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“That whole thing is like dealer’s paradise,” Steve Grad tells me. (From personal, purely anecdotal evidence, dealers smell a little like fast food.)Īnd they descend upon the Super Bowl like locusts.

To collectors, they are a blight - moochers, leeches, scum lower than scum, giving their hobby a bad name. They have been known to push and shove to get to the front of crowds, use children for personal gain, foist multiple items on signers, and occasionally become irate when a celebrity points out their schemes. They often exploit the goodwill of the celebrities they’re after, as well as the pure collectors hoping only to complete their collections. A dealer is someone who chases signatures solely to sell them. More importantly, they’re not autograph dealers. Kirscher and Rydel are autograph collectors. “But you’ll see that or hear of others just being real brutal with them and expecting them to sign for them, which is not really cool in my eyes.” If not, it’s not the end of the world,” Rydel says. And if you go “graphing” (what autograph collectors call their hobby for short) the right way, that’s OK. Kirscher says, “Thank you.” And that is that: Kirscher remains 0-fer for the morning. Page, can I get your autograph? You can personalize it.” Kirscher strides forward but keeps a personable distance, and as Alan Page - ‘70s Vikings great, NFL Hall of Famer, and former Minnesota supreme court justice - is maybe a step away from becoming off limits, Kirscher says, “Mr. “I think that’s Page,” Kirscher says, more certain. Kirscher says to Tom Rydel, “Is that Page?”Ībsentmindedly, Rydel asks, “Where did Page go to college?” The stately gentleman is maybe 10 feet from entering Radio Row himself, at which point he will be off limits for an autograph - the purple and teal “NO AUTOGRAPHS” signs make that clear.

To that point, Kirscher has been hunting for an autograph for about an hour and a half without any success, though he has been keeping close tabs on Orlando Pace and Ryan Leaf, both of whom are bouncing from radio interview to radio interview within Radio Row’s tightly cordoned perimeter and, frustratingly, aren’t showing any sign of wrapping up. Sonny Kirscher is standing outside Radio Row at the Mall of America in Minneapolis on the Tuesday morning before Super Bowl LII, and he notices a stately gentleman in a black felt cap. They have a deep and fast recall for faces, a master angler’s intuition of the environment, Zen-like patience, snap-quick reflexes, and, finally, a touch of gentility.Īnd even then, sometimes you whiff. MINNEAPOLIS - You may look down at autograph collectors, but please don’t denigrate the artform.

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