Kind of belonging to this, if we think about someone like Wayne Gretzky, then what do you think, when he has to sign something completely unrelated to the fans (i.e. give his signature, not an autograph), what do you think, does he accidentally write that "99" there too or is it actually so big part of Gretzky, that he would use it anyway?
To take this a step further, Gretzky did a video for UDA and he says he always has in the back of his mind when signing an autograph (for money or a sitdown session, etc), his dad always said "make sure they can read the signature".
He said his autograph will almost always vary ever so slightly which I have personally confirmed looking at tons of Gretzky sigs over the years..
And while talking Gretzky, because there was a period of signing too much, TGO had an autopen he used for quite some time.
It was easy to recognize because all of the signatures were the same size (built mainly for cards), the pen always crossed the "t" and "z" in a perfect little crescent-shaped stroke, and the there was a kickback to the left on the end of the line coming down to make the "y" on Gretzky instead of his usual straight north-south stroke. Also there were very noticeable stop and start dots on various points of the signature instead of the usual flow.
That all aside, considering the monumental amount of autographs this man has laid down in his lifetime, I am still amazed that his best signatures are almost letter for letter legible and his worst (within the collectibles realm, not on the street) are still pretty darn nice.
I blame a lot on tech and this generation typing everything but my gosh, if I were getting compensated to sign, I would at least come up with something cool with a little flair, even if it was short. Look at Joe Sakic and his overlapping "j" and "s" with a little squib here and there and a "19". Not too much but looks very stylish.
Geez Matt, why did you bring the horse back from the dead? It's a zombie horse. :laugh: :beer:
