Book It, Buzz: Landing Olympian ink for less than $10 (again)

For years now, autographed books coming direct from the publishers -- or direct from the authors themselves -- have been an affordable way to collect ink from notable names in all realms of pop culture.

It's not a perfect system with stamped autos, fakes and autopens sometimes in the mix -- a problem for publishers to catch as they are not authenticators -- but thanks to dedicated collectors on the Blowout Cards Forum and elsewhere, those problems often get caught and fixed ... or at least become well-known enough to avoid if it's an issue that goes uncorrected.

Getting ink in-person is always best -- book tours still happen, of course -- but landing autographed editions from publishers, online sellers or celebs themselves via their websites or other appearances are common.

Our latest subject and autograph in this ongoing series? Dominating Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky.

THE RUNDOWN ... 
The Book: Just Add Water: My Swimming Life (autographed bookplate)
The Author: Katie Ledecky
The Specs: Simon & Schuster -- released on June 11, 2024 (256 pages)
The Price: $9.99 via a mystery box
The Spot: Premiere Collectibles

Why it’s Buzz-worthy: This one was a nice surprise coming from a mystery box via Premiere -- I rolled the dice on a pair of the boxes and landed this for less than $10 -- as she was not a name I had expected. (I figured I'd land names I might not even know.) She's the holder of 14 Olympic medals -- nine gold -- and that's a record for both female swimmers and the highest total for an American woman in Olympic history. She's tied for fifth on the overall medals list for any country, anybody all-time. (Michael Phelps is No. 1 with 28.) Olympic ink definitely is heavily collected but really only on card collecting radars around the times of Olympic Games so off-time additions

Why this item: A mystery box means I really don't have thoughts in this one ... I just wanted to fill some months here on the super-cheap side of things. This is a win as other signed copies of this one are $50 and up on eBay for asking prices right now. Actual sales are around $50 and up as well.

Chase ink on cards: Thanks to Olympic sets and multi-sport brands like Allen & Ginter, Ledecky actually appears on hundreds of different cards. But for autographs? Well under 100 different certified cards. She appears on signed cards in 2004 Allen & Ginter/Allen & Ginter X, the 2024 Topps Chrome Olympic set, 2024 Leaf Metal Holidays and then on some Topps Now cards and a second smaller Leaf release. It's actually a lot less inked cardboard than I had expected -- she probably charges more as a high-profile name to sign -- and her cheapest certified autograph card on eBay at the moment as a Buy-It-Now is $80.

The Bottom Line: This was an easy non-card pickup for ink and having a lot of variety in an autograph collection isn't a bad thing at all ... especially when it's an all-time great for less than $10.

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