1924 John Wayne Signed Yearbook

Appraised on: August 18, 2007

Appraised in: Las Vegas, Nevada

Appraised by: Mike Gutierrez

Category: Collectibles

Episode Info: Las Vegas, Hour 1 (#1216)

Originally Aired: May 12, 2008

IMAGE: 1 of 2  

Appraisal Video: (1:47)

GUEST: My husband found it at a garage sale and he loves old books, old yearbooks, things like that, and he saw the date on it and thought, well, maybe somebody famous could be in it, so he bought it for 25 bucks.

APPRAISER: 25 bucks?

GUEST: 25 bucks.

APPRAISER: For an old, dilapidated yearbook like this from a yard sale.

GUEST: I know.

APPRAISER: Well, it's from 1924, and I saw that it's Union High School from Glendale, California. The yearbook is named Stylus. The front cover is loose, so what I'm going to do is just remove it over here to the side so that we can take a look inside the book here and see someone indeed that is famous on this particular page. And this gentleman right here in the junior class of high school, as the junior class vice president, is a man named Marion Morrison, otherwise known as John Wayne. This is him as a 16-year-old in high school. Of course, he went on to play football at U.S.C. and then subsequently worked in the movies and became John Wayne. But this is a really, really early example of his signature. There was one book from his senior year, the following year, 1925, that was appraised and sold at auction at about $2,500. But it was unsigned. This rare one, signed, in this lesser condition, would have a value in auction of about $3,000 to $4,000.

GUEST: No kidding.

APPRAISER: Not a bad find for $25.

GUEST: For $25, that's right.