Roger Maris

What does a signed Roger Maris item cost?

The fifteen results recorded here, from Heritage and Goldin, run from about a hundred dollars for a cut signature to over fifty-five thousand for a bat, but most sit between a few hundred and a few thousand: photographs, a first day cover, his 1958 Topps rookie and his 1961 Topps card, single-signed baseballs and a jersey. He died in December 1985, just before autograph shows became an industry, so his supply closed earlier than most of his contemporaries'.

Why are the two dearest items a ticket stub and a bat?

Because both belong to the home run record rather than to him generally. A signed ticket stub from the game in which he hit his sixty-first home run in 1961 made $43,920, and a signed bat attributed to his sixtieth made $55,200. The bat carries a game-use grade, so much of its price is the bat itself rather than the signature. The stub has no such excuse: it is a scrap of paper whose entire value is the date printed on it and the name written across it. Nothing else on this page comes within a quarter of either.

Does the writing next to his name change the price?

When it is about 1961, yes. A baseball inscribed 61 Home Runs In A Year 1961 made $9,600, against $4,920 and $5,700 for two single-signed balls without it, roughly twice the price. A signed photograph of the sixty-first home run made $1,865 against $691 for an ordinary signed photograph, though those two sold eight years apart. Most inscriptions, a stranger's name especially, lower an autograph's value, which we set out in the piece on what the writing beside a name is worth. An inscription naming the achievement the buyer is paying for is the exception.