WEBVTT - What is an autograph worth?

0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff Works dot com, where

0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:15.640
<v Speaker 1>smart happens him Marshall Brain with today's question how much

0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.840
<v Speaker 1>is an autograph worth? And this question comes up because

0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.800
<v Speaker 1>there was a recent case where a person who had

0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.800
<v Speaker 1>received a personal letter from President Obama had sold that

0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.720
<v Speaker 1>letter to an autograph dealer and was able to sell

0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.800
<v Speaker 1>it for seven thousand dollars. So the story is she

0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.800
<v Speaker 1>had written to Obama, just a letter like people right

0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:40.519
<v Speaker 1>to the White House all the time, but this one

0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.760
<v Speaker 1>caught a staffer's attention and Obama had read it and

0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.320
<v Speaker 1>he had written back to her with a nice little

0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.839
<v Speaker 1>note on White House stationary and his signature. And it

0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.159
<v Speaker 1>turns out that this kind of thing is not common.

0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.600
<v Speaker 1>That is a very rare occurrence. So it's not often

0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.320
<v Speaker 1>that a person has a personal note from the president

0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.200
<v Speaker 1>with his signature on it from the White House. And

0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.000
<v Speaker 1>so she got into some financial straits and needed some cash,

0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.959
<v Speaker 1>so she went to a dealer and she sold this

0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.240
<v Speaker 1>note to the dealer for seven thousand dollars. And presumably

0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.400
<v Speaker 1>he'll go out onto the open market and he'll sell

0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.160
<v Speaker 1>it for more than seven thousand dollars. So we could

0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:23.480
<v Speaker 1>say that the handwritten signature of a sitting president with

0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.800
<v Speaker 1>a nice note on White House stationary is worth something

0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.640
<v Speaker 1>more than seven thousand dollars. So that brings up the

0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.639
<v Speaker 1>obvious question how much are the signatures of other living

0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.360
<v Speaker 1>people worth in comparison to that? And to get an

0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.080
<v Speaker 1>answer to that question, we can go over to a

0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.119
<v Speaker 1>website called Mademan dot com and it had an article

0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.200
<v Speaker 1>called the ten most valuable autographs of living people. And

0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.000
<v Speaker 1>if you look through that list, it lists Neil Armstrong

0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.360
<v Speaker 1>as the person with the most valuable signature at So

0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.720
<v Speaker 1>that means that Obama is setting a new record here.

0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.320
<v Speaker 1>But below that is people like Steve Jobs at five

0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.200
<v Speaker 1>thousand dollars, Tiger Woods at eight hundred dollars, Bob Dylan

0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:13.600
<v Speaker 1>at dollars, Paul McCartney, J K Rowling, Elizabeth Taylor, you know,

0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.560
<v Speaker 1>people like you've heard of. And this this tells you

0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 1>something about the value of autographs is that the person

0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.120
<v Speaker 1>usually has to be somebody who's widely known and uh,

0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.520
<v Speaker 1>you know, additionally needs to be someone who isn't spreading

0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.840
<v Speaker 1>their signature around everywhere. So for example, J. K. Rowling

0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.640
<v Speaker 1>doesn't really sign things anymore. You won't see her at

0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.880
<v Speaker 1>a book signing just giving her signature away a thousand

0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.600
<v Speaker 1>times a day, and that makes the signature more valuable.

0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.880
<v Speaker 1>But if you think about it, two thousand ish dollars

0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.920
<v Speaker 1>for Rowling signature isn't really that much money in the

0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.040
<v Speaker 1>grand scheme of things. If you want to go for

0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.480
<v Speaker 1>really big amounts of money, you have to look at

0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.840
<v Speaker 1>autographs of famous dead people. And at the top of

0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:01.160
<v Speaker 1>that list goes William Shakespeare, because there's only six known

0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.600
<v Speaker 1>copies of his signature anywhere in the world, and he's

0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.560
<v Speaker 1>an incredibly famous person. Just about everybody on the planet

0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.320
<v Speaker 1>has heard of Shakespeare, and you know, you could probably

0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:13.760
<v Speaker 1>find a wealthy English major who would pay a lot

0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.800
<v Speaker 1>for one of those signatures. Next on the list is

0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.880
<v Speaker 1>former President Lincoln. Stuff that he's signed is pushing up

0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.480
<v Speaker 1>toward a million dollars a pop. So how could you

0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.480
<v Speaker 1>use this knowledge to your advantage. Here's what you would

0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.520
<v Speaker 1>need to do. First of all, you would need to

0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.800
<v Speaker 1>not give out your signature, so get in the habit

0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.160
<v Speaker 1>of not doing that, so there's a very small number

0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.520
<v Speaker 1>of your signatures out in the world. Then sign a

0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.200
<v Speaker 1>couple of things, put them in a safe and leave

0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.080
<v Speaker 1>them for your great grandchildren to find at some point

0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:50.160
<v Speaker 1>in their lives, then become incredibly famous for some reason,

0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.120
<v Speaker 1>and then die. And then what's going to happen is

0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.760
<v Speaker 1>over the years, because you were incredibly famous and you

0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.520
<v Speaker 1>didn't sign very many things, those couple of signatures you

0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.600
<v Speaker 1>left for your great grand show ldren are going to

0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.080
<v Speaker 1>be incredibly valuable. Be sure to check out our new

0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.520
<v Speaker 1>video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Staff Work

0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.120
<v Speaker 1>staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.320
<v Speaker 1>of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.

0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:18.359
<v Speaker 1>Download it today on iTunes.