Les Wolff Created the First Live Sports Auction Now He's Selling Part of His Collection

In the 1970s, Les Wolff was a kid taking Major League ballplayers on the subway to Yankee Stadium. The ballplayers wanted to get to the stadium early to get treatment for their aches and pains and didn’t want to wait for the team bus. 

Wolff loved getting autographs and found that hanging out by team hotels gave him easy access to athletes. The autographs were great, but so were the friendships he made. 

Wolff at his booth during the 2024 Cleveland National. 

He stays in touch with Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, who he often accompanied on those subway rides. He remembers taking Ron Hunt, a New York Met for the first four years of his career, on the subways as a Montreal Expo in the early 1970s.

“Ron Hunt wasn’t scared of a 100-mile-per-hour fastball, but he was scared of taking the train,” Wolff recalls with a laugh. “Back in the day, the 70s and 80s, the players were a lot more approachable, and they were a lot friendlier. I was a high school kid and knew my way around with trains.”

The joy he got from collecting autographs and memorabilia ultimately turned from a hobby to a way of life.

In 1986, he hosted the first live sports auction at the Doral Tuscany in Manhattan. He had people in attendance in one of the hotel’s conference rooms while wheeling and dealing on the phone. 

Wolff is selling this Mantle autograph. 

“Back then, you had to call up people a lot to get their bids,” Wolff said. “You mainly had to get people on the phone, and it was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work. We had a lot of boxing stuff; that was our niche.”

Wolff found his auctions were fun and profitable. He continued with a business partner for a few more years until the partnership ended. All the while, Wolff turned his passion into a living, but he remained true to his collecting roots as his autograph collection kept growing.  

“I just continued collecting what I like and dealing with that,” Wolff says. 

An autograph of former heavyweight champion Primo Carnera

in Wolff’s inventory.

He fondly remembers his friendship with Muhammad Ali, whose boxing icon was Sugar Ray Robinson. Wolff would often trade Sugar Ray memorabilia with Ali in exchange for his autograph.

He updates his collection to this day, which features an autograph from every Heisman Trophy winner and an autograph from every heavyweight boxing champion, starting with John L. Sullivan, who won the heavyweight title in 1882.

But Wolff is moving, and he wants to sell part of his collection. He says he has 700 autographed books and dozens of autographed baseballs. 

“As I’m getting older, it’s becoming harder and harder to carry this stuff and bring it to a show,” he says. “So the more stuff I can sell via mail, the better.”

Some of the items have encompassed a 60-year journey.

For example, he has a 1971 Baseball Register signed by every player featured in the book that took him 53 years to complete. Wolff also has a complete 1975 Topps Basketball set signed by every player. He has a hockey register signed by 321 players (he knows the exact number) and a book autographed by 49 of the 50 greatest NBA players from 1996 (missing Maravich).

Wolff says there are about a “half dozen” 1933 Goudey Gehrig autographs. Asking price: $250k.

He is still looking for one missing autograph from the 1964 Topps Baseball set, a 587-card set! He has contacted Tommy Harper (card #330) by phone, mail, email and through friends. But for some reason, Harper has never replied.    

“The only thing I haven’t done is drive to his house, which I don’t want to do,” Wolff says. “The best part of this business is hearing the story from some of these collectors and seeing how hard they worked to get an autograph. I have to get lucky to get something signed by [Harper] in the future.” 

A ticket signed by Dave Winfield from his 3,000-hit game.

Wolff offers some parting advice in our conversation.

“There’s widespread forgeries, and James Spence, PSA, and others have helped the business,” Wolff said. “But there’s stuff that they label inconclusive that you got in person - it leaves a sour taste. But Jimmy Spence revolutionized space. There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. If a price is too good to be true, there’s a reason why.”

You can follow Les Wolff on Twitter and Instagram with the @LesWolffSports handles or through his website at www.leswolffsportsllc.com.