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Photo Credit (CC 2.0 license): Insomnia Cured Here

I was recently thinking about the importance of celebrity provenance when valuing or collecting antiques.  This was prompted, in part, by the research I did for my recent article titled “Your Hopalong Cassidy Collectibles Are a Bad Investment“.

Although Hopalong Cassidy was the genesis of this idea, I wanted to more broadly examine how fame impacts a vintage item’s desirability.  In this case, I define a celebrity as any politician (kings, queens and dictators count too), entertainer (including movie stars and musical artists), writer or sports star.  While celebrity provenance can take many different forms when applied to antiques, there are two primary categories.

The first is autographed photos, items or other ephemera.  The second is objects that can be definitely attributed to the ownership of a famous individual, usually via an inscription on the item or photos of the famous person in question using the item.

In any case, a fundamental question about celebrity provenance occurred to me.  How famous does a person have to be in order to render a personal effect or autograph desirable?

In my opinion, the answer to this query is fairly simple.  A person is famous enough when his or her name is familiar to the average person on the street.  But there is a catch.  It only counts once a century has passed from the peak of that celebrity’s fame.

Unfortunately, as we will soon discover, lasting fame is brutally difficult to achieve.  There are precious few 19th or early 20th century celebrities who remain household names today.  However, by examining those who make the cut (and those who don’t), we can make an educated guess at which antiques with celebrity provenance to purchase and which to avoid.

Let’s take a look at a few examples, starting with politicians, kings and other rulers.

How many 19th century rulers are still well-known by the average person today?  I would argue that the answer is not many.  Perhaps the French Emperor Napoleon, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and British Queen Victoria pass this grueling test.

I also think the Russian Czar Nicholas II slips onto this list, but only because he and his doomed royal family were murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.  After all, nobody today remembers Nicholas’ father, the Czar Alexander III.  Only the last of the Romanovs passed into legend as martyrs.

And then there are the 19th century political also rans.  These were rulers who were undoubtedly household names in their time, but whose fame inevitably faded over the decades.

I would include the French Emperor Napoleon III in this category.  Now this is where most people say, “What!  There was another Napoleon?” The answer is yes.  The original Napoleon had a nephew who resurrected the glorious French Empire 50 years after his death, but few people beyond history buffs (or Frenchmen) know it.

I also think that the Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto Von Bismarck, is another politician who doesn’t quite make the grade.  Although he was an incredibly influential man during the late 19th century, my guess is that only 1 in 10 people (or fewer) would have any inkling who he was today.

Celebrity provenance is just as vitally important when considering antiques and autographs from movie stars, musicians and other entertainers.  However, we tend to run into the same durability issues as with rulers and politicians; few entertainers remain famous a century after their time in the sun.

For instance, I feel that early 20th century celebrities Charlie Chaplin and Harry Houdini are fairly safe bets.  Even today most people know who these superstars were.

Silent film star Rudolph Valentino is a distinct maybe.  Although he was wildly popular in the 1920s, Valentino’s continued name recognition today is most likely due to his untimely and tragic death in 1926.  Nothing preserves a star’s memory better than dying young and at the height of his (or her) fame.

But many of the silent film era’s biggest stars remain on the cusp in the modern age.  Clara Bow (the original “It Girl”), Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo and Douglas Fairbanks might be familiar to early film aficionados, but few Millennials will recognize the names.  It is a fair bet that in another 50 years, the Millennials’ grandkids will have absolutely no clue who these people were.

So here is our grand question.  If you are interested in collecting antiques with celebrity provenance, which famous people from the last 70 or 80 years are a good investment?

I think the list is pretty short – probably shorter than a lot of collectors would like to acknowledge.

World War II leaders like, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, FDR and Adolph Hitler, are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.  U.S. President John F. Kennedy is also well-placed for eternal popularity.

But second tier 20th century rulers such as Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher are riding the bubble.  They may or may not ultimately be household names in another 100 years.

Lasting fame for movies stars is a tough sell in today’s “flavor-of-the-month” entertainment world.  But I think that Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Arnold Schwarzenegger could be good enough.

As an aside, I’m under no illusions that Arnold Schwarzenegger was a great actor, but he did become both a pre-internet meme (I’ll be back!) and a successful politician (elected governor of California).  Sometimes it isn’t the truly great ones who are remembered.  As they say in Hollywood, fame is a bitch.

When it comes to musicians and desirable celebrity provenance, I believe the 20th century will bequeath the future with only 3 giants: Elvis, the Beatles and Michael Jackson.  Every other musical artist of the 20th century, regardless of talent, will be an afterthought compared to these colossi.

The trend in the world of sports will probably be very similar to those in music.  Maybe a handful of great 20th century players from every major sport will be remembered.  I nominate Babe Ruth (most people know the name even if they’ve never watched a baseball game in their life), Pelé (I hate soccer and I still know about Pelé), Mario Andretti (I don’t know a thing about racing, but the name Mario Andretti is synonymous with speed) and Arnold Palmer (a great golfer and all-round likable guy who has a drink named after him).

But the flip side of these predictions is that most vintage items with celebrity provenance from lesser known or second tier famous people will either stagnate or drop in value over the decades.

This is because people naturally have a recency bias when evaluating celebrities.  In other words, if a person was famous during your lifetime – and especially within the past 5 or 10 years – there is the tendency to believe that people in the distant future will also fondly remember this star.

But that isn’t the way the world works.  As every new generation is born, they begin life with a celebrity blank slate, so to speak.  Yes, some parents may pass their love for a certain famous singer or actor down to their children, but this is very much the exception and not the rule.

The rules of celebrity provenance are clear.  If you are interested in collecting autographs or celebrity-linked antiques, stick to those figures you firmly believe will continue to be household names 50 or 100 years from today.  Just be aware that the list will probably be a lot shorter than you hope.

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