How do you collect Autos? Any to avoid?

[TheAKK]

Do you just go by what looks good to you or do you consider possible appreciation? Is there certain kinds to avoid? I would like to start but was hoping for some insight from some veterans!

[crzy4phins]

Do you just go by what looks good to you or do you consider possible appreciation? Is there certain kinds to avoid? I would like to start but was hoping for some insight from some veterans!

A lot of collector's avoid sticker autos but with Panini taking over everything they are kind of hard to avoid if you want to collect a lot of certain players.

[kdnist]

I personally look for players that sign their full names (or close to it). Can't stand the little 2 letter autograph that takes up the space of a pencil eraser. Also, if it is a sticker, make sure the auto doesn't get cut off on any of the sides and that the sticker is put on the card straight. I will skip even a SSP if the sticker auto is one they should have thrown away or put on a large print run parallel. If the sticker auto is messed up, the card is worthless to me (for my own PC).

[TheAKK]

Thanks guys, agree about everything said, but looking at the players sometimes it seems to vary between whether they did the 2 letter sig or the whole one. They were both panini but 2 massively different sigs for the same player. Think they were both direct, not stickers.

[Corky]

Thanks guys, agree about everything said, but looking at the players sometimes it seems to vary between whether they did the 2 letter sig or the whole one. They were both panini but 2 massively different sigs for the same player. Think they were both direct, not stickers.

There have been many instances of people other than the athlete signing the cards and stickers. Just two weeks ago Panini announced that Takkarist McKinley had someone else sign his signature on the sticker autographs that were included on cards in packs of 2017 Panini Contenders Draft and 2017 Panini Elite Draft and this is just the most recent situation.

[TheAKK]

Thanks Corky, wow what a terrible looking sig his is too! Look like a 6 year olds. I guess that's another aspect, for instance I just don't like Ezekiel Elliot's EZE sig.

[kdnist]

Thanks Corky, wow what a terrible looking sig his is too! Look like a 6 year olds. I guess that's another aspect, for instance I just don't like Ezekiel Elliot's EZE sig.

His early signatures weren't bad. Unfortunately, Panini got him to sign a million times. At this point I think you can get Dak and Zeke rookies out of a cracker jack box.

[Jameis1of1]

If it's pro-licensed rather than Leaf or something you should be good but many collectors despise sticker autos or anything that wouldn't get a "10" grade.

[pwaldo]

I don't really mind sticker autographs or unlicensed cards but then again I really only collect HOF autographs so I'm not the typical football collector anyway

[Jameis1of1]

^ Yeah, I never minded non-licensed autos either ... I bought up almost every single Leaf 1/1 auto of Jameis their was but once I refocused my collection on the super high-end stuff I traded every single one of them for higher end stuff ... it worked out good though ... everyone was telling me Leaf didn't hold it's value which may be true most of the time but all I know is I basically got around 220% of what I paid on my Jameis' so I am still a fan of Leaf!