Portion of Jack Smalling autograph collection to hit auction

Depending on your age, you might not know the name Jack Smalling -- but he wrote the book on through-the-mail autograph collecting back in the day when most autographs weren't just a click away.

While The Baseball Autograph Collector's Handbook is up to its 19th edition today with addresses for more than 90 percent of known living major leaguers, coaches and umpires inside, it's the fruits of his publishing passion -- his autographs -- that are on the auction block in one single lot coming to the auction from Heritage Auctions next month.

"Many, if not most, of Smalling's greatest successes came from trails long since gone cold, but when Smalling first took up his hobby in 1962, quite a few Dead Ball Era legends still walked the Earth," said the auction listing. "And if not the players themselves, then their children or grandchildren, pleased in that pre-Internet age that somewhere, someone still remembered the man. They were all too happy to drop a cancelled check or a clipping from an old lease into the supplied self-addressed, stamped envelope in fulfillment of Smalling's request. More than a half century later, Smalling's collection of autographs numbers in the six figures."

There are nearly 14,000 autographs in this lot and it's expected to fetch more than $200,000 when it's up for grabs late next month -- and this is just a small portion of his Smalling's overall collection.

"While this offering represents just a small fraction ... it contains the absolute best of the best, with no fewer than 230 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame represented [and] several of the autographs so spectacularly rare that known examples number in the single digits," the auction house said. "Smalling's preferred media has always been the simple purity of the unlined 3x5-inch index card, and the vast majority of signers still alive when he made contact appear in this format."

The collection is organized by debut year, ranging from 1871 to 2008, and among them are Mickey Welch, Amos Rusie, Vic Willis, Pop Lloyd, Martin Dihigo and Josh Gibson. A letter from Hughie Jennings and a signed Eddie Gaedel photo are also in the mix. Because of the volume of the collection, only Hall of Famers and autographs individually valued in excess of $100 have been authenticated by PSA/DNA, according to Heritage.

You can see more in the gallery below and more about the auction by clicking here.

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