The Powers Sports Memorabilia Show is an educational podcast for sports memorabilia collectors and autograph enthusiasts.
Hosted by Matt Powers of Powers Sports Memorabilia, the show covers autograph collecting, sports cards, autograph signings, authentication, game-used memorabilia, collecting tips, memorabilia values, and the latest trends in the hobby.
Learn how to choose the best pens for autographs, understand PSA, JSA, Beckett and other authentication services, prepare items for autograph signings, evaluate signed memorabilia, collect sports cards, protect your collection, and avoid common mistakes.
Whether you're a new collector or have been collecting autographs and sports memorabilia for years, each episode is designed to help you become a more knowledgeable collector and make better decisions when building your collection.
New episodes cover football, baseball, basketball, hockey, sports cards, autographed jerseys, helmets, balls, photos, game-used memorabilia and more.
Visit our website below for upcoming autograph signings, authenticated sports memorabilia and more collecting resources.
Have you ever seen us post photos from an autograph signing and wondered how you completely missed it?
There may be a good reason—you were never able to see it in the first place.
In this episode of The Powers Sports Memorabilia Show, Matt explains why certain autograph signings have to stay private, why some athletes don't want their signing prices made public, and why autograph agents sometimes limit a signing to only a handful of trusted vendors.
We also discuss VIP autograph signings, the importance of relationships in the autograph business, and why we occasionally can't post a signing on our website, social media, or even email.
Plus, learn a few ways you can increase your chances of hearing about these harder-to-find autograph opportunities.
https://powerssportsmemorabilia.com/
SPEAKER_00
Welcome back to another episode of the Power Sports and Rebellion Show. I am your host, Matt Powers. Thank you again for joining me. Don't forget to visit the website, Powersports and Rebelia.com. Also give us a follow over there on Instagram at Powers Autographs. Well, have you ever been kind of perusing our social media and then you'll see a signing that'll get posted afterwards? Some highlights, and you're like, gosh, how'd I miss out on that signing? When did that one get announced? Well, a couple things. Yes, it's real easy to miss a signing. So you want to make sure you're you know following us obviously in the social channels, but also you're on the notifications on the website, and also you're on our email and text and all that kind of stuff, so that way you get notified when an athlete is going to sign. And also we have the athlete request form too, so you can get notified that way. Sometimes, however, there are what we call VIP signings. And these are signings that aren't posted on the website, can't find them on there. And there's a couple different reasons why we do that. And we don't do that to be, you know, difficult. You know, obviously, there are uh certain, you know, signings out there that we want to promote to everybody, and we want everybody to, you know, know about them and purchase as many autographs as possible. But sometimes we're asked not to do that. So there's a couple different reasons why. Uh, first off, we do have signings that are just for the the VIP club there. Uh, we like to make it kind of special for them too. So uh we do have signings that are just for them. Uh you've probably seen those links out there to the Powers Insider Club. And it's just more than signings there, too. You know, it's a great way for you to connect with other collectors, ask questions, get a whole bunch of information that's not out there on social. So it is actually a really fun little club there. So really cool questions that people ask about getting stuff signed. So there's more value to it than just knowing about other signings. Uh, there are really two other reasons why a signing won't get posted on social media or on the website. And first off, the main reason is limited access to the signings. So sometimes some of these signings are ones that are going to be super, super popular. And a lot of times these autography agents don't want to deal with the flood of questions from every possible vendor and dealer out there that is going to be asking questions, wanting to send items in, take part in the signing. It just becomes too much to handle. And so they'd only rather work with a handful of vendors who can come in, get their items signed, and move on there. So that way they don't have to deal with 50 vendors, they can just deal with two or three vendors or four or five vendors. So it makes the pool a little bit smaller, less billing out there to a bunch of different varieties of vendors. So imagine having to bill 50 vendors versus only having to bill five vendors. So it just makes it a little bit easier for the autograph agent to conduct the signing and um and and bill it at the end. So that's a real big reason why you'll see a lot of these things that are just not on the website. It's just we don't want everybody and their mother knowing about the signing and then getting flooded with thousands of requests and questions. So that's kind of another reason why. Uh second reason is believe it or not, this I've come across this on one well-known athlete before. Actually, two, I'm sorry, two well-known athletes. And one of them is, or well, both of them actually now, they just don't want their pricing out there for the public to see. And they have their reasons on on why they want to do that, but they don't want to see they want the public to know what they're getting paid for their autograph signings. So there's a couple other reasons that I can't get into on why they don't want that out there, but those are a couple different reasons why that you won't see the signing on the site. There is just the athletes just don't want the pricing out there, they don't want people to know that they're doing the signings, and they want to kind of keep it uh um private as possible. So, and they again they have a couple different reasons for doing that, but those are kind of like the two main reasons why is number one, they just don't want to have a bunch of people contacting and flooding the streets about you know involved in athlete XYZ. Second off, the athletes sometimes they do want the pricing to kind of remain uh private. And I've actually heard of a story where the at the agent didn't want the pricing getting out there because if they if the athlete had found out what they were charging for their autograph, that they would then request more money from that autograph agent. So that was another reason why that a signing didn't want to be out there in the public eye as far as the pricing out there, because they would find out about it and be like, wait a minute, you're charging this, you're only paying me this. I need more now, because obviously you're getting this, so I should be getting more. So that's another reason why that some signings are not listed on the actual uh website. So obviously we'd want to post them all on social as much as we can, but you know, out of respect to you know the autograph agent and also to the athlete and and the relationships that they built, you know, we're pretty much do whatever they ask us to do. Um and we've actually had other vendors that have said that, hey, listen, you can you can do this one, but we can't have it on social, we can't have it on email, you just have to call, text people, and we just don't want any electronic information out there because they were so concerned about the signing getting out. And it's nothing nefarious or anything like that, it's just the relationships that a lot of these companies have built with these athletes that they they want to keep those on the up and up and make it as easy as possible for the athlete and follow the athlete's rules on the weird rules they have sometimes and the weird relationships that they have sometimes too. So you got to keep that in mind as the athlete has relationships within this business also with other people and other dealers and other vendors. And sometimes it's just easier just to do the signing, have the product come out afterwards and be like, wait a minute, who did the signing? Where did it happen? You know, so that just makes it easier on everybody. So those are a couple different reasons why. Uh, if you want to get involved in the VIP signings, we do post those in our our groups that the uh that ones that we are allowed to. Um, and it's just an easy way for you to find out about those signings and also ask questions about you know pens and getting something signed and a whole bunch of other collector questions. So we do have all that stuff up there in the Powers Insider Club. So um it there aren't a ton of these signings that are kind of like this, but there's a good handful of ones that are, and the ones that are are usually like the bigger ones, the ones that are like, wow, I didn't know so-and-so was signing. How'd I miss that one? Well, that's how is because we just weren't allowed to post it for a litany of reasons there. So hopefully this helps them why maybe you don't see some signings pop up there. Again, we don't do it to like gatekeep everything, you know, and all that kind of stuff. We'd we would like to post it. Sometimes we kind of reserve ones for our VIP club because obviously they put you know effort and time and and money into being a part of that club, and we would like to reward them as well. So, but that's why you kind of miss out on some of those things. So make sure you join there, make sure you're sign up notifications on the website, fill out that athlete request form so that way you can kind of get notified when uh athletes are ready to sign. So, hopefully, it helps you out. Again, don't forget to visit the website powersportsmobility.com. Also give us a follow up there on Instagram at powers autographs, and I will see you on the next episode.
