Editor's Note: On Saturday, a Walt Disney 1/1 autographed card sold for $15,860 at Goldin Auctions. Cllct's Darren Rovell spoke to the collector who sold the original Disney autograph, which was cut and placed in the card, and below is the seller's reaction in his own words.
It caught me off guard a bit because I sold the autograph that made up the value in that card for $4,000 just three years ago.
When I first bought the signature it was kind of crudely cut, so I took it out of the frame and evened it out. I then sold it to someone else, who seems to have sold it to Topps.
"There’s NO redeeming quality of this card.” ????@darrenrovell says there are WAY better Walt Disney autographs than the Topps 1/1 that sold for $15K on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/B1qKdsPmtR
— cllct (@cllctMedia) March 3, 2025
The price of the card is jarring because the beginning and end of the autograph is cut off to fit on the card's design. I think most of the time people assume it's because the card company got it for cheap, and there's some stain that compromises the signature.
Well, since I had it, I know it's a completely perfect signature.
As someone who deals with buying and selling autographs, I used to get really mad when I saw cut autos, cut up even more, to fit into cards. And then to see that they sold for so much more because it was on a card.
But I stopped caring about five years ago when I realized the person buying this is not the same buyer as the person who would buy the Walt Disney cut auto.
This person cares that it's on a card and it says "one of one."
I bet this person didn't even research what a Walt Disney cut goes for because they just aren't interested in ever having that.
I would say I was surprised this card was issued in 2024 because Topps has done a much better job at the way they deal with cut autographs on cards. I know a lot of people in the business who sell these kinds of autos to Topps, and I know they've gotten more strict on what they are willing to take and how they frame it on the card because they've gotten a lot of flack on social media for these types of cards.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.