Buy/Sell/Trade Forum

I bought a set of Topps 1991 Baseball Cards in an antique store about five years ago (I know that this is not a good place to buy cards from, but I brought a 1991 Topps Lou Whitaker to compare them to and they checked out as real, but even if they were fake I would only be out $5 so not a big deal.) that were already in a binder with card protector sleeves in it, basically making it work the purchase because of the sleeves alone. 

I went through the binder to find that #300 Kirby Puckett was missing. Not a big deal, I only paid $5 for the lot. In place of it was the card you see above. It is a 1991-1992 Skybox Vinnie Johnson. I have the complete set of that year and I know that the cards are not autographed in a factory sealed box, so either this is an autographed card or a fake autograph on a real card.

Now, I have done some research on my own and this autograph looks legit, but I'm not an expert.

My two main questions are:

1. Does the autograph look legitamate/is legitamate,

and if so,

2. What would the value of the card be?

I know that it's in bad shape, I received it in that condition (I have kept it in a penny/hard toploader combo for 5 years), but I am interested in seeing what this card could bring. I haven't ever seen this autographed card anywhere for sale an to my knowledge, none have sold online nor have any been graded by PSA or Beckett. Could any of you help with this?

Compared with other Vinnie autos online (looking at the "V" and "J", seeing autos with and without #15), it seems to be legit

Assuming the auto is legit (and I don't know how many people out there would be faking Vinnie Johnson autos) then presumably it is an in person auto. In person autos tend to be worth less than pack-pulled autos of the same player, especially if the IP is not graded as "authentic" or with a certificate of authenticity (for whatever some of them are worth...) .

However, in this case from a quick glance amazingly it seems Johnson has never had an autograph card produced (and only 121 cards total which seems really low for a good player) so that may increase its value slightly.

In the below link you can see a Johnson IP auto that sold for $77. However, that does have a few things going for it that yours doesn't — it is graded authentic, the card is in much better condition and the original base card is a more desirable card.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265286278518?hash=item3dc44b5d76:g:oCAAAOSwPRlhKAfv

I do think your auto looks nicer though. When I first saw it I thought you might get a couple of bucks but given his lack of packed autos it could be higher — you might recoup the original $5! 

Personally I would keep it as it looks cool and has a bit of a story to it which is probably worth more than what it will sell for.

Thanks for the help DodgyDave.

I knew that some of Vinnie's rookie autos (Graded) went for around $200-$250 and autos from the year before went from around $50, but I couldn't find anything like it from that year.

I am not rather new to this hobby, as I have been collecting for upwards of ten years now, but I am not that old though so I still don't know much about the differences in pricing between very similar cards other than Better shape = More Money. I guess I still have much to learn in terms of determining a crad's price.

I definitely won't be selling the auto, though. I mainly bought the lot (Back in 2013, where I was rather new to the hobby) because I didn't have that particular set. This was just a welcome surprise when I found it in the lot. As a result, and where I got it from, this item hold a lot of sentimental value to me (On top of me being a Michigan Sports fan as I was born and raised there).

I guess that now it's going back up on the shelf with the rest of the collection, but I think I'm going to but it in a screw-down case instead.

Maybe, just based on sentimental value, I'll get the card graded. I won't expect higher than a 4 though, as there's a large crease in the top lefthand corner.

Thanks again for the help.