Beautiful 1972 Topps #1 Wilt Chamberlain basketball card with clean autograph. The card is graded EX-MT 6 by PSA showing clean corners with excellent centering and coloring. The autograph is graded AUTHENTIC by PSA/DNA and was signed in blue ballpoint pen. This is the highest graded example of this card with an autograph, being one of three to ever be graded by PSA/DNA.
Provenance: It was in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, in the late 1960s that an 8-year-old boy named Tim Gallagher began what would turn into a lifelong pursuit to acquire as many autographs of famous athletes as possible. Half a century later, his collection across multiple sports (mostly basketball, baseball and football) had become one of the most comprehensive and diverse ever documented. The Dayton Journal Herald (2/5/1974) first reported on the then 15-year-old’s passionate hobby. Tim grew up in the same neighborhood and attended the same high school as the Paxson brothers, Jim and John, whose success in college and the NBA would give him access to many stars and Hall of Famers. When he was 46, the Dayton Daily News (7/3/2005) did a feature story about Tim’s collection, which by then had grown to 20,000 plus signatures. Early on most of these came through the mail as he would write athletes (i.e. Bill Walton at UCLA) with self-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes. When possible, he would track down players in person at their team hotels, for example, bringing their photo or trading card to sign. As he settled into his own business career, Tim eventually had the financial means, combined with his connections, to attend major sporting events like the Final Four or charity golf tournaments and get directly in front of dozens of big names. In 2015, Gallagher sold several thousand baseball autographs through a different auction house. But basketball was always his favorite sport, encompassing a vast majority of the collection with a list of legends (Mikan, Wilt, Russell, Pistol, Jordan, Kobe, etc.) and near impossible gets (i.e. Hank Gathers, Len Bias) that cannot be topped. This auction marks the first time he has ever sold any of his beloved hardwood signatures.