Want to Collect Celebrity Autographs? Check out Stararchive.com!
Written: Aug 08 '04 (Updated Aug 08 '04)
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Ever since I was a child I have been collecting autographed photos of celebrities. It is a neat hobby and can really be a lot of fun. I go through spells where I will really be into it and then stop for months and then get back into it. Back in March 2003 I was back into getting the autographs. I had made a huge list of all of the celebrities that I wanted to try to get their autograph. I looked around the internet to try to find the addresses of my favorite stars. I found a site called Stararchive.com that has been really helpful to me in getting the information that I needed.
Stararchive is a site that has addresses for most any celebrity that you could be interested in. You can sign up to have an account with them and post your results when you write to a celebrity. By seeing the results that others have had with a certain person you will know what to expect when you write to them. I love being able to know if it is going to be a waste of time before I put money and time into it.
Back when I joined in 2003 the service was free. For several months I used the site nearly daily. Then I needed a break. So I stopped that for awhile. Recently I had wanted to write to some celebrities so I went back to the site that helped me so much in the past. Unfortunately, the service is no longer free. There is a letter on the site explaining why they are now charging. The database grew to be so big that they just couldn’t do it as a free service anymore. I can understand that everything does cost money, but I was still disappointed to have to pay for the service. The fee is small though and if you are big into collecting autographs this could be a great site for you to use.
Using the site is easy. Across the top of your screen you will see: My Stars, Last Changes, Stars A-Z, Requests, Add Info, Search, Forum, Help, and Log Out. At the My Stars section you can keep up with all of your own personal information. There is a place where you can track the celebrities you’ve written to, you can track the letters you’ve sent and manage your autographs and have a current status of all of your requests. By adding your information you are also helping others that want to add to their collection.
Fees:
Monthly $4.99 -or-
6 Months $23.95 (save over 20% by going this way)-or-
12 months #34.95 (save over 40% by going this way)-or-
They do want to reward their loyal members by giving a reduced price for those who subscribe for a 6 or 12 month period.
Payments Accepted:
Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Visa Delta, Paypal, Electronic Check, Western Union Money Transfers (only available for yearly membership), direct transfer to their German bank account (only available for yearly mermbership)
Current Statistics:
Celebrities 49,000 +
Scans 29,000 +
Test Results 158,000 +
Pending 30,000 +
Contact Information:
General Questions: community@stararchive.com
Questions about Billing: billing@stararchive.com
Misc. Info:
This online website started up in 1997. At that time they had only about 500 addresses. Since then more and more people have became involved and the site has continued to grow. I have really enjoyed using the site. I can look up a celebrity by their name or you can look up by “claim to fame”. Like if you wanted to see everyone they had in their database for a certain show you could just type in the show name and all of the listings would come up. That is a nice feature especially when you are looking for a certain celebrity, but can’t remember their real name. Then once you find the celebrity you are looking for you can see what kind of luck others have had. It will tell you how many have gotten a response and how many have gotten a return to sender. When you enter information into the site you can add your own comment such as “received ISP after 16 days”. When you see a lot of good comments about a celebrity you can expect to get a response also. When you see someone that has a bunch of return to senders then you know not to waste your time.
Many abbreviations are used at the site. You can find a complete listing of them at the site, but here is some of the commonly used ones:
CSP = Color Signed Photo
COA = Certificate of Authenticity
ISP = Inscribed Signed Photo
SASE = Self Addressed Stamped Envelope
My Personal Experiences:
I have gotten a lot of responses from writing to celebrities. I always write a hand written letter. I tell the star why I like them and ask them for an autographed photograph. I also send a SASE envelope with each of my letters. This makes it easier for the celebrity to respond. Plus if they are going to be kind enough to provide me a photograph and to autograph it then I don’t mind spending some for the postage. Sure, I have lost money on some of them. The ones I have gotten have more than made up for the lost money though.
Here are some of the stars that I have gotten personally autographed photos from: Bill Cosby, Sally Field, Susan Sarandon, Judge Judy, Betty White, Bea Arthur, Mary Tyler Moore, Della Reese, Marla Gibbs, Ken Osmond, Henry Winkler, Barbara Walters, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Tom Selleck, Jane Wyatt, Robin Williams, Jane Seymour, Roma Downey, Craig T. Nelson, Goldie Hawn, and LOTS of country music stars and NASCAR drivers. There are many other celebrities that I have gotten pre-signed photos from. It is always so much fun to add a new photo to my collection. I have a separate calendar that I keep up with when I mail out letters so that I know exactly how long it took to get a response.
Autograph collecting is a fun hobby that can be done pretty inexpensively. You can go to the site and take a free tour to see what the site looks like. That will let you know what to expect. Personally speaking I have gotten a lot of great results from the addresses that I have used at the site.
One word of caution:
If you sign up with the site you will be automatically billed unless you cancel. I came back for a month of service to see if I was really going to get back into writing a lot. I paid with paypal and noticed on my paypal account that another payment is set to come out in 30 days. So if you decide that you don't want the service you need to make sure and cancel or you will be charged.
Many thanks to Joubert who added this to Epinions for me.
Recommended:
Yes
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wifeofvolsfan
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