Personalized or not personalized?

[indyreds]

I personally love when a player or celeb takes the time to place and inscription or personalization on my items. They make them better in my mind and I collect with the thoughts of the items I get having value to me not to others. I know some collectors do not like personalizations. I can see how having something signed to Damien or Ivan might be harder to sell than something without the personalization. I also just think that the fact a player took time to sign something to me is more cool in my collection. The fact that a Babe Ruth baseball personalized to Mike cost less than one without a personaliztion is great as long as your name is Mike! What are your thoughts on personaliztions? Do you request them when you get IPs or at signing events? Looking forward to your thoughts.

[Riggs]

I almost never ask for personalization on my autographs unless its someone very rare TTM. Might mention in my letter " If you could, please make this out to Rick " with the hopes that maybe that will put them over the edge to sign. It dont bother me either way but what does it when the secretary/handler writes out the personalization. Danica patrick comes to mind. Hard to believe she sits down & writes out all the personalizations on her TTM's.

[gladdyontherise]

I don't really care either way. Generally seems athletes (yes, the millionaire athletes) are worried you might sell the Autograph, so they personalize it (despite in most cases being fairly easy to take off).

[arfmax]

Of course this is just my opinion, but I don't like personalizations. I don't find that it adds more enjoyment to a signed item. Thinking about IP, if I wanted something personal from a signing, I would rather have a photo of me and the athlete. For TTM, I don't like seeing a TTM come back with a personalization, because it seems that the sole purpose of putting it on there is to thwart the potential sale of the item. I'm not saying that I ever planned to sell something, but putting a personalization on it without being asked seems to be the athlete's best defense against sale. I find that more and more of the NFL rookies are doing this, I feel like someone is telling them to do that at rookie orientation, or something, since it seems so prevalent.

[mrveggieman]

I love inscriptions such as HOF 1999, 2005 #1 overall draft pick, etc but I hate personalizations with a passion. I really don't see a purpose for them. I want the ballplayers name on the item I ask him/her to sign not my name on it. If a ballplayer is really concerned about someone reselling the sig simply don't sign it.

[cyberer]

inscriptions are a resounding yes; personalizations are a resounding no.

Maybe I'm just biased because people spell my name wrong half the time.

Even if you don't ever intend to sell, your stuff is worth more without it. Personally I like having a valuable collection that has some objective value to me as well as the rest of the world, so I like to maximize value.