How to Value a 63-Year Collection of Autographed Photos from World Leaders?

[vinod1]

My father has been collecting autographed photographs of world leaders since 1962 and continues to this day. He has autographed pictures of Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline Lee Kennedy, brothers, Kennedy's family pictures with children, Neil Armstrong and entire group of 30 astronauts who trained for the lunar landings, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter all the way to Joe Biden. Other world leaders include Yugoslavia's Tito, Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, French presidents from Charles de Gaulle all the way to Macron, several British prime ministers from Harold Wilson to  Sunak, all Indian prime ministers & Presidents, Fidel Castro, dozens of other European leaders from almost all of the countries of Europe, Taiwan's Zhou Enlai, Dalai Lama, Pierre Trudeau all the way to his son, Willy Brandt, Gorbachev (none of the other USSR leaders have responded to his many letters), almost all Isreali prime ministers, and I am missing a ton of other world leaders that I do not remember of the top of my head.

 

How my father got started is an interesting story. My father was pulled out of school at age 14 to work in his father's shop. My father was very interested in education and to overcome all his objections, the deal he entered with his father was that he would work from 9 AM to 6 PM in shop but he would get a teacher to teach him english and other subjects in the evening for an hour. When my father asked his teacher how he can improve his english, he suggested writing letters to world leaders asking for their photographs. He has been continuing this hobby since 1962 to this day. He has a collection of about 550 photographs, all autographed and with original letters of response with their signatures and postage in many cases. 

 

There are many interesting tidbits along the way

1. He sent 2 lbs of mango jelly to John F Kennedy when requesting his autograph and he got a very detailed letter thanking him for this.

2. He asked Neil Armstrong to get photographs of his buddies as well, since sending a letter from India to all of them is expensive. Armstrong then got 30 of his mates who are training with him for the Apollo mission to individually sign each of their photographs and a group photograph, all autographed and send them as a packet. What a great guy! He is a hero in more than one respect to my father. 

3. When my father wrote a letter to Kazakhstan president, he instructed his ambassador in India to personally contact my father, invite him and hand deliver the autographed photo!

 

Can anyone who has some idea of these kinds of things give me an idea of what these are worth if anything? Not for selling or anything like that, but it might give him great satisfaction to know that they are worth a lot of money. But I do not want to misrepresent it either. 

 

Thank you,

 

Vinod

 

 

[gfp]

No clue what they are worth (priceless!) but what a cool story! - thanks for sharing it here

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, vinod1 said:

My father has been collecting autographed photographs of world leaders since 1962 and continues to this day. He has autographed pictures of Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline Lee Kennedy, brothers, Kennedy's family pictures with children, Neil Armstrong and entire group of 30 astronauts who trained for the lunar landings, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter all the way to Joe Biden. Other world leaders include Yugoslavia's Tito, Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, French presidents from Charles de Gaulle all the way to Macron, several British prime ministers from Harold Wilson to  Sunak, all Indian prime ministers & Presidents, Fidel Castro, dozens of other European leaders from almost all of the countries of Europe, Taiwan's Zhou Enlai, Dalai Lama, Pierre Trudeau all the way to his son, Willy Brandt, Gorbachev (none of the other USSR leaders have responded to his many letters), almost all Isreali prime ministers, and I am missing a ton of other world leaders that I do not remember of the top of my head.

 

How my father got started is an interesting story. My father was pulled out of school at age 14 to work in his father's shop. My father was very interested in education and to overcome all his objections, the deal he entered with his father was that he would work from 9 AM to 6 PM in shop but he would get a teacher to teach him english and other subjects in the evening for an hour. When my father asked his teacher how he can improve his english, he suggested writing letters to world leaders asking for their photographs. He has been continuing this hobby since 1962 to this day. He has a collection of about 550 photographs, all autographed and with original letters of response with their signatures and postage in many cases. 

 

There are many interesting tidbits along the way

1. He sent 2 lbs of mango jelly to John F Kennedy when requesting his autograph and he got a very detailed letter thanking him for this.

2. He asked Neil Armstrong to get photographs of his buddies as well, since sending a letter from India to all of them is expensive. Armstrong then got 30 of his mates who are training with him for the Apollo mission to individually sign each of their photographs and a group photograph, all autographed and send them as a packet. What a great guy! He is a hero in more than one respect to my father. 

