Berry Gordy Jr. Autographs

[DWSheffer]

As a longtime autograph collector of many genres when I got into collecting Motown memorabilia in 2012 it was only natural I would want to add examples of as many Motown artists/alumni as I could to my collection.

Berry Gordy Jr. has always been considered what collectors call an "elusive signer", meaning the obvious that his signature is difficult to obtain via mail requests or in person. The bulk of what is available on the market today are signed copies of "To Be Loved", which I feel Berry likely signed more autographs on the book tour in 1994-95 than he had likely ever signed in his life previous.

Over the last 10+ years I've seen vintage 1960's signatures of most all the Motown notables, up through their deaths or current times, but I've never seen a vintage 1960's or earlier signature of Berry Gordy. My question is do any of the members have anything signed by BG in the 1960's or even 1970's that they could post here? I've seen a couple contracts "signed" by Mr. Gordy online but they appear to be signed by an agent as they have their initials next to the Gordy "signature" [[that doesn't resemble his known autograph), which a signatory has to do when signing a document on behalf of someone else. I have several items signed by BG in my collection now, but would love to have a vintage 1960's signature at some point.
Thank you,
Darin

[jsmith]

Motown / BG sent lots of letters to Dave Godin the the UK in the early / mid. I guess he'd have signed all / most of those personally.

[DWSheffer]

What happened to Dave's archive jsmith? Any idea if it went to a university/library or such that might have it available for research?
Thanks,
Darin

[SatansBlues]

Berry Gordy signed my copy of To Be Loved when he was on his promotional tour. Fun little side note, Coretta Scott King was there with him when he was signing his books in Atlanta.

[jsmith]

It seems SOME of Dave's stuff ended up at Chetham's Library [[Manchester) ... HOWEVER ... a lot of Dave's collection seems to have been destroyed or plundered. After Dave Godin’s death a friend of the Library arranged for them to get a small collection of papers belonging to Dave before they were thrown away. They got half a dozen boxes but little remained of Godin's archive. His photographs and letters had been removed & quite a few of them appeared on ebay soon after. Most of the stuff relating to his involvement with Tamla Motown had gone, that stuff including all his fairly lengthy correspondence with Berry Gordy.

[DWSheffer]

That's very sad that Dave's archive wasn't kept together for posterity's sake. Even with my own collection I know I should have it in writing somewhere that I want the Motown Museum to have dibs on what I have so it can be exhibited for future generations to see and enjoy.
Darin

[DWSheffer]

Thank you to forum member Woodward for sending me this copy of a 1964 Berry Gordy autograph from the book "Hitsville: The Birth of Tamla Motown". I see it's very similar to how he still signs today. Sometimes people's autographs change over the years. For instance, Diana Ross' signature changed from the early days to how she started signing around 1965. Her "D" on Diana became more fanciful than how she originally signed them.
Darin