The Professor Enters The Room

I have a couple of recent pickups that I am pretty stoked about, this is one card that has been near the top of my list for a while. In January Russell Johnson passed away, he was probably most well-known for his role as the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, though his acting career spanned nearly 50 years.

 

I had been looking to add his autograph to my collection for about a year now and when he passed away his autographs launched up in price. There are a number of licensed autographs from Panini, Donruss and Rittenhouse, and someday I hope to add some of these to my collection, but the one that I have been waiting for is this Dart card.

 

This card is part of a Dart Gilligan’s Island release in 1997 and even though this is a TTM autograph what drew me to this card is that the scene is from my favorite episode “The Invasion”. In the episode the castaways find a brief case marked “Secret” and Gilligan accidently handcuffed the case to his