A photographer sued Nike, and a card became unsignable

I like this story because the cause is documented and almost nobody repeats it correctly. The refusal gets written up as a quirk, or as Bo being difficult. It is neither. It is the downstream consequence of a lawsuit over a photograph he did not own.

The card

1990 Score #697. Black and white, Bo in shoulder pads with a baseball bat across them, shot for the Nike campaign that made him a household name in two sports at once.

It is on every list of the most iconic cards ever printed. It is also a common card from a mass-produced set in the middle of the junk wax era, which is the tension that makes it interesting: enormous cultural weight, no scarcity at all, unless it is signed.

What happened

In 2013 the photographer who took that image, Richard Noble, sued Nike over its use in the Bo Knows campaign, arguing the picture had been used commercially beyond what was agreed.

Jackson was not a party to it. But after the case, every signing he does carries the same disclosure, in the same words, and if you have bought from a promoter you have seen it:

Bo Jackson will not sign the "Bat and Shoulder Pads" photo of any kind.

Not the card. Not the photograph. Not a reprint. Any kind.

What that does to the numbers

Here is the comparison that makes the point better than any adjective, and it is like-for-like in a way these comparisons almost never are.

Same year. Same set. Same manufacturer. Same print run. Both men are alive and both sign.

Bo Jackson 1990 Score #697: 25 certified autographed copies at PSA. Frank Thomas 1990 Score: 414.

Sixteen and a half times as many, for a card nobody would call more iconic. The only meaningful difference between those two numbers is that one man signs his and the other does not.

He signs almost everything else

This is the part that separates Jackson from a genuinely reclusive signer.

Bo signs a great deal. He appears in modern Topps products with on-card autographs, does dual signings, turns up at shows. If you want a signed Bo Jackson item you will not struggle and you will not pay a fortune.

You simply cannot have that one picture, and the collectors who follow this closely maintain lists of his other restrictions too: Heisman items, Tampa Bay Buccaneers items, Auburn pieces already signed by certain other players. The bat and shoulder pads is the famous one because the card is famous.

He is not alone, and the reasons rhyme

There is a whole documented subculture around this, and once you read a few cases the pattern is obvious. It is rarely temperament. It is usually money or rights.

Peter Ing will not sign his 1990-91 Score card because he says he was never compensated for it. Tim Hunter refused a Fleer card from 2003 to 2018 over the same complaint, then signed one. Brent Ashton signs the cards showing him with an A on his sweater only for family. Arturs Irbe, who left the Soviet system to play in the NHL, will not sign his rookie card from the 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Central Red Army set, and you do not need it explained.

Every one of those is a person declining to endorse a specific object for a specific reason. Filed under "won't sign", they look like eccentricity. Read individually, they are almost all grievances about consent or payment.

What it means if you are buying

Three things worth holding onto.

A refusal is a permanent supply cap, and a living signer can lift it. Twenty-five is the number today. If Jackson changes his mind, or a rights position lapses, it stops being twenty-five. That is a different risk from a dead signer's fixed supply, and the two get priced as though they were the same.

Scarcity of one item is not scarcity of the man. Bo Jackson autographs are common. Bo Jackson autographs on that photograph are not. If you are paying a premium, be clear which one you are buying.

And check what was actually signed. Where a restriction is this well known and this specific, it is exactly the sort of thing a forger works around and a hopeful seller describes loosely. Look the certification number up on the authenticator's own database and confirm that what comes back describes the object in front of you.

The part I find genuinely interesting

A photographer objected to how his picture was used by a shoe company. More than a decade later, the effect of that objection is a population report with 25 in it.

Nothing about the card changed. The cardboard is identical to the millions printed in 1990. What changed was one man's willingness to put his name on it, and that turns out to be most of what a signed collectible is.

This index tracks certified autographs by signer, item type, certifier and grade, and shows what is listed and what has verifiably sold. You can read how we work the numbers out.

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