Being an autograph collector: A sign of the times

The first autograph Gopaldas Agarwal ever collected was a scrawl by Kapil Dev. This  happened when the cricketer visited Agarwal’s school, the prestigious Scindia school in Gwalior, post the 1983 World Cup victory.

Agarwal, now 42, returned home to Kolkata in 1988. The following year he found a bunch of letters and testimonials signed by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and a few other founding fathers, in a cupboard. The letters were addressed to one of India’s oldest railway catering services that covered 400 stations and was started by Agarwal’s grandfather Ballabhdas in 1923.

Since that day, Agarwal has collected over 16,500 autographs, which include those of all Indian prime ministers, presidents and Dada Saheb Phalke awardees, 60-70 Nobel laureates, 28 American presidents, over 300 sports personalities and even the rare autographs of Fidel Castro, Picasso and Haji Mastan.

A hotelier by profession, Agarwal’s family still believes he’s behaving like a teenage fan boy,  writing letters to celebrities and standing in line to get their autographs.

However, Agarwal and the 599 other members of The Autograph Collector’s Club of India, which he started with fellow Kolkata-based collector Santosh Kumar Lahoti, know they’re sitting on gold.

“People may not get it yet, but the seriousness towards collecting autographs has gone up a lot in the past few years. In another 10 years, the market for autograph investors will boom in India. My collection will be worth crores, it probably already is in the international market,” says Agarwal. He isn’t wrong.

Not just a hobby
While in India autograph collection is still the domain of a select few hobbyists, internationally people collecting signed memorabilia is dominated by baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) and investors looking to diversify their portfolios and spread  their risk.

There are 3 million serious autograph collectors around the world right now and the number just keeps growing, says Daniel Wade, editor of Paul Fraser Collectibles’ news site, one of the most
reputed dealers in autographs and collectibles in the world.

UK-based Adrian Roose, 43, started collecting autographs in the 1990s when he didn’t have much of a disposable income. His first purchase was a Muhammad Ali signed Sports Illustrated magazine cover, which he probably bought because he couldn’t believe it could cost so little.

A few years later, he sold his first collection and took a holiday in Cuba. His second collection paid for the deposit of his first home. “I have friends who are in banking who used to shake their heads when I’d show them my latest purchase. They’re now calling me for  advice,” says Roose. His current collection that has less than 25 carefully chosen unique pieces is sure to fetch his around £125,000 if he decides to sell it tomorrow.

It’s economics, stupid
For Roose and the investors driving the market, the choice of investing in autographs depends on simple economics.

Just like the BSE Sensex compiles the share prices of representative stocks,there is an index that shows how the market for autographs is doing. “The PFC40 autograph index lists autograph values and details the 2000-2012 price performance of 40 of the most sought-after autographs, both celebrity and historical. The autograph values within the index are for genuine, fully authenticated items, of museum grade quality,” says Wade.

If you go by the index’s figures, the value of listed autographs have seen an average increase of 383.3% between 2000 and 2012. This works out to an average compound increase of 14.03% per annum between 2000 and 2012.

No wonder then that investors all over the world are looking to diversify their portfolios by collecting valuable autographs. “The collectors markets are driven by supply and demand. With ageing worldwide populations and growing economies, the demand is rising all the time but the supply of the rarest items is finite. To put it bluntly Marilyn Monroe won’t be signing any more autographs, so any increase in demand will result in higher prices,” says Roose.

India catching on
India is yet to jump on the bandwagon though. “Autograph investing in India is at the same stage as coin collection was 15 years ago and it’ll pick up slowly,” says Malcolm Todywalla of Todywalla Auctions.

Like Agarwal, Wade believes it’ll happen faster than we think. “Visitor numbers to www.paulfrasercollectibles.com are up 78.23% from India in 2013 (compared to same time last year). Interestingly, Indian visitors typically spend exactly twice the time viewing the site as the average visitor, so the indication is that Indians are developing a passion for world-class collectibles and trophy assets,” he says.

With India poised to catch up with this international trend, it’s probably just a matter of time before investors seek out Agarwal and the 599 odd serious collectors in India for the pile of gold they are sitting on.