Some Favorite Hi-End Cut Sigs

One of the relatively recent trends in the trading card world has been "cut signatures". I'm not sure which company started this madness or how long it has really been going on but basically what the card companies do is take an autograph of a sports (or entertainment) personality, cut it from it's original source be it a check, letter, autograph book or in some stupid cases an older trading card; and they encase it into, or paste it on a card. Many of these cards are also of very limited numbers. Some are 1/1 while others are serial numbered to something else sometimes the uniform number if a sports player.

When I first saw these types of things I hated them, and I still hate the idea of taking an older card cutting it and putting the signature on another card seems sort of stupid and redundant. Plus those signatures on a previous photo look really bad. I don't have any examples of cut sigs from a card in my collection to show so I'll have to borrow some examples from the internet.

Wow here is actually an example of a good cut sig from a card. If all of them were were like this Red Grange (probably from some sort of retro Hall of Fame card, or possibly a promo photo) I would have no problems.

 Photo from http://www.canadacardworldblog.com/2010/09/product-preview-2010-leaf-limited-football/

But alas most of the cut sigs from cards are terrible like this example from a Tucker Frederickson card from a 1969 Topps card #15.

 

Photo from http://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/cut-signatures-and-cardboard-irony/

I will do my best to avoid getting any of these terrible poorly cut ones like the Frederickson. I have been fortunate that so far I haven't gotten any bad ones but I have gotten some really good cut signature cards and all of them were from group box breaks. 

The following cards are part of my PC (Private Collection) and will most likely never be sold during my lifetime. The first two are 2007 Leaf Limited - Limited Cuts, The third one is a 2009 Limited - Limited Cuts. The Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch signature is from some sort of index card or autograph book, it might be from a black and white card or picture eek I don't know for sure. The Clark Shaughnessy autograph appears to be from a check as is obviously the Sammy Baugh auto. These are my three fave cut autos I've got. I think they are the only ones I've got right now, wait I might have a baseball signature lost in my collection that I haven't yet scanned.

 2007 Leaf Limited - Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch

2007 Leaf Limited - Clark Shaughnessy

2009 Limited - Sammy Baugh

1974 Fleer NFL Hall Of Fame

1974 Fleer Hall of Fame 

"The Immortal Roll" cards

 

In 1974 Fleer produced a Hall of Fame "The Immortal Roll" set of 50 NFL cards similar to the Baseball "Pioneers of Baseball" 28 card set. These cards were packaged I think 4 to a pack with a team logo sticker or cloth sticker. This set and the baseball one were my first "retro" cards of hard to find old-timers or Hall of Famers from any sport. At the time I was not really into reprints, still not, or retro cards, but these sets just reached out to me. I've liked them ever since. This set was so successful that in 1975 Fleer produced an 84 card set that is very similar and sometimes gets confused with this one. The main difference is the '75 set has brown borders instead of the white, and they are numbered. This '74 set is not numbered and often any numbers assigned are from their alphabetical ordered position. I think for the '75 set they just used the same photos, which adds to the confusion. The backs have a drawing of the Hall of Fame building in Canton, OH an a descriptive paragraph of the player featured.

 

Legendary Redskin Quarterback "Slingin' Sammy Baugh

No NFL Hall of Fame set could be complete without Legend Jim Thorpe

 Some Classic players from one of my fave teams The Los Angeles Rams

 I really dig the old leather helmets and the early metal ones.

 Check out the poses. 3 Point stand w/out helmet?

 Don't forget the "tough guy" and the "pretty boy". (OK I got a little carried away there.)

 

I only have the 17 different cards featured in this post a few of them I have duplicates. I plan on getting the rest of this set and the 1975 set.