'WOW!' Capablanca Signed Letters

In this long running series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010; already 15 years and still chugging along), autographed items pop up frequently. Autographs by World Champions, where the previous post was Lasker's Future Community (December 2024; book '1940 signed by Emanuel Lasker'), are particularly sought after. For this post I noticed four similar items, pictured below.

The item in the top left was titled, 'WOW! Letter 1903 Chess Legend Jose Raul Capablanca AUTOGRAPH SIGNED'. It sold for '$1,599.99 or Best Offer', which was around $1500. The other three items appear to have sold for their asking price.

The titles of those three items were nearly identical to the top left 'Letter 1903', i.e. 'Letter 1904', 'Letter 1898', and 'Letter 1908'. All four letters sold in April, within a span of three weeks.

What were the letters about? Only the buyers can answer that question. The descriptions of the four items were just copies of their titles, adding no other information.

For a previous auction from another seller -- 'Signed by famous actor and chess player Jose R Capablanca' -- see Not a Coincidence (August 2019). A few years ago I corresponded with a collector of chess autographs. He signed off the conversation saying,

Of course I can't guarantee that all my chess autographs are genuine, but I mostly buy from people I think I can trust. Besides, who would try to sell fake chess autographs? There is much more money to be made with movie stars, musicians and sportsheroes.

I would compare collecting autographs to hunting wild mushrooms. If you don't know what you're doing (and I don't) you risk getting a belly ache. For more about the subject, see ChessAutographs.com (May 2016).