This morning I received notification that the base set and album for the latest Dr Who from Rittenhouse should arrive at my door on Wednesday if all goes well. The UK dealer also advised that he should have autograph cards available too if I was interested.

Goodies also issued a set called Doctor Who and the Daleks in 1969 which I have never seen. I believe that it is a rerun of the Cadet set of 1964 but with Goodies name on the back. In my experience Goodies cards have always been difficult to collect although I do have a few sets.

regards

John

quote:

Originally posted by JOHN LEVITT:
This morning I received notification that the base set and album for the latest Dr Who from Rittenhouse should arrive at my door on Wednesday if all goes well. The UK dealer also advised that he should have autograph cards available too if I was interested.

Same here and I purchased a couple of Auto's. The box prices are too much

Ebay sales are live.....forgot what a disappointment Jenna Louise Colman's signature was.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Ebay sales are live.....forgot what a disappointment Jenna Louise Colman's signature was.

Sorry to say it because the cards look really nice, but the majority of the Doctor Who 5 - 7 signers have not put much effort into their autographs. The nicest one I have seen is from Caitlin Blackwood, who is quite young in the photos, but not so young now. If only her cousin Karen Gillan could form an alphabet letter.

Tennant at least remains fairly consistent to his signature. Smith is not much more than initials. Kingston is now doing Alex and some kind of K with a face doodle, maybe. Agyeman thinks Freema is enough. Catherine Tate looks to be the best of the bigger new ones.

I'll never understand why so many celebrities seem to take so little pride in what is their own name.

There are 4000 boxes, a smaller than usual run, probably due to packing in 4 autos per box.

There should be 4 autos per box, but I had...6! And apparently that's pretty normal for this set for reasons unknown. I'm not complaining.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:


I'll never understand why so many celebrities seem to take so little pride in what is their own name.

I agree! I hate celebrity signatures nowadays. The only thing I can think is that they get lazy or don't have enough time so they shorten them (I know that I do at work when I have to sign or initial a lot of things, my sig is TERRIBLE and unreadable). Or they have a "celebrity" signature vs their "real" signature to keep identity theft at bay? (But that is probably my weird reasoning happening.)

I think Jared Leto is the worst I've ever seen. Ugh. It is basically a "cross" or "x" depending on how you look at it. And I think the private signings were asking like $300 for it! But don't quote me on that price, I didn't order so I don't remember completely.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:
There should be 4 autos per box, but I had...6! And apparently that's pretty normal for this set for reasons unknown. I'm not complaining.

Yes, we broke some boxes and every one of them had 6 autograph cards. Also every box I saw had one big signer that made up most of the value. Only one box had what I would consider two good scarce signers.

Only going by my limited view, the boxes I saw were worth the cost based on early eBay pricing. It's still not the 5 common signers, it's that there was a Companion or Doctor or River Song in each box. I don't know if it was a better than average case that I saw.

Not sure why RA choose not to disclose the true number of hits when it had to be a plus for the product. The only possible downside to it now is that some buyers may think that there will be extra hits in other titles. Get the advertised number and they will be disappointed, which is why I would have said six from the start.

But like you said, I'm not complaining this time.

quote:

Originally posted by Jessica:
Or they have a "celebrity" signature vs their "real" signature to keep identity theft at bay? (But that is probably my weird reasoning happening.)

No, it's reasonable enough to think that some celebrities do it on purpose to protect their "money signature", the one that they get paid to sign rather than give away for free.

My gripe on certified autograph cards is that they are getting paid for those signatures and they have the time to do it right. We deserve to get the "money signature", especially when its going to be an expensive card.

So put down bad pens and get another one (Alex Kingston). Don't sign every autograph differently (Ben Affleck). Don't become Cher when you weren't before (Natalie Portman). Don't cut it down to initials that you can't even make out (Jake Gyllenhaal). Don't take a known recognized signature and turn it into a mess that is not able to be authenticated unless you are old and sick (Tom Brady).

Yeah, some of them really do want to take the money and play games, mainly disrespecting their own fans. Autograph collectors should just walk away and support the good guys, who are also out there in fewer numbers.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

Yes, we broke some boxes and every one of them had 6 autograph cards. Also every box I saw had one big signer that made up most of the value. Only one box had what I would consider two good scarce signers.
....

