My Doctor Who Autographs

[thehornets]

I am frequently asked how many Doctor Who autographs I have or how large is the collection, so thought a separate post would be useful, and a chance to ramble on a Friday morning in an effort to wake myself up. Coffee alone is not working this morning. 🙂

To start with, my site does have two pages for Doctor Who autographs, but I have never had the time to scan everything, or list everything, so the pages are incomplete. The Classic Doctor Who page is missing tons of entries, but here are direct links where you can see what is up there so far -

http://www.cyshp.co.uk/dwmain.htm

http://www.cyshp.co.uk/dwnewmain.htm

A lot of memorabilia I had from my youth was stolen when the lockup my dad used for storage while our house was being rebuilt in 1980 was broken into. I did not start collecting Doctor Who autographs again until 1999 when i met Colin Baker at a Collector's Show held at Watford Leisure Centre. One of the nicest people you could meet. I collected a lot after that.

Our house move sale in 2007 decimated our autograph collection, and as part of that, I sold over 500 custom 8x5 Doctor Who cards that had been autographed (at least one card for every Doctor Who story every broadcast - many cards for some), my autographed Doctor Who DVD collection (every release to that point), plus a few multi-signed items. I did keep all of my letters, record cards and photos that I had autographed by Doctor Who people, plus my treasured autograph book from 1978/1979.

The autograph book. This was autographed by several stars and people behind the scenes at the 1978 and 1979 Doctor Who Appreciation Society Panopticon conventions in London. I was only 12 in 1978, so big eyed at meeting my on screen heroes. 🙂 Sadly, despite surviving the theft of most of my memorabilia, it later got chewed by one of our dogs at the time. I was able to save most of the book, but some pages were lost forever. I does however contain two Docs - Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, several companions (inc. Ian Marter and Nicholas Courtney who are no longer with us), and behind the scenes people (inc. Doug Adams of Hitchhikers fame and producer Graham Williams, both who are also sadly no longer with us). I love this book for sentimental reasons, and it remains a treasured possession. Here's the Jon Pertwee sig (you can see canine teeth marks in the top right corner :-)) -

It's a lovely example of his signature, and useful for comparison as there have been some bad fakes out there taking advantage of the many loops and swirls in the sig which some people find hard to distinguish.

Anyway, moving on - when the show relaunched in 2005, as well as sending out the 8x5 cards which were sold in 2007, I dabbled with some A4 landscape photos during that first new season - at least one for each episode. I really liked them, but stopped doing them as they were ink hungry at a time when I could not afford to replace the ink cartridges so frequently. You can pick cartridges up quite cheap nowadays if you shop around. Some are brilliant and include an early undedicated David Tennant from the regeneration scene, and early John Barrowman sigs before his sig deteriorated so drastically to the horrible form it now takes. When he first started signing he had a beautiful signature. Also, unusually, everyone who signed used the white space I provided, so all the sigs are clear.

ROSE

THE END OF THE WORLD

THE UNQUIET UNDEAD

ALIENS OF LONDON

WORLD WAR III

DALEK

THE LONG GAME

FATHER'S DAY

THE EMPTY CHILD

THE DOCTOR DANCES

BOOM TOWN

BAD WOLF

THE PARTING OF WAYS

When I sold the 8x5 cards and dvds in 2007 which had been my main forms of collecting Doctor Who autographs, I stopped for a while. It was not until towards the end of David Tennant's time, I started dabbling with 4x6 photos, and then went into full swing when Matt Smith's Doctor started.

I am normally a fussy collector, and like collections or groups to be themed and on the same formats. This has ended up being an exception. Having sold a lot, got so many different formats, and so many cast members passed away, it is not possible to do that, so I am happy to collect Doctor Who autographs on any format.

I probably missed some interetsing bits, but hopefully this will give you a better idea of my Doctor Who autograph collecting. On my second coffee now, and almost awake. 🙂

[westiesx2]

WOW Nigel!! You have one hell of a collection if thats only part of it. Great mate. Keep up the good work. Do enjoy seeing your cards come back.