3. When my father wrote a letter to Kazakhstan president, he instructed his ambassador in India to personally contact my father, invite him and hand deliver the autographed photo!

 

Can anyone who has some idea of these kinds of things give me an idea of what these are worth if anything? Not for selling or anything like that, but it might give him great satisfaction to know that they are worth a lot of money. But I do not want to misrepresent it either. 

 

Thank you,

 

Vinod

 

 

 

Call one of Sotheby's salons closest to your father and explain what he has.  They should be able to tell you if one of their appraisal experts can provide an appraisal on the items.  Depending on where you live, you may have local appraisers for fine art/collectibles that can also give you some idea.  Cheers!

[Blugolds]

Obviously priceless to you, what a great story and heirloom to pass down,  awesome story thanks for sharing. 

 

Makes me curious as to what he would write, he obviously did a fine job of touching them on a level that was enough to get people to want to help and even go above and beyond. I feel like nowadays you’d be lucky to get a rubber stamped token reply with a lot of these jokers. 

 

How does he store them? 550 is a lot of pictures! You would think that would make a cool exhibit on loan to a local museum etc. Just the history and timeline and the stories would be cool to share. 

[ValueNation]

What an amazing story! I am doubtful that any appraisal would come close to the intrinsic value of this collection for you and your family.

 

Preserving them well would clearly be a priority, which could be a challenge, but worth investing in if you haven't. I'm sure some museums would be interested in displaying them and may give you tips on preservation as well.

[anshulp]

This is awesome!

[vinod1]

Thank you all for the helpful replies.

 

Parsad - Great idea. Never thought of that.

 

Blugolds - It was easier in the 1960s and 1970s it seems as people were more willing to send when they got a letter from a small village in India. Now it is more difficult. He usually encloses 3-4 copies of past letters that are relevant. So for Obama he sent copies of Keneddy, Regan, Clinton autographed photos and letters. Lord Mountbatten had an official policy of not sending autographed photographs, so my father wrote a letter to the President of India asking for his recommendation and the President of India at that time wrote out a strong recommendation letter requesting Lord Mountbatten and then he got the signed autographed photo. I was reading this letter last week when we visited India. My father is very persistent that way, writing multiple letters, asking for recommendations, etc. 

 

His one complaint was that he never received a reply from any communist country leaders. The only exceptions were Gorbachev and Castro.

 

Right now they are stored in a 2 inch zippered binders. Like in 10 or 12 of various kinds of these types of folders. I need to find a better way. Especially worried about the chemicals in the sheet protectors.

 

He applied to the Guinness book of world records and they are scheduled to validate this in the next couple of months.

 

ValueNation - I need to put a bit more thought into preservation. My father is very simple and modest and makes do with whatever he has. So he did not spend much on these at all. 

 

Thanks

Vinod

 

Edited July 14, 2025 by vinod1

[LC]

You can also try one of the grading/authentication services that can provide a certificate that the signatures are real. I've purchased artwork with similar certs so I imagine they must do it for things like this as well. Cool stuff!

[vincy4fish98]

Hi Vinod, I'm an archivist or that's my day job. Ethically speaking I can't recommend an appraiser, but you may want to find one through an appraisal society. https://www.appraisers.org/ I'm sure you can locate one near you. There may be a fee involved if you do want to go through the process but that can be asked ahead of time. Also, you may want to rehouse the collection of photos in archival sleeves, mylar would be your best bet and we order our supplies through Gaylord. https://www.gaylord.com/  They are a little more pricey than what you would find at an office supply store for photos but well worth peace of mind and preservation of treasured photos

 

Vince. 

[vinod1]

20 hours ago, vincy4fish98 said:

Hi Vinod, I'm an archivist or that's my day job. Ethically speaking I can't recommend an appraiser, but you may want to find one through an appraisal society. https://www.appraisers.org/ I'm sure you can locate one near you. There may be a fee involved if you do want to go through the process but that can be asked ahead of time. Also, you may want to rehouse the collection of photos in archival sleeves, mylar would be your best bet and we order our supplies through Gaylord. https://www.gaylord.com/  They are a little more pricey than what you would find at an office supply store for photos but well worth peace of mind and preservation of treasured photos

 

Vince. 

