Sporting Signs

In this age of impersonal e-mails and faxes, when handwritten correspondence is growing increasingly scarce, collecting autographs and historical manuscripts is a link with the past--a "slice of history" that autograph aficionados insist is more intimate and revealing than coins or stamps. On engraved letterheads or even scraps of tattered paper, the genius and personal feelings of the world's greatest figures come alive. We can read tomes about artists, statesmen and scientists, yet here, right in our hands, are their pithy confessions, underscoring all the wit and wisdom that have made them immortal. Autographs are written evidence of the great men and women who have themselves written history through their thoughts and action.