Vin Scully’s first certified autograph in demand
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
One of the hotter baseball cards on the secondary market these days is one that’s in short supply and features a first-time signer who turns 85 years old today.
It’s the 2012 Panini Cooperstown Signatures card of Vin Scully, who has been the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers longer than many of you out there have been alive — for the last 64 years.
Despite a career with many memorable calls and countless Hall of Fame inductions, including Cooperstown honors in 1982 (video below), there was one thing that Scully had never done before Panini America‘s Hall-focused product — sign an autograph for a card company. Because of that, demand for the 100 cards in the product has been Cooperstown-worthy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPuIOY1TDhg[/youtube]
The highest-price paid for one of the cards so far was $410 earlier this week, while all other living Hall of Fame players’ autographs in the product — a loaded lineup that includes Nolan Ryan, Yogi Berra, Rickey Henderson and countless others — haven’t come close. Before that sale, one went for $300 Buy It Now and before that one for a bargain of $140. Two more cards are presently on the block and appear primed to potentially surpass those.
Scully has appeared on a handful of cards though the years (click here for a checklist or Online Price Guide), including a pair of cut autograph cards, but this one might be a card that could be in-demand by baseball fans in the future, though one might expect to find a limited number of Scully autographs in upcoming Panini baseball products.
One of them confirmed by Panini America on Thursday will be 2012 Prime Cuts, which arrives this week. There, he signed just 49 cards in the Significant Signatures set.
Scully appears on one other card in Cooperstown, a Voices of Summer insert that highlights some of the most-notable broadcasters in baseball history. That card, for those of us who can’t land the autograph, can be found for just a couple bucks.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
As Panini releases more of his autographs the prices should drop. Hopefully he only did on card autographs and didn’t sign thousands of stickers for future products.
David: He isn’t going to be signing thousands of stickers. The grand total is 149 for now between two products.
I sold the one for $300, it’s funny how it worked for this card. I had it up for 2 weeks when it first got pulled with offers barely breaking $200, it took almost a month for the frenzy to kick in and it sold immediately. Maybe the BIN should have been higher :)