So as for the readers of my Blog you all know that I collect Boston Bruins autographs and I am within striking distance of completing the entire collection. I have studied the players I still need on my Want list, and I will add footnotes next to those. Those players would be the Ultra Rare autographs that may just not exist or only a few may be known. So, what is the difference between A Autograph or An Autograph and the answer is really they are the same but in my mind they are different.
A autograph as I perceive A Autograph to be is one that is not that difficult to locate but An Autograph would be one that is Very Difficult to locate. For those autographs that are Ultra Rare they would imply to a player who was not popular or very well-known thus there just may not be An Autograph for that player.
Let's start with a few autographs that are tougher. We start with this beautiful autograph of Barry Ashbee.
As you can see this is a very nice autograph that on a scale of one to ten would possibly get a 9 or a 10 even as it is dark and I like that it is in blue ball point pen. So Ashbee's autograph would be labeled An autograph and that is because Barry Ashbee passed away so young and of his autographs that are out and about there probably is less than 50 and that is just my guess but I have not seen many and the ones I have seen are in private collections. I was quite thrilled to of added this beauty to my bruins Autograph collection. Barry played just 14 games for the Bruins during the 1965-66 season as he had a back injury. He was 26 years old and came back to play in the NHL during the 1970-71 season with the Philadelphia Flyers. His last season in the NHL was 1973-74 season as Barry sustained a serious eye injury that did damage his retina and ended his playing career.
Barry Ashbee passed away May 12, 1977 at the age of 37. Barry was a great player and I hear people saying that his stats don't show that I reply you had to know about his game and how he was as a teammate. He did get his name etched on the Stanley Cup as the Flyers won the cup that season and Barry appeared in 6 games registering no points but was a +5. That is the one thing that I was pleased to see and that was Barry got his name on that Cup.
The next player is that of Skip Teal, Skip played just one NHL game with the Boston Bruins during the 1951-52 season.
This autograph of Teal also falls under as An Autograph and this is because of the limited games he played in the NHL, and this is what constitutes the rarity of an autograph based on the demand which is low. I would say that there may be around 30+ autographs of Skip Teal out there again just my guess based on what I have seen over the years. This autograph is in Blue ball point and just a bit on the light side but he has a nice-looking autograph with nice form, and you can see it was signed in a quick hand as the flow indicates that. Skip Teal passed away July 8, 2006 at the age of 72.
The next player to discuss is Bobby Bauer and most Bruins Fans who have followed the bruins his name is quite common.
This autograph is another beauty as it is quite dark and looks to be signed with a fountain pen. I would grade this an 8 out of ten. If you look at it closely you can see the black vertical box and that is a hockey stick blade as this autograph came from a Boston Bruins team photo. Upon further review I checked to see if the ink had smeared as it looks in the scan, but it is something on the photo to make it appear that way. There is some chipping as you can see but luckily it does not interfere with the autograph. Bauer's autograph is definitely An Autograph and that is because he like Ashbee died quite young at the age of 49. The difficulty of Bauer's autograph would be because of his passing and the fact that he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1996. It is too difficult to even try and guess as to how many Bauer autographs exist. I have seen four others so including my copy I have seen only five but I am sure more exist.
This autograph is that of Eddie Shore and it is taken from the very same photo as the Bauer autograph and looks to be signed in the same fountain pen. As you can see there is the chipping and another black stick blade but overall, I would grade it a 5out of 10. I have always loved hoe Eddie made the letter "E" in his first name and his autograph is pretty much identical and I will show another Shore auto for comparison.
As you can see in this photo the letter "E" does look a bit different but with all of the Shore Auto's I have seen I will say that his last name looks to be identical most times. I have seen plenty of Shore autographs so his autograph I would call A Autograph. There are quite a few out there as a majority I have seen are cut autographs from checks he signed. To be honest I would rather not have one from a check as the ones I have seen are mostly from a yellow check. His autograph is what I would call Semi tough, but I would say that the three other auto's I have discussed are tougher to locate and that is the difference between An Autograph and A Autograph.
No comments:
Post a Comment