where do i sign?

i've seen several certified autograph cards over the years with signatures in odd places - on the back of the card or sideways along the border or crammed in to fit a small space due to poor photo selection or bad card design. even a card signed on the front and the back! with 2026 topps tribute, i was happy to see steve garvey listed as part of the "crest calligraphy" autograph checklist because topps created a large signature space over the teams' logo. this nolan ryan card

was provided as an example of these cards on the sell sheet. pretty sweet.

when the set was released, garvey autos started popping up in my saved searches, and while i waited a while to pull the trigger, i wound up buying a couple. here's the blue parallel edition, numbered to 150

garvey's signature is still pretty fluid, but this is not the best example. of course, there are hundreds of cards that he had to sign for this set so i am not expecting harmon killebrew levels of effort.

here's the back

it would be nice for topps to identify the type of parallel, but those days are long gone.

so that's nice, right? a bold signature across the dodgers' flying ball logo. 

with multiple levels of parallels, i have seriously curtailed my efforts to collect them all, but i had to add one of the "base" (#'d to 199) autographs from this set

as the garv signed near the bottom of the card. he added his jersey number, but that is clearly not where the autograph is supposed to go. it looks like he also did this with the /50 gold parallels. here's the back of this one

which is the same as the blue parallel back.

tony oliva once told me that he doesn't sign across faces as that is disrespectful, but i doubt garvey was worried about defacing the dodger logo, especially since he seems to have corrected himself at some point. maybe it's just because cards are usually signed near the bottom? 

case in point, here are a couple of other recent garvey auto pickups - 2025 panini impeccable mvp auto / 74

the design left a clear space, and there is actual text on the back!

this is a one and done version of the card - numbered to his mvp year with no parallels.

now here's a 2025 topps diamond icons white polychromatink autograph

again, the signature location is pretty obvious in the design. here's the back

which does not note that this is the red ink variation of the legion of cards garvey had to sign for the set.

i recently saw a clip of garvey saying that he had just signed a thousand more cards for topps - i am hoping that those might be 2027 topps heritage cards. there's plenty of room to sign on that 1978 topps design!