Anyone collect Historic Photos or Autographs?

H

Hyfi

Addicted Member
Trying to find out the best way to authenticate and value a very unique collection of pics associated with The 500 Club that was in Atlantic City NJ and was a front for illegal gambling, prostitution, and more.

My wife's uncle had a Beauty and Wig Salon down the strip from the 500 and was good friends with the owner, Paul D'Amato, who was also his Best Man in his wedding.

The signed pics we have are (5) of Jayne Mansfield getting a Wig worked on, one with husband Mickey Hargitay. Several pics of Diana Dors getting her hair done, 1 signed. Several other autographs and some pics of other celebs without signatures.

We also have a very rare picture, I have seen a single poorly scanned copy on line, of both Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra on stage at the 500 and signed by both. Oddly enough, when Dean signed his name, the pic must have been on top of one of the Jayne Mansfield pics as his signature without ink is embedded into the JM signed pic. I bet that is pretty rare to have both of those signatures together.

Much more to this collection that has been in a closet for the last 40 years and then in the trash. My wife's mother had thrown the whole collection out while preparing to move and thought they were of no value. Turns out this collection should be in the upwards of $10K or more when said and done.

Anyone collect or have experience getting this kind of stuff authenticated and valued?

Thanks,

Brian
 
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Hyfi said:
Trying to find out the best way to authenticate and value a very unique collection of pics associated with The 500 Club that was in Atlantic City NJ and was a front for illegal gambling, prostitution, and more.

My wife's uncle had a Beauty and Wig Salon down the strip from the 500 and was good friends with the owner, Paul D'Amato, who was also his Best Man in his wedding.

The signed pics we have are (5) of Jayne Mansfield getting a Wig worked on, one with husband Mickey Hargitay. Several pics of Diana Dors getting her hair done, 1 signed. Several other autographs and some pics of other celebs without signatures.

We also have a very rare picture, I have seen a single poorly scanned copy on line, of both Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra on stage at the 500 and signed by both. Oddly enough, when Dean signed his name, the pic must have been on top of one of the Jayne Mansfield pics as his signature without ink is embedded into the JM signed pic. I bet that is pretty rare to have both of those signatures together.

Much more to this collection that has been in a closet for the last 40 years and then in the trash. My wife's mother had thrown the whole collection out while preparing to move and thought they were of no value. Turns out this collection should be in the upwards of $10K or more when said and done.

Anyone collect or have experience getting this kind of stuff authenticated and valued?

Thanks,

Brian
Click to expand...

Hi Hyfi!

This is just a shot at help from a 'layman' on this, But:

  • You've started already, like, what leads you to believe that it 'Turns out this collection should be [worth] upwards of $10K or more when said and done'? That's gotta be one 'source-lead' [unless that was an assumption].
  • The Antiques Road Show 'experts' evaluate 'photo-collections' regularly; and I believe that those guys are 'contactable'.
  • When I found some 'Edwardian' photographs in the ceiling-space of one of my houses, I identified the department and appropriate profs. at the local university ['U of T', Toronto]; and arranged to take them round for review [pity I ran out of time, when I came back to the UK].
  • The photographs, shown here, come from many sources - I would work my way through them, if it was my project; and maybe I would get lucky.
  • Local History Societies [e.g. Atlantic City], are usually a very helpful mine of information. Also there may be an interested 'antiques person' located near to you.
Hopefully someone with some direct contacts will reply to you.

Good luck!

Cheers, og
 
Well, I have some historic photos and autographs, but most of them may be of rather minor interest for Americans.

Thomas Mann
Hermann Hesse
Ernst Jünger
Frank Zappa
Peter Falk
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Napoleon Murphy Brock
Dweezil Zappa
Jean Luc Ponty
Wolfgang Dauner...
 
oldgringo said:
Hi Hyfi!

This is just a shot at help from a 'layman' on this, But:

  • You've started already, like, what leads you to believe that it 'Turns out this collection should be [worth] upwards of $10K or more when said and done'? That's gotta be one 'source-lead' [unless that was an assumption].
  • The Antiques Road Show 'experts' evaluate 'photo-collections' regularly; and I believe that those guys are 'contactable'.
  • When I found some 'Edwardian' photographs in the ceiling-space of one of my houses, I identified the department and appropriate profs. at the local university ['U of T', Toronto]; and arranged to take them round for review [pity I ran out of time, when I came back to the UK].
  • The photographs, shown here, come from many sources - I would work my way through them, if it was my project; and maybe I would get lucky.
  • Local History Societies [e.g. Atlantic City], are usually a very helpful mine of information. Also there may be an interested 'antiques person' located near to you.
Hopefully someone with some direct contacts will reply to you.

Good luck!

Cheers, og
Click to expand...

Thanks Gringo!

I wrote this post hastily and should have noted what I tried so far.

The $10K number is just my low end guess of adding up what each signature alone would add up to and not the collection as a whole. I got the $500-$1000 each of JM from an online authenticator.

We are in contact with both the Atlantic County Historical Society, The Atlantic City Museum, and a prominent dealer / collector from The Princeton Book Exchange.

I am also now 1 email away from personal contact with Mariska, I reached out to her Foundation and they just forwarded me the email of Mariska's personal assistant. I am hoping she and hers siblings would be interested in the pics of their parents and some very little know history.

