COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: How Much Should I Pay for a Certified Autograph?

Wrestling fans often want to know how much they should expect to spend on an autograph of a particular wrestler. This column will hopefully provide some answers.

While hardcore collectors usually have specific wants, more casual wrestling fans would just like an autograph, and don’t care whether it came from a $2.99 per-pack retail product, or from a $15,000 Topps WWE Transcendent box (you read that right). This article was written to give wrestling fans an idea of how much they should expect to pay – on the low end – for a certified autographed trading card of a particular wrestler.

In other words, if your son’s favorite wrestler is Kofi Kingston, what can you realistically expect to spend on a certified autograph without breaking the bank?

The wrestlers included in this list met certain criteria. All are currently active wrestlers who have held some version of a world title in WWE: the WWE, Universal, Raw Women’s, Smackdown Women’s, NXT, and NXT Women’s titles. Part-time attractions (John Cena, Undertaker, Big Show) and retired legends (Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan) were excluded from this list. All of the cards included in the analysis were certified autographed WWE trading cards from Topps. If an eBay listing was for a trading card signed in person and not guaranteed by Topps, it was not included in this list.

Once those criteria were met, 31 wrestlers remained eligible for this list. Rhea Ripley was excluded from this list because, while she is a former NXT Women’s Champion, Topps has never produced a signed trading card of her. The list includes the low (single lowest ended eBay listing from August 1 to October 9, 2020) and low average (average price of the five lowest completed listings during that period) for each wrestler.

The good news for wrestling fans is that if you’re patient and take your time to look, an autograph from almost any current WWE star can be purchased for under $30.

Of the 31 wrestlers on the list, approximately half (16) had low average prices of less than $10. That includes former WWE and Universal Champions like Kofi Kingston ($7.99), Braun Strowman ($8.70), Seth Rollins ($9.06) and Daniel Bryan ($9.69). The low average for current WWE Champ Drew McIntyre was just $9.00.

Another 10 wrestlers had low averages of under $20, including current NXT Champion Finn Balor ($10.59), top WWE star Roman Reigns ($15.37), longtime fan favorite Jeff Hardy ($17.16). Becky Lynch was the hottest star in wrestling from 2017 to 2019, and her low average price was just $18.20.

Only five wrestlers had low average sale prices of greater than $20, including Io Shirai ($20.82), Sasha Banks ($23.30), and Asuka ($24.32). Randy Orton had a low average of $27.39, which is somewhat surprising given that he is a peer of part-time attractions like John Cena and Brock Lesnar, and doesn’t sign as often as many other wrestlers.

Alexa Bliss had the highest low average of all the wrestlers on this list at $39.20. From 2016 to 2019, it was tough to find a Bliss autograph for less than $75. But the value has dropped over the last year because of the quantity of her signatures from Topps products now available.

When it comes to signatures of current active WWE wrestlers, it is definitely a buyers’ market in 2020. While there are plenty of expensive, high dollar cards for hardcore collectors to chase, it should come as a bit of a relief for parents, kids and more casual collectors that affordable autographs are out there.

PWTorch Collectibles Specialist Michael Moore can be reached at michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MMooreWriter.

NOW CHECK OUT THE PRIOR COLUMN: COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: Remembering the Road Warriors