[wheel-lose]

impressive nigel,what a great collection,thanks for the upload:-)

[knockknock-66]

Absolutely brilliant mate, what a great collection. Well done and long may it continue to grow:)

[short380]

Words cannot describe your collection.  It must be priceless especially to all Dr Who fans.  Pertwee was my favourite Doctor.   You should be really, really proud.

[footballdaft0121]

That's absolutely brilliant - what a fantastic collecting story and well told.  You must be absolutely delighted with your collection and it is great to see some examples.  I note that you also have K9 and Jon Pertwee together on one page!  - sorry, I couldn't resist that one!  Long may your collection continue.

[0779swan]

Thats superb Nigel thanks for sharing I have really enjoyed reading and looking at pics. 

Woke me up 🙂

[sid8066]

Great collection there Nigel and a great story to go with it you have been through the mill with your collection 

[sylouisetruebluechelsea]

Thank you so much for sharing part of your collection it is very impressive Nigel:)

[Anonymous]

very nice those Nigel a great collection there I enjoyed looking through them all, thanks for sharing them 🙂

[film4watcher]

That is such a wonderful collection, Nigel especially after so many set backs. It's a pleasure to see all the cards and to read about how the collection came about. Thank you.

[kimbub16]

bloming eck nigel never new it was that popular that is fantastic collection well done

[robboh2006]

bloody brilliant mate

[serenamorgan]

Thats an amazing collection Nigel, you must be very happy it with, scary to think how impressive it would have been had you not had to sell so many great pieces.  Hopefully lady luck will be kind to you and you wont have to sell any more

[rcsmg1]

Thanks for the background and great collection Nigel.It must be hard to think about some of the ones you've sold in the past,but hopefully you'll carry on building it up again.I like Doctor Who and Torchwood and have collected some of the main characters autographs either TTM or by purchasing signed envelopes when I've visited the Doctor Who convention at Cardiff.As you say some nice early John Barrowman autographs but I can't say anything against him as my wife and daughter think he's great!

-- Edited by rcsmg1 at 09/16/2011 8:33 PM BST

[obree]

Nigel what a fantastic collection thank you for sharing it with us , I don't have time at the moment to study it properly but I will have a really good look over the weekend .

[ra1anne]

fabulous collection nigel, cheers for sharing, superb

[thehornets]

Thanks for the comments everyone - I have loved the show since first watching it in 1970 with Jon Pertwee. It's a bit of magic for kids of all ages including the big kids with grey hair like me. 🙂

The 2007 sale was exceptional, and we sold a lot - very fast. As many of you know our daughter is autistic with learning difficulties, and has the hearing disorder hyperacusis. She was attending a day centre where we were living at the time, but it was not meeting all her needs, and she was struggling often which put pressure on my wife with her own problems.

I discovered another town had a fantastic day centre and a couple of spare places, plus it was a similar commutable distance for me to get to work. Trouble is, all these services are postcode based, and you have to live in the postcode area before you can apply for places. As such, we had to fund and move home very quickly, so I had to raise several thousands to fund the move at short notice. Seven years of autograph collecting and a few other bits and pieces did the job and shifted quickly, and still left me with plenty of autographs to base a new collection on later. I was quite lucky as the selling market was high back then. It would be difficult to do the same right now.

The whole thing was a gamble. I gave our landlord the required two months notice before even starting the sale properly, raised enough quickly to secure the place we live in now, and managed to get all the money we needed with a couple of weeks to spare.

Thankfully it all paid off, and our daughter has been thriving since we moved here.

[sid8066]

Im delighted to hear that everything worked out for you, after all family comes first i know we all love our collections but at the end of the days we would have done the same 

[norwichcity78]

An excellent collection Nigel and also good to hear the back ground on how you started collecting, like others have said if only you still had what you unfortunatly had to sell and what was robbed from you but at the end of the day you still have a fantastic collection, its also great to hear its helped your daughter too. Nice one Nigel