Christy Mathewson
Signed until 1925, so the supply is fixed — nothing new is being added to this market.
Recorded sales
| Date | What sold | Certified | Price | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-02-27 | 2008 Upper Deck The First Class cut signature card with Cobb Mathewson Ruth Johnson and Wagner Multi-signed | BGS Gem Mint 9.5 Auto 8 | $90,000 | auction result |
| 2024-10-06 | 1924 Christy Mathewson signed cheque with a letter from Mrs Christy Mathewson | PSA/DNA Authentic Auto | $27,600 | auction result |
| 2020-05-09 | 1924 Christy Mathewson signed cheque | PSA/DNA Mint 9 | $19,800 | auction result |
| 2005-05-14 | 1924 Christy Mathewson signed cheque | $13,145 | auction result |
By certification level
These are 4 results this index has recorded from Heritage Auctions between 2005 and 2024, not every sale that happened. They under-represent inexpensive items, which sell constantly and are reported rarely, and they exclude private sales this index has no record of. Read them as documented evidence rather than as a complete market.
About this signature
- Status
- Signed until 1925supply is fixed
- Note
- Died at 45; his widow later sent out his signed cheques
- On this index
- 0 listedno sales recorded yet
What does a Christy Mathewson autograph cost?
The results recorded here for items he alone signed run from around thirteen thousand dollars to twenty-seven and a half thousand. That is a narrow band at a high level, which is what happens when a signature is scarce and the surviving examples are all of a similar kind. A fifth result on this page reached ninety thousand dollars, but it carries five signatures rather than one and is marked accordingly.
Why is almost everything of his a cheque?
This is the most interesting thing about his market and it is documented rather than inferred. Mathewson died of tuberculosis in 1925 at forty-five, having contracted it after being accidentally gassed during a training exercise in France in 1918. He had spent his last years at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks taking the fresh air cure, and the family moved into a house there late in 1924. After his death, according to PSA's reference on him, his wife would sometimes send out his signed cheques in response to people asking for an example of his autograph. One of the results recorded here comes with a letter from her. The cheques in circulation are substantially one household's chequebook, distributed by his widow.
Why is his signature so much scarcer than his contemporaries'?
Compare him with Honus Wagner, who signed steadily from before 1910 until 1955 and coached the Pirates for eighteen years after retiring. Mathewson last pitched in 1916 and died in 1925. He had no long retirement in a ballpark, no coaching career keeping him within reach of autograph seekers, and no decades of correspondence. Both men were in the first Hall of Fame class in 1936, but only one of them lived to be asked.
Signatures are reproduced more often than most buyers realise, by outright forgery and also by machines and assistants signing on somebody’s behalf. Every item on this page has been examined by PSA/DNA, JSA, Beckett, SGC or CGC, and this index carries nothing else. That is a deliberate restriction, and the investigation that created the modern authentication industry is worth reading, along with what a certificate actually claims.