Site Forum

This is a great site, but I just can't take many of the 'AU' (autograph) cards/sets seriously.  Look at this set below ... these guys have been dead for decades!

https://www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/52336/2008-09-Upper-Deck-The-Cup---Legendary-Cuts

Amazingly, PSA has one of them, Syd Howe (below) ... gave it a 5 rating.  I'd love to see what this thing looks like, but I couldn't find a pic of it online.

https://www.psacard.com/pop/hockey-cards/2008/upper-deck-cup-legendary-cuts/87967

TCDB has the same kind of Upper Deck 'AU' set for 2007-08 ... and PSA has zilch for it.  The Beckett site has nothing for either set.

What does Legendary Cut mean?  Did Syd Howe (who died in 1976) sign an index card back the '40s, which was later embedded into a card in 2008?

Yes. Those are called Cut Signatures, and they have made a lot of them. They are legitimate autographs. The actual problem with them is that they've cut up some historical documents to make them. 

The only one I have in my collection is from an endorsement on a check. Many of them come from checks, but not all. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2008-09-The-Cup-Legendary-Cuts-Harry-Watson-LC-HW/233563481648?hash=item366177e630:g:wbMAAOSw2T9emx3T

Yes, they're all cut from something.  Checks, contracts, letters, forms, just about anything the person signed at sometime in their life.

There's even some where they cut up an older trading card and put it in. Terrible, because they cut off his head and basically it's just elbows to waist. 

Thanks for the answers.  It will continually get harder to find cancelled checks for such purposes, as online payments keep growing.  I rarely write checks and when I do they are not returned to me by my bank (I can look up the images online).

Valid point, between the loss of needing actual signatures, kids not learning cursive in school anymore and plenty of atheletes that are simply unable to write at all the autograpgh is much more a squiggle or a fancy anagram. Not like Fred Astair(?) or Babe Ruth and the like.

These are the worst when they use old cards. When the company uses a good clear document with a straight signature and they fit it to the window it can look good, but there have been some real doggie doo cut signatures.

This part of the hobby has never sat well with me.  The memorabilia, and cut signatures, swatches, or whatever they are called.  You have no proof that they actually came from the players featured on the card.  Except maybe the signatures.  If they are legitimate items from the player then, historical artifacts are being cut up and destroyed and made unavailable from the hobby forever.  Except for the tiny fragment glued onto the card.

I feel the same way. With modern stuff, that's no big deal, the players wear dozens of jerseys every year...but the vintage stuff?  No, that's not cool. And it's not just sports, there are also cut signatures of every US president and other historical people. 

I believe the NBA teams wear each jersey only once, so there are more than 80 of them available every year. Cutting up one of them is no big deal. How many artifacts that were signed by Abe Lincoln are out there? Probably more than we realize, but I'm still uneasy about destroying one forever.