by Brooke Kennedy
On February 8th, 2023, RR Auction’s Bobby Livingston was invited to be the featured guest on PSA’s The Great American Collectibles Show with hosts Tom Zappala and John Molori. Livingston discussed the reasoning behind RR Auction’s February 16th PSA Encapsulated auction. RR Auction has consulted closely with PSA to authenticate many historical letters, autographs, and more. “We’ve been partnering with PSA since the beginning… for well over 20 years now” stated Livingston as part of the program. PSA stands for Professional Sports Authenticator, and they are a world renowned card authentication and grading company that got their start in 1991.
Bobby Livingston went into the reason why RR Auction decided to hold encapsulated autograph auctions. Livingston elaborated on why PSA is their preferred vendor saying, “We noticed over the years companies were buying raw autographs out of our sale, taking them and cutting them up terribly and placing them on baseball cards.”
RR Auction sees many historical signatures come through their doors, including manuscripts that are more than 500 years old. As an example, RR Auction was consigned a hand addressed and free frank mailing panel from George Washington. Believing it would enhance the value of the item by having PSA encapsulate the piece in its entirety, the George Washington signature is now properly preserved and hopefully saved from the card company scissors. Livingston observed, “That envelope tells a story, it tells you who Washington was writing to…it’s a great artifact.”
Bobby Livingston then elaborated on how they receive all of these raw autographs, stating that many different consignors have pieces that have been collected and handed down through generations. RR Auction has been consigned many pieces from famous figures all throughout history from Presidents to Hollywood stars to astronauts. In the past RR Auction has sold encapsulated signatures from Winston Churchill, David Bowie, Elton John, and other legends from history. This PSA encapsulated auction has autographs from figures including John Adams, Walt Disney, and Albert Einstein just to name a few.
However, over the last four decades, RR Auction has auctioned much more than just autographed memorabilia. When asked about the most interesting piece that RR Auction has ever sold , Bobby Livingston replied, “We auctioned off the seat for 28 million dollars so that you could ride next to Jeff Bezos into space…It was an incredible day for us.” Along with that extraordinary sale of the seat on Blue Origin, RR Auction has also become a leading auction house in the sales of NASA items and Olympic medals.
RR Auction’s PSA encapsulated auctions are held bi-annually If you have any memorabilia you are looking to sell, consider consigning it with RR Auction. You can contact us via telephone at 800-937-3880. You can watch The Great American Collectibles Show every Wednesday at 6:30 pm EST on PSA’s website, Facebook, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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Have any autographs, photographs, or sports cards you’d like to sell? Consider consigning it to RR auction!
