2020-S Silver Eagle autographed by Hall of Fame baseball player

Recently I bid on a first day issue 2020-S Silver Eagle bullion coin, MS-70, autographed by Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst from Sirius online auctions. The PCGS registry checked out for a grade of MS-70. After receiving the coin, I researched Red Schoendienst’s career. Much to my surprise, he died on June 6, 2018. This means his “autograph” was either a copy or Red signed on a tape at least 18 months before the coin was issued. Perhaps I was naive to believe that the coin was personally autographed by the former player prior to being encapsulated by PCGS, but one would think that prior to certifying that the collectible was authentic, someone would have checked to find out if the player/manager was still living.

 

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On "signed" slabbed coins some signatures are real signatures, some are autopenned or facsimilles. The TPG is usually authenticating the coin, not the signature. That is part of the label deal and the responsibility of the submitter.

 

I am also a sports memorabilia collector and one of the most common things seen today with autographed trading cards is sticker autos. The player signs sheet after sheet of stickers which can then be applied to cards in the future. It wouldn't at all surprise me if PCGS is doing the same thing.

 

Yep. The largest majority of the "autographed" slabs are a sales gimmick, IMHO.

 

Post a picture, I haven't seen any autopen ones from PCGS before though NGC does use them a lot. It is certainly possible he signed it then and the submitter just hadn't used the sheet of labels yet

 

Not a sticker exactly but yea they sign x number of labels to be used at a later date or whenever. They can have exclusives with certain submitters where they can only be used on their submissions as well

 

That makes sense too. Have them sign a large pile of blank labels and then they can print whatever they want on them and use them later.

 

If he does actually have an autopen one or whatever you want to call it, that would be the first I've even seen or heard of PCGS not using a handsigned signature. I know NGC does them and the Daniel Carr ANACS ones aren't hand signed anymore but I hadn't seen any of those for PCGS previous

 

I have no clue. I don't own any novelty slabbed coins. I just know what they do with sports memorabilia and I can see it applied here. PCGS could easily have had him sign 100s of blank tags in 2017 and they are still printing coin details on them and inserting them into slabs.

 

I don’t know what the deal for this one is but I know for sure for the hand signed ones they all send people a sheet of labels or they do the sheets at an event or whatever. They can’t be standing over the slabbing machines signing as they go lol.

 

Oh, I know. But my question is this...are they blank sheets or are they already filled out?

My guess is they are blank sheets. PCGS then later runs the already signed sheets through a printer and adds the relavent coin information. This is how a 2020-S ASE slab can be signed by someone who died in 2018. Because he signed the blank tab years earlier and it was later printed and put in the slab.

 

I never got got into the special labels on slabs. I know I've seen slabs being with X signature on them but, didn't realize how it was done. So a guy would sit and sign a bunch of stickers or labels to be used in the future. That make them even more meaningless than before. Was this hall of fame player an actual coin collector? If not then why is his name being put on a slab? What's even worse is that he died 18 months before the coins were made.

 

I think the goal here is to tie these very "American" coins to other aspects of Americana. What's more American than baseball or ASEs...baseball AND ASEs.

I don't think it's any deeper than that.

 

There are two documents you definitely do not have to autograph, Your birth certificate and of course, your death certificate...

 

Agreed, the whole MS70 on bullion coins is a gimmick itself. It's a bullion coin and it will never be anything more than an ounce of silver, it's like putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig!! Some collectors buy them but I don't know anyone personally and I don't buy them myself at all.

 

Both to an extent. Some of them could have a prefabricated design likespecial dealer label designs, but blank in terms of grading which I guess would qualify as blank overall with a different background.

 

False, it’s a coin that gets graded like any other coin. It’s irrelevant if there’s no premium otherwise. Your circulating quarter has no premium but can be worth more in the right grades that doesn’t just make it “just a quarter that will never be worth more than a quarter”

 

I don't know if I believe the MS70 thing is a gimmick. If you look closely at an MS69 vs a 70 you can spot minor differences. Now, I wouldn't pay the premium that some do...but I do think there is some collectability there. It's just not my thing.

 

Unfortunately many in this hobby just call anything they don't like a gimmick. There's obviously a numismatic value added. People dont have to care for something, but it just gets dumb when everyone is just calling everything gimmicks and saying clearly incorrect things about markets because they don't like it

 

I agree.