About six years ago I was contacted by an elderly woman with her mothers collection of autographs out of Boston, Mass. We couldn't come to terms and I soon realized no amount of money would obtain this collection. About a month ago, the grandson of the collector contacted me as his mother was in a nursing home in Boston and his grandmother who obtained the collection had passed away 36 years earlier. I've seen some massive collections in my 30 year career but those collections are dwarfed by this one. And the best part about it is it hasn't been cherry picked or any parts missing.
The collection is massive. There are tens of thousands of items including three Marilyn Monroe signed photographs, over a dozen Natalie Wood, dozens of Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Vivien Leigh, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, Carol Lombard, multiple Steve McQueen, Charlie Chaplin, over fifty Robert Taylor autographs, A couple dozen of Shirley Temple, Grace Kelly, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, several of Humphrey Bogart, over a dozen Clara Bow, Mae West, Fred Astaire, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman and thousands of character actors. Many on original George Hurrell vintage photographs.
This collection is so large I am sending large consignments of material to the larger auction houses to assist in spreading out this vintage material from the golden age of Hollywood. But the best part about this collection is the historical content which I will purchase later. He gave me for free a taste of that when he included a beautiful John F. Kennedy signed 8x10 portrait which we will feature shortly in our auction. He's asking $1,000,000.00 for that part of the collection and it's probably worth it. Selling this Hollywood part will assist me in buying the historical part of the collection.
So watch www.toddmuellerautographs.com where Todd Mueller Autographs will be selling parts of what we don't consign to other large auction houses over the next 14 weeks. These once in a lifetime collections are what make this hobby exciting and fun!
Originally posted to Autograph Planet on August 18, 2014.