 

Hi Vince - This is really great advice coming from someone who is in the field. Thank you! Extremely helpful. He has been using "archival" quality sleeves that I sent, but those are from Amazon. Would check out gaylord. It looks like most of the appraisers are not photography related. Any suggestions in this regard?

 

Thank you,

 

Vinod

[vinod1]

On 7/14/2025 at 6:16 PM, LC said:

You can also try one of the grading/authentication services that can provide a certificate that the signatures are real. I've purchased artwork with similar certs so I imagine they must do it for things like this as well. Cool stuff!

 

LC - Great idea about authentication. Getting even a few certified I think would go a long way.

 

Thanks

Vinod

[vincy4fish98]

2 hours ago, vinod1 said:

 

Hi Vince - This is really great advice coming from someone who is in the field. Thank you! Extremely helpful. He has been using "archival" quality sleeves that I sent, but those are from Amazon. Would check out gaylord. It looks like most of the appraisers are not photography related. Any suggestions in this regard?

 

Thank you,

 

Vinod

Hi Vinod,  I don't have any suggestions other than calling the 800 number on their site or filling out the preliminary "find an appraiser" online form so that they can connect you with an appraiser based on your needs and subject area. If you know of photo galleries or photographers they may even have better sources/recommendations locally that you might consider.

[vinod1]

2 hours ago, vincy4fish98 said:

Hi Vinod,  I don't have any suggestions other than calling the 800 number on their site or filling out the preliminary "find an appraiser" online form so that they can connect you with an appraiser based on your needs and subject area. If you know of photo galleries or photographers they may even have better sources/recommendations locally that you might consider.

 

Hi Vince - Thank you! Will do that. I live a couple of miles from their HQ.

[schin]

On 7/13/2025 at 5:59 PM, vinod1 said:

My father has been collecting autographed photographs of world leaders since 1962 and continues to this day. He has autographed pictures of Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline Lee Kennedy, brothers, Kennedy's family pictures with children, Neil Armstrong and entire group of 30 astronauts who trained for the lunar landings, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter all the way to Joe Biden. Other world leaders include Yugoslavia's Tito, Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, French presidents from Charles de Gaulle all the way to Macron, several British prime ministers from Harold Wilson to  Sunak, all Indian prime ministers & Presidents, Fidel Castro, dozens of other European leaders from almost all of the countries of Europe, Taiwan's Zhou Enlai, Dalai Lama, Pierre Trudeau all the way to his son, Willy Brandt, Gorbachev (none of the other USSR leaders have responded to his many letters), almost all Isreali prime ministers, and I am missing a ton of other world leaders that I do not remember of the top of my head.

 

How my father got started is an interesting story. My father was pulled out of school at age 14 to work in his father's shop. My father was very interested in education and to overcome all his objections, the deal he entered with his father was that he would work from 9 AM to 6 PM in shop but he would get a teacher to teach him english and other subjects in the evening for an hour. When my father asked his teacher how he can improve his english, he suggested writing letters to world leaders asking for their photographs. He has been continuing this hobby since 1962 to this day. He has a collection of about 550 photographs, all autographed and with original letters of response with their signatures and postage in many cases. 

 

There are many interesting tidbits along the way

1. He sent 2 lbs of mango jelly to John F Kennedy when requesting his autograph and he got a very detailed letter thanking him for this.

2. He asked Neil Armstrong to get photographs of his buddies as well, since sending a letter from India to all of them is expensive. Armstrong then got 30 of his mates who are training with him for the Apollo mission to individually sign each of their photographs and a group photograph, all autographed and send them as a packet. What a great guy! He is a hero in more than one respect to my father. 

3. When my father wrote a letter to Kazakhstan president, he instructed his ambassador in India to personally contact my father, invite him and hand deliver the autographed photo!

 

Can anyone who has some idea of these kinds of things give me an idea of what these are worth if anything? Not for selling or anything like that, but it might give him great satisfaction to know that they are worth a lot of money. But I do not want to misrepresent it either. 

 

Thank you,

 

Vinod

 

 

 

@vinod1 - This is pretty cool.  How does he choose to to write to? I tried sending baseball cards when I was younger and had limited success.  I was able to get a dollar signed by Warren Buffett and returned eons ago before he got too famous. 

