What Kind of Pen Should You Use for Baseball Autographs?

Video Transcript

"I'm Walt Case, I own Card Traders of Austin, in Austin, Texas. We've been in business for about fourteen years and sell a variety of sports cards and sports memorabilia. If you're looking to get something autographed, the question comes up, "What kind of pen should I use"? That depends on the item that you're trying to get autographed. If you're trying to get a baseball autographed, I would recommend a very high quality ballpoint pen. That interacts better with the leather on a baseball. Although, you still have no guarantee that that autograph is not going to fade on you. One of the keys is to keep your autographed item out of sunlight and out of direct, any kind of direct source of light, that might fade that signature. The better the pen, the better the ink, typically the better your chances are, of having that autograph survive. Here's an example of a ball that was signed, this is a, this is a new ball, signed not to long ago. But once again signed probably with a pen that was not of the highest quality. And you can see just from the light that we have here in our store with is fluorescent lighting, this autograph is starting to fade pretty badly. So this can take your very valuable, or maybe not so valuable, but just important to you, autographed item, from having something really, really nice to having just a blank baseball, because the autograph fades. If you're going to get something other than a baseball signed or a football, or a basketball, as far as that goes. I would probably recommend using a Sharpie. And again the color varies, the two that are the most prominent are the black Sharpies and the silver Sharpies. They tend not to fade. So if you're going to get an eight-by-ten signed, or you're going to get a helmet signed or you're going to get a glove signed. The recommended item again is a nice high quality Sharpie."