# Interesting Coincidence With A Birgit Nilsson Autograph



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I've been collecting autographs of opera stars on eBay. I'm cheap so I lowball bid and what I win, I win. Last week I won a signed program from a Birgit Nilsson recital. The photo in the auction was too small for me to read where the concert was held. But when I got it today, I was surprised to find that it was the exact concert that I attended in 1979 at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena CA. It even has the Bernheimer review of the concert tucked into it. Wonderful coincidence!


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

You were meant to own this program, bigshot


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Not bad for $7. I got a Metropolitan Gala program with Pavarotti and Sutherland signed by both along with Boynage for a little over $20.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Do you have a certificate of authenticity?
I wouldn't dare to buy that kind of things on eBay.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

bigshot said:


> Not bad for $7. I got a Metropolitan Gala program with Pavarotti and Sutherland signed by both along with Boynage for a little over $20.


With Boynage! So Sutherland was two-timing her husband Richard Bonynge, who conducted much of what she sang. Or maybe Pugg is right. 
Still, I am very interested in collecting opera singer autographs. It suits my obsessive personality. When did you start, how many do you have, how much have you spent, which ones are you most pleased to have?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sounds so cool. I am soooooooo jealous you heard Nilsson live. When I was 16 she was in New Orleans and I tried to get my daddy to let me ride the bus down there from Jackson, MS to see her, but he wouldn't let me. I would probably do the same as a parent today, but I was mad at him for years none the less. Was it really as big as they say it was? Her voice was supposedly much darker and richer in person but those overtones didn't record. The closest I've come to that type of experience was Jamie Barton in recital in a small, small theater. Her voice was overwhelming!!!!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Pugg said:


> Do you have a certificate of authenticity?
> I wouldn't dare to buy that kind of things on eBay.


Certificates are just pieces of paper. I do my homework. I know exactly what a Caruso or Nilsson or Pavarotti autograph looks like before I bid. There are very few fakes in this area. If someone is going to fake something, it isn't going to be a $7 Birgit Nilsson autograph. They're going to fake Salvador Dali or Walt Disney.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

bigshot said:


> If someone is going to fake something, it isn't going to be a $7 Birgit Nilsson autograph.


A Birgit Nilsson baseball card, on the other hand, is priceless.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Steatopygous said:


> With Boynage! So Sutherland was two-timing her husband Richard Bonynge, who conducted much of what she sang. Or maybe Pugg is right.
> Still, I am very interested in collecting opera singer autographs. It suits my obsessive personality. When did you start, how many do you have, how much have you spent, which ones are you most pleased to have?


Spelling counts!

I have a collection of personal heroes, not just opera singers. A wide variety of people from Don Knotts and Captain Kangaroo to Cab Calloway and Leopold Stokowski to Dr Seuss and Walt Disney. Some, like Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, I had to pay three or four hundred dollars to get a nice vintage signed 8x10. Others, I've gotten for a few dollars.

Prices on autographs are based on a few things... First and foremost, it's demand. Artists who aren't remembered, or ones in smaller genres like classical music go very low. People who are popular go for a lot. I was lucky to find a Walt Disney autograph that I could afford, and Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges and the Marx Bros are way out of my price range. Secondly, the vintage of the autograph matters. A Louis Armstrong autograph from 1930 goes for a lot more than a signed concert program from the mid 1950s. Third is the availability. Artists who died young didn't sign as much, so their autographs are worth much more. Hank Williams or Fats Waller cost more than most of their contemporaries. Lastly, what the person signed matters. An autograph on a photo goes more than pages cut out of autograph albums.

I generally low ball, looking for autographs with low starting bids. If a person's autograph is expensive, I look for autograph album cuts for cheap, then search eBay for vintage publicity photos to frame them with. There really is no reason to pay a lot of money if you are patient. It helps to save a bunch of photos of signatures from auctions by certified autograph dealers so you can compare when a cheap under described lot comes up for auction.

One interesting thing is that as time passes, prices can actually go down. Ten or fifteen years ago, you couldn't touch a Caruso autograph for less than $2500. I bought a nice autographed photo recently for around $400. Of course there are Caruso autographs on eBay with buy it nows of thousands of dollars, but they aren't selling. I just waited for one I could afford to come along... and it did.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Was it really as big as they say it was? Her voice was supposedly much darker and richer in person but those overtones didn't record.


I saw both Pavarotti and Nilsson in recital around the same time. Both of them bowled me over with the quality and power of their voice. Both of them had more lower tones in their voice than on record. When I saw Nilsson, she sang an unusual program. Strauss and Sibelius songs primarily. It was fantastic, but much smaller scale than Wagner. Her final encore was I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady ending in a massive high C. That brought the house down. It was a great concert.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Which reminds me of a story:
My very first purchase ever on Ebay was a Bjoerling cd I was bidding on. I really was quite green and didn't know how to exactly go about it and was kind of floundering my way though the bidding process.
Thee highest bid was $22.50 with 5 minutes left in the auction so I put in a bid of $26.50. But when I looked I saw that I had mistakenly put $2.650. I panicked and called my DH and the two of us were going crazy when suddenly the auction came to an end and I was announced the winner at $23.50. I was so puzzled about how that happened when suddenly I realized that you could put in an insanely high number (especially right near the end) and never worry it will get anywhere close to it and then you will always be the top bidder till it closes -- and in this case I got it for $1 higher than the last bid!!
From then on I knew just how to "play the game!"


