Collectors Items - Autograph Hunters

Autograph hunters are known to lurk in places which will secure them a signature, such as at stage doors of productions or near film sets. It is a real bonus for autograph hunters when a big screen name performs in a play for this reason as security is always less heavy in a theatre than near a film set. Studio sets are not the best places to look for stars' signatures because they are on private land someone someone who is celebrity-spotting will have more joy looking for somewhere that a series may be filming on location. Location work is fairly unregulated and it is common for fans of the television programme or film in question to actually disrupt filming. Normally lead actors and actresses filming on location will oblige with people to some extent and to take Doctor Who as a case in point, the cast and crew were generally friendly to autograph hunters, despite negative press suggesting that fans were turning up in full costume and casuing severe disruption to the progress of the series.

Autographs for sale can range in price massive and to some extent the internet has devalued some autographs due to their availablility. Johnny Depp's autograph on ebay will cost you £25 whereas Silvery Stallone is only worth £10. At the other end of the specrum are the really collectable items because an actor is no longer around to provide new signatures and therefore the market is less flooded. On ebay at the time of writing a Laural and Hardy signed photo would set you back £400 and the Beatles autographs would set you back £2,500. Many big stars around at the moment are available on paper with starting bids at 1p... and no bids so far. This just goes to show that autograph-selling can be extremely lucrative and also very pointless, depending on the person. For me, nothing beats getting an autograph from the person themselves and is equally comparable to a photograph but as I said elsewhere I am no collector myself.

There is a joke I always like in Futurama where Leela is signing an autograph and is asked to make it out to "ebay". It is often the case that the true, rare autographs are marked with someone elses name because they were genuinely written with a dedication, rather than dashed off generically.

It is always worth checking out ebay for autographs and they do make great presents!