collectors feel about modern cut signatures. I am referring to the cut signature, which is actually a sheet of paper they had someone sign to insert into the card.

I like them myself just fine, but to me it is simply a slightly better version of the sticker auto.

No judgment here. I am just curious because I don't mind the stickers and others seem to loathe them.

Quite a bit of difference from a sticker actually. The source material used for a cut signature card has to be authenticated by a third party because the autograph comes from various materials that were likely not witnessed, certainly not by the card manufacturer, and also are not guaranteed by the signer. The manufacturer is backing the signature based on the opinion of whoever they used to tell real from not real.

A small number of cut signatures on blank cardboard have been made just for new cards, Pop Century or Americana did them I think. However these are not what we typically call cut signatures.

Any certified autograph card, whether on-card or using a sticker, is either signed in the presence of a manufacturer's representative or is issued with the express guarantee of the signer. Third party certification is not a factor.

The big plus for cut signature cards is that you can obtain the autograph of a deceased person with the assurance from a card manufacturer that it is in fact genuine. Cut signature cards of living persons are not popular with some collectors for the obvious reason, but if it is a tough signer in demand it would probably be an exception.

The appearance of cut signature cards is also a different discussion. If I had to make a generalization, sticker autograph cards are designed better than cut signatures because at least the stickers are uniform in shape and size. Cut signatures taken from all sorts of source documents can often appear very ill fitting in the cut out space provided on the card. Also while the card itself is often nothing more than a generic frame design with no picture, the color or background of the inserted autograph can make for a really amateurish looking attempt.

An ugly cut signature card is just as bad as an ugly sticker, if not worse. But that is a matter of taste.

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

Just to bend my earlier statement that "I would not buy a sticker auto where an alternate on-card option was available..."
Even though Ian Holm has on-card signatures in a few of the LOTR/Hobbit releases I am so happy he signed for Alien Anthology. Looking forward to getting that card delivered soon. A great performance from a great actor, and the card almost looks like it isn't a sticker!