I think @pfm made a great point about the grailification of cards in the hobby.
Going one step further - do you think that the hype surrounding autographs is a fad? Will it die out and become niche, or will it continue to grow? The aggressive ‘marketization’ of Pokemon autos in 2022/2023 makes me less enthusiastic about it, even though I see great value in attending a signing event and meeting an artist.
As long as there is money to be made, reseller interest will never leave. So my question is more so targeted toward collector interest. In five years when there are thousands of Arita signed Charizards on eBay, will it still command a premium and be sought after by collectors? We already see a flood of Arita-signed cards on auction websites on a monthly basis - how long until it is no longer viewed as cool or a “grail”?
I suspect that for some artists who very rarely/never make auto appearances (e.g., Himeno, Sugimori, Nishida, sowsow, etc.), their signatures will always demand a premium and will be sought after, so perhaps this question is only relevant to Arita, Fukuda, Saitou, etc. right now.
They might have a fad element but autographs are here to stay. They are in every other major collectible market. I do agree that the culture and structure matures.
It’s not going away. While Arita signs more than any of them, I don’t ever see those getting tired to see him. Since you asked for the collector perspective; if I know Arita did a whole line of Eeveelutions, and I can only get one at an event done, I would continue to chase to get the set done and then start another one goal. He’s done so many cards, that I know I’m not the only one that would do this bearing time and money. There are so many of variations of sketches you can get, it’s fun to imagine. In other words, Arita could come to a nearby event, and I’d go each time.
Its here to stay since autographs have been a thing in Pokémon since the early days.
You used to have collector’s debate if autos were considered damaged cards and if it ruined the value, Now we’ve seen a first place pika signed.
I believe there was a lot of hype when regional signings were a thing but since access to get autographs have become harder to participate in, the hype has died down quite a lot compared to one year ago.
Now the culture behind going to events just for reselling the signed cards, I hope that changes within time but it’s doubtful since signings are still rare in general and not everyone has easy access to go to these events considering it’s very expensive or too far.
Here to stay. Collectors want autographs in every other major collectible hobby. Although there may be a growing supply, I don’t see how supply would outstrip demand for one of the most famous artists.
Obviously right now the auto interest is incredibly high, and you can’t ignore the prices many autos have and continue to command on the secondary market. Flippers are taking notice and that is a driver of a lot of signing event traffic. However, genuine collector interest is a precursor to high secondary market prices–there are just way too many people interested in artist autographs compared to the availability.
I don’t think you get 300+ people waiting in line for 14-18 hours overnight, outside, just because they want to make some money off a Himeno auto. Even for the less “rare” autos, the line-ups are always huge and demand is almost never met fully.
Even when we consider the relatively high “availability” of signers like Arita, chances are they will not sign within an easily accessible distance of 95% of the population of collectors. As others have pointed out, traveling for these events is expensive, and that’s before you pay to have the cards signed. I don’t think current signing demand will be exhausted, even for common signers, for a long time.
Lastly, I want to draw a distinction between buying an autograph on the secondary market and getting one yourself. I think many collectors would strongly prefer to get a card autographed themselves, one that they picked and designed for their own interests. Not only do you get your handpicked card autographed, but you get to meet and chat with the artist who created it. I know that was the main driver of me attending signing events. If for some reason the auto market collapses and Aritas become worthless, I guarantee you will still have major demand at signing events just for this.
My thoughts exactly my autographed cards all have a story to them, Heck I had a friend pick out a shadowless Pika in 2022 that he had signed for me as a gift for my older brother who doesn’t even collect cards (but likes Pikachu) and that’s now his prized possesion. However if these cards didn’t have that story, I wouldn’t bother, as much as I geek out over other artists like Saitou’s autos, I refuse to buy them.
no-memes, i think they fall in a similar boat as grading in general does when it comes to adding to the card… For most cards, a signature increases the value which is great for flippers. For collectors, it adds a prestige to their card. So long as they add something of value, they will continue to be an acceptable additional investment in time to attend the signing event and/or the price on a listing.
Arita signed for decades at 20.00 to 30.00 bucks each. He said in Paris that flippers started marking them way up so he raised his prices way up. Now he says half the ones he sees are forged even with sketches and Japanese writing. He said the graded/authenticated ones are even worse.
The collectors almost always lose.
It’s not even remotely close to 50%. Most of the forged ones are ungraded. I would say closer to 95%+ of the graded Aritas I would classify as legitimate. There’s also a sampling bias since 100% of forged ones will be listed (because that’s the purpose) and the majority of real ones probably just sit in collections.
It used to be a worse problem. It’s probably a bigger issue for Sugimori due to the difference in value and limited number of genuine copies.
If Arita says it’s half/worse than half I’m inclined to agree with him who better to know their own signature and drawing style than the person who spends all their time signing and drawing. He’s seen every legit one no one else has only him. Easily the best expert in the field of arita is arita himself.
Arita could be referring to raw autos. There are many more in Japan than a few years ago. Then again there were basically zero raw autos a few years ago.
You also have to trust that Arita visits ebay frequently/ has a better understanding of the market than the collectors do, was talking about graded cards, was not exaggerating, was translated properly to literally mean 50%, that Gary accurately remember the statistic and did not simply exaggerate here.
Or you can learn to discern real from fake autographs and scroll through ebay yourself to see how many are real or not.
I knew what you would say to me about this. We are both smart people so let’s stop all this wastefulness of pulling things apart because everything can be and let’s do some bloody amazing stuff instead with powers combined.
Going back to the question, I feel that autos are not a fad and are definitely here to stay.
The scalpers unfortunately will always be around regardless. I know artists have tried to fight that by raising prices of their autos, but I feel by doing that, it hurts those who cannot afford to shell out a couple hundred dollars and may most likely result in scalpers raising their price a couple hundred to make up for the difference.
It was nice to see the new step from Arita to make the common signature in English (no romanization or kanji names) and it had to match your license or ID. I feel that this is the easiest step an artist can do to help cut down on the scalpers as it would severely limit the pool of buyers who want to buy an autograph addressed to someone else. I find it very hard to buy a card personalized to someone else and I am proud to say I haven’t bought any resale autos like that.
The reclusive artists will always be sought after and will fetch a premium but I feel that over time, the old no name plain autos may increase due to those buying resold autos.
The concern I have (and reason I don’t collect signatures anymore) is the requirement of personalization. They do that in part to combat the selling of signatures and I think it may do that increasingly over time. But not everyone is like me who won’t buy a signature unless it’s Unpersonalized. It could be rarest most beautiful signature of all time. Once I see that to: collector or to: Susie Q, it’s no longer cool. Unless of course it’s personalized to me and I went to get it myself. That will always stay I think.