Antiques Road show is not coming my way anytime soon, and the several appraisers listed on their site I tried to contact either never responded or said Not for Me, with no suggestions.

I think at this point, we are on the right track. The Historical Society gave us the name of an Appraisal company less than an hour away and we will first call and ask questions and then after our visit to AC, we will get what we then feel we need done.

These are all 99.999% authentic and there would have been no reason for them to be fake since they were personal photos of my wife's uncle in his salon, doing up hair and wigs of these stars. Also the connection to the %00 and Skinny D'Amato is undeniable as we have the pick of him as best man in Uncles wedding as well as other pics of them together.

Thanks again for looking and the suggestions.

Brian
 
HarmanKardon said:
Well, I have some historic photos and autographs, but most of them may be of rather minor interest for Americans.

Thomas Mann
Hermann Hesse
Ernst Jünger
Frank Zappa
Peter Falk
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Napoleon Murphy Brock
Dweezil Zappa
Jean Luc Ponty
Wolfgang Dauner...
Click to expand...

That is one eclectic collection you have there and some pretty cool people

Zappa, Ponty, Hesse.....what a grouping!
 
Yes. I am very proud of the Zappa autograph which is actually no fake, Zappa connaisseurs say that about 98% of all Zappa autographs are fakes.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to

www.arfarf.de

again, although in German, you may enjoy the fantastic pictures of real and fake Zappa autographs!
 
We are headed to Atlantic City next week to meet with some collectors, the curator of the History Museum and the Archivist at the Heritage Collection of the library. Hopefully we will be able to fill in the missing pcs and a value.

In the mean time, I was able to contact Mariska Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield's daughter (Law and Order SVU) and arranged to send her copies of the pics of her parents.

She had already sent a personally signed L&A Promo pic before I got a chance to make and send the copies. I did that 2 weeks ago.

Last Thursday night around 8pm, we got a phone call from none other than Mariska Hargitay thanking us for the pics we sent. She talked to us for about 5 minutes and asked what we wanted in return. We only asked for a hand written note about the pics we sent which she said was no problem.

Very cool person for sure to take the time for a personal phone call and thanks.
 
I've had 'at minimum' a hundred rare & valuable autographed photos, well ... 1-1/4 inch thick worth ... but someone 'stole them all' from my dad's house when I was in the Navy.

My best autographed photo - a photo of the first 4 original Cosmonauts all standing together, signed by all four, was on a 5x7 black & white card, matt finish, B&W postcard-like photo, but it was a real photograph. It sells for $125,000+ now - and it was mine. It 'cost me the price of an international postage stamp' in 1963.

A lifetime robbery bummer for sure. Still bothers me greatly, to this day, when I think about it.

'Everything got stolen', the cops said it was a 'professional job', in & out, 45 minutes, including a Les Paul Black Beauty guitar, Fender Amps, a very serious stamp collection, complete coin collections, family movies - all visual memories gone, everything ... just gone. We were just a regular hard working 'blue-collar' family. A very heavy loss.
 
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I don't, but my sister-in-law has a postcard her father found in flat, he was clearing out in Chelsea Cloisters, in the late fifties, before he decorated it, after the former tenant died of old age.

The message, addressed to the former occupant, was mostly personal stuff, but the final sentence was,
"I've nearly finished my new play, I'm going to call it, Pygmalion."
 
Wow this is an old thread. I knew it sounded familiar. There is a thread on another site about this but it turned into an interesting adventure. I believe one of the guys pics is hanging in the Atlantic City Museum at the Boardwalk Hall currently.

Boardwalk Empire A real life connection

Originally Posted by Shadowfax One door closes while another one opens. We decided to call the old Lawyer on Friday knowing he had seen the newspaper
www.audioshark.org
 
I have several autographs from famous actors, a director, futurist illustrator. Here's a list of autographs have on a poster from
Blade Runner: Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Brion James, William Sanderson, Joanna Cassidy, Joe Turkel, Morgan Paull, M. Emmet Walsh Bryant, Hy Pyke, James Hong, Vangelis music composer, and Sid Mead futurist Illustrator.
From American Graffiti: Paul Le Mat "Milner"
From Star Trek: James Doohan "Scotty"
From The Shining: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Lisa- Louise Burns "creepy girls"
 
I have J. Edger Hoovers autograph in a book. And I collect June Drake Photographs he was a local photographer from the turn of the 20th century to the early 60's His photo were instrumental in the State of Oregon Buying the land that would grow into the largest State Park in Oregon Silverfalls State Park with 10 major waterfalls and a few minor ones all accessible on a 7 mile trail. I currently have 3 of his studio originals a Litho reproduction done back in the day and numerous Post cards he used to produce and sell. The Oregon historical society has his collection and holds the copyright on most of his work. And they be buttheads about sharing.
 
I didn't start out to. Going to auctions every Saturday for years I picked some up. First were pictures of Illinois politicians and a few of Regan campaigning. Quite a few of the Illinois politicians in the pictures spent time in jail. The best ones for me were from a Doctor and his family's trip to Europe and Britain from 1950 to around 58. They were Kodachrome slides. What a treasure trove. I copied them with one of those cheap slide copiers one at a time. For 50 bucks it did a amazingly good job.

These aren't close to being the best ones. Notice the bombed out buildings in the bottom picture.
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