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

bigshot said:


> Certificates are just pieces of paper. I do my homework. I know exactly what a Caruso or Nilsson or Pavarotti autograph looks like before I bid. There are very few fakes in this area. If someone is going to fake something, it isn't going to be a $7 Birgit Nilsson autograph. They're going to fake Salvador Dali or Walt Disney.


Good one you, sorry for even asking


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I don't buy autographs but I can imagine collecting them is interesting and exciting. I ask singers to sign stuff though and it brings back lovely memories of the occasion.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Thanks for that full explanation, Bigshot.
When I was a kid I collected cricket autographs (and got some beauties, including Don Bradman, which won't mean much to you but a great deal to English or Australian or Indian or South African readers). I researched their addresses and wrote to them asking for an autograph,enclosing a money order for the cost of postage. All but Bradman returned the money order. I put this down to busyness, not stinginess. Keith Miller, a World War II fighter ace and one of the most glamorous sportsmen ever, sent me Christmas cards for a few years. That autograph book might be worth a few shekels now; I never considered selling, and will not. 
But as an adult I never collected autographs. The one, rather entertaining, exception was Vadim Repin, the great Siberian violinist. I was interviewing him in Milan (note the name-dropping there). My final question: do you have any superstitions, anything you always do before a concert. No, nothing, he replied. So I presented him with the program for that night and asked him to sign it. "Oh, it's for tonight. I can't possibly sign that. Come and see me after the interval, when I have played." !!! 
I also lined up to have Angela Hewitt sign a CD once. 
There, the guilty secret is out!


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Steatopygous said:


> Thanks for that full explanation, Bigshot.
> When I was a kid I collected cricket autographs (and got some beauties, including Don Bradman, which won't mean much to you but a great deal to English or Australian or Indian or South African readers). I researched their addresses and wrote to them asking for an autograph,enclosing a money order for the cost of postage. All but Bradman returned the money order. I put this down to busyness, not stinginess. Keith Miller, a World War II fighter ace and one of the most glamorous sportsmen ever, sent me Christmas cards for a few years. That autograph book might be worth a few shekels now; I never considered selling, and will not.
> But as an adult I never collected autographs. The one, rather entertaining, exception was Vadim Repin, the great Siberian violinist. I was interviewing him in Milan (note the name-dropping there). My final question: do you have any superstitions, anything you always do before a concert. No, nothing, he replied. So I presented him with the program for that night and asked him to sign it. "Oh, it's for tonight. I can't possibly sign that. Come and see me after the interval, when I have played." !!!
> I also lined up to have Angela Hewitt sign a CD once.
> There, the guilty secret is out!


Niles: "Daphne make haste with the dustpan and brush, I fear Frasier is about to start name dropping". 

I have an LP signed by Kiri, which I kept even after the turntable had gone.

About 25 years ago I had a hankering for a letter by Verdi, they were regularly sold through Bonham's priced from approx. £150 to £600, depending on the content. I looked recently and you can easily add a 0 to those figures. Still wont pay the asking price.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Belowpar said:


> Niles: "Daphne make haste with the dustpan and brush, I fear Frasier is about to start name dropping".
> 
> I have an LP signed by Kiri, which I kept even after the turntable had gone.
> 
> About 25 years ago I had a hankering for a letter by Verdi, they were regularly sold through Bonham's priced from approx. £150 to £600, depending on the content. I looked recently and you can easily add a 0 to those figures. Still wont pay the asking price.


Alas, I already live right up to my means. Otherwise I might take up autograph collecting again - there is something attractive about it. I'd love a Verdi letter.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

God help the Beethoven lover who wants to buy a scrap of paper he touched.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> A Birgit Nilsson baseball card, on the other hand, is priceless.


It hasn't yet been pointed out on that other thread that Wagnerian baseball players have thick necks, broad faces, and wicked senses of humor.


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## znapschatz (Feb 28, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Sounds so cool. I am soooooooo jealous you heard Nilsson live. When I was 16 she was in New Orleans and I tried to get my daddy to let me ride the bus down there from Jackson, MS to see her, but he wouldn't let me. I would probably do the same as a parent today, but I was mad at him for years none the less. Was it really as big as they say it was? Her voice was supposedly much darker and richer in person but those overtones didn't record. The closest I've come to that type of experience was Jamie Barton in recital in a small, small theater. Her voice was overwhelming!!!!


Yes, Birgit Nilsson's voice was as large as they say. I heard her live in the role of Brunhilde in Die Walkure at the old Metropolitan (Act 3 only) and again at the Cleveland Civic Auditorium as Turandot. When Calaf in Act 2 successfully answered the 3 riddles, there followed the combined orchestra and chorus at full fortissimo, and Nilsson simply overpowered them, as clear and pure as can be. Blew me away. The memory still does.


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