Thanks for the info, I know someone who was considering buying a box or two.

quote:

Originally posted by WOMBLE:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

Yes, we broke some boxes and every one of them had 6 autograph cards. Also every box I saw had one big signer that made up most of the value. Only one box had what I would consider two good scarce signers.
....

Thanks for the info, I know someone who was considering buying a box or two.

You will need two to complete the base set and you could still have a few gap cards if you get similar boxes. Forget about doing the subsets unless you try a case. Otherwise, those would have to be finished by card or bought as whole units.

There was one really nice sketch card that came out of the case I saw. It was a highly detailed Madame Vastra by Westley Smith. Not one of the main characters, but quite hard to get right because of the green textured face. Smith looks very talented. At 1:576 I think sketches would fall one in every two cases.

The case topper was a metal card. I don't think there are any other metal cards or printing plates in the regular boxes.

The other thing about the boxes we broke is that all 4 of the Gillan seeded cards were in the same case, including the Darvill dual. Each was the main card in a different box, but they were all in the same case, with 3 of the box numbers in order. The two Doctors found were McGann and Eccleston. The remaining big hits were a Coleman, a Tate and two different from Kingston. All the better cards were in separate boxes and the other 5 signatures were small fry except for a box that also had a scarce Brady.

So it may be that autographs from the same better signer were seeded as a group and certain cases will have an abundance of someone. I'm only guessing, I don't know if the case I saw was typical and we missed opening two boxes. Good hunting.

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

Having read the comments on here concerning the quality of the top autographs i went off to see for myself.

OMG!!!

I could not believe what i was looking at, virtually all the cards that are classed as the top money making autographs are absolute rubbish, just to be clear i am not talking about the cards but the autographs. If i pulled one of these i would not be celebrating i would be devastated.

Are the card companies not in a position to say these are totally unacceptable and we are not paying for them or do they have to pay up front and just accept what they get back?

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Are the card companies not in a position to say these are totally unacceptable and we are not paying for them or do they have to pay up front and just accept what they get back?

I think the answer to that is YES. They get down on their hands and knees to thank the star signers for sending back any garbage at all.

But whose fault is that when buyers are willing to pay hundreds and even thousands for a line with a squiggle that could be faked by anybody? Autographs are problematic on so many levels. Don't bid up garbage, not even authentic garbage, and see if the standards improve.

People I know well have told me that my autograph card collecting is just a stupid waste. I ignore them, but I don't necessarily disagree with them.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Are the card companies not in a position to say these are totally unacceptable and we are not paying for them or do they have to pay up front and just accept what they get back?

I think the answer to that is YES. They get down on their hands and knees to thank the star signers for sending back any garbage at all.

But whose fault is that when buyers are willing to pay hundreds and even thousands for a line with a squiggle that could be faked by anybody? Autographs are problematic on so many levels. Don't bid up garbage, not even authentic garbage, and see if the standards improve.

People I know well have told me that my autograph card collecting is just a stupid waste. I ignore them, but I don't necessarily disagree with them.

I understand when it's an older signer and perhaps their penmanship/eyesight isn't as efficient, or it's known at the time they had an injury/illness(when my MS plays up in a certain way I sometimes can't hold a pen very well), but the funny thing is the older actors generally have the better signatures. There's no excuse for the healthy 50 and unders.
I understand signature variety...my fascination with handwriting got me into autographs as a kid, but a lot of these cards just scream laziness.
I think there was once a discussion on here before, where lots of us admitted to trying out the signature we would use if we got famous. I bet ours would all look much better than a lot of these.

quote:

Originally posted by Jessica:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:


I'll never understand why so many celebrities seem to take so little pride in what is their own name.

I agree! I hate celebrity signatures nowadays. The only thing I can think is that they get lazy or don't have enough time so they shorten them (I know that I do at work when I have to sign or initial a lot of things, my sig is TERRIBLE and unreadable). Or they have a "celebrity" signature vs their "real" signature to keep identity theft at bay? (But that is probably my weird reasoning happening.)

I think Jared Leto is the worst I've ever seen. Ugh. It is basically a "cross" or "x" depending on how you look at it. And I think the private signings were asking like $300 for it! But don't quote me on that price, I didn't order so I don't remember completely.

Worse than Sarah Paulson’s? MINE looks good next to her.