 

The 2 lbs of mango jelly is pretty cool. Did he send it directly to the White House? Does your dad have a secret on how to get a response? Or what his success rate is? Cool post.

[Gregmal]

On 7/14/2025 at 5:16 PM, LC said:

You can also try one of the grading/authentication services that can provide a certificate that the signatures are real. I've purchased artwork with similar certs so I imagine they must do it for things like this as well. Cool stuff!

Just caught up here and this is the best advice. Regardless of what you want or intend to do with it, get COAs from PSA or Steiner(only use the big boy authenticators). End of the day if they have expert certificates vouching for authenticity you’ve got a nice asset. If you don’t, they’re gonna be pretty close to worthless and it’s even more perilous if the next person tasked with handling them knows even less about them.

[vinod1]

On 7/27/2025 at 9:21 PM, schin said:

 

@vinod1 - This is pretty cool.  How does he choose to to write to? I tried sending baseball cards when I was younger and had limited success.  I was able to get a dollar signed by Warren Buffett and returned eons ago before he got too famous. 

 

The 2 lbs of mango jelly is pretty cool. Did he send it directly to the White House? Does your dad have a secret on how to get a response? Or what his success rate is? Cool post.

 

schin - Awesome you got Buffett's autograph! I was always thinking that if I ever got interested, he would be the first person I would start with.

 

Yes he sent it to the White House. He is very persistent. If he does not get a response, he would send more background information, enclose copies of relevant autographs, etc. Since he can send copies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, he ends up getting a response. If he does not still get it, he asks PM or President of India to recommend! Amazingly, they seem to comply to his requests  Except for communist/dictators leaders, he got response from pretty much everyone. He is mostly interested in political figures, the only exception are the astronauts, the most famous of whom are Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Buzz Aldrin. He does not seem interested in recent ones.

 

Vinod

 

 

 

 

[vinod1]

On 7/27/2025 at 9:26 PM, Gregmal said:

Just caught up here and this is the best advice. Regardless of what you want or intend to do with it, get COAs from PSA or Steiner(only use the big boy authenticators). End of the day if they have expert certificates vouching for authenticity you’ve got a nice asset. If you don’t, they’re gonna be pretty close to worthless and it’s even more perilous if the next person tasked with handling them knows even less about them.

 

Greg - Thanks for the advice. I would try to get it from PSA or Steiner. Since there are 550 photographs, does authenticating a small sample of say 20 photographs sufficient to give credibility to the whole collection, or does everything need to be authenticated?

 

Vinod

[Gregmal]

44 minutes ago, vinod1 said:

 

Greg - Thanks for the advice. I would try to get it from PSA or Steiner. Since there are 550 photographs, does authenticating a small sample of say 20 photographs sufficient to give credibility to the whole collection, or does everything need to be authenticated?

 

Vinod

Pretty much anything not authenticated will get valued as if it’s fake. That’s just the way it works. If you’re gonna do partials then do the biggest ticket ones first. Pretty sure they do offer bulk discounts. Also it’s cheaper if you don’t need them back urgently. 
 

For instance a non authenticated Babe Ruth might go for $100. Authenticated is $5000-10,000 on the absolute cheapest end. 
 

Perhaps a fun exercise in terms of creating value would be to set small amounts of time aside to research each auto and find the ones with the most value. Authenticating is pretty straight line in terms of cost. So $50 or $100 definitely goes further if you’re authenticating a JFK vs a Joe Biden.  

[vinod1]

On 7/28/2025 at 10:56 PM, Gregmal said:

Pretty much anything not authenticated will get valued as if it’s fake. That’s just the way it works. If you’re gonna do partials then do the biggest ticket ones first. Pretty sure they do offer bulk discounts. Also it’s cheaper if you don’t need them back urgently. 
 

For instance a non authenticated Babe Ruth might go for $100. Authenticated is $5000-10,000 on the absolute cheapest end. 
 

Perhaps a fun exercise in terms of creating value would be to set small amounts of time aside to research each auto and find the ones with the most value. Authenticating is pretty straight line in terms of cost. So $50 or $100 definitely goes further if you’re authenticating a JFK vs a Joe Biden.  

 

Thanks Greg! I like your idea about researching autographs to find ones with the most value.

 

Vinod