As I have said before, I think that the future of the industry lies in the creativity in content, and company’s ability to develop unique ways of bringing the collector closer to the game. In the past, this type of situation has been furthered by inscriptions on autographs, different types of themes for sets, and of course, signed swatches embedded in cards.

After seeing a few examples, the signed swatches should be re-considered:

Adrian Peterson/Barry Sanders Dual Signed Swatch With Disappearing Signature

2008 Threads Letter Autograph With Bad Bleeding Signature

2010 Topps Five Star Laundry Tag Dual Auto with Slight Bleeding

2004 Leaf Limited Sandy Koufax Signed Swatch With Bleeding

Basically, the marker’s ink needs a surface to absorb into, and the threading on swatches is not a solid surface. Therefore, even though the ink is permanent, constant contact by other threads near the signature, combined with gravity can push the ink into other parts of the swatch. This “bleeding” of the ink will happen more if the swatch is loosely woven, instead of a patch or number, so the question then becomes whether or not this should continue.

Then again, if this is the alternative, I might just say stick with it.

After looking at examples from recent years, as well as ones further back, the bleeding is almost consistently bad. Im mortified to believe that a card less than 10 years old can be as much of a train wreck as some of them turned out to be. Im hoping that the company representatives who read this site take notice, because I believe that there should be no further inclusion of signed swatches until this problem can be fixed with better markers, or for that matter, better swatch materials.

Not only autographs signed on jersey, but also ones signed on baseball swatches, have similar issues. I am wondering what the issue is with all of this stuff.

Its almost a crap shoot as to whether or not the autographs survive, as some do and some don’t. As we saw on the Sanders/Peterson, the same card had two different examples. Maybe someone who has a more prevalent understanding of these types of signatures can give some insight, because I know that people get jerseys signed all the time, but I rarely see bleeding happen to this degree. Maybe Im just not looking in the right place.