When I walked into the National Sports Collectors Convention in 2017, one of the first things I saw was a pile of checks, all signed by late Major League Baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti.
I had always liked the idea of checks because they provided a record of what someone was buying or getting paid for. But I never really found one that told a story.
Until that day eight years ago at The National.
As I went through the pile of what Giamatti signed during his tenure as National League president (1986-89), I stopped at one check.
The check was dated July 8, 1988, when Giamatti paid $42 to the Chicago Cubs. The memo: Four tickets for 8/8/88 game (Comm. Ueberroth).
I was die-hard baseball fan, so I knew immediately what that was. That was the National League paying for then commissioner Peter Ueberroth's tickets for the first night game at Wrigley Field, which happened 38 years ago today. (Note: It wasn't an official game because it got rained out, and the first official game happened the next day against my New York Mets.)
How these escaped from the MLB offices, I didn't know, but the only thing I wanted to know was the price.
"How much?" I said.
"They're all $50," he said.
I thought to myself at that moment, this makes no sense. The value is based on who signed it, not what it actually was? That's like saying all Mickey Mantle cards are the same, it doesn't matter what year!!
As I happily gave him $50, I realized I had a new thing to collect: Checks not only signed by interesting people, but checks that had stories.
Since then, I've collected more than 100 checks.
My favorites include Jay Leno paying Larry Charles for a joke ($10), Denzel Washington paying for his Lakers courtside seats when the Staples Center opened, Amelia Earhart paying for nose surgery, Jackie Robinson paying for rent on the apartment he lived in when he broke the color barrier, and John F. Kennedy paying for his Washington Post subscription, among others.
Although I haven't sold many of them, I firmly believe the story behind the check makes that check more valuable.
I'm so happy that that 8/8/88 provided me with a new thing to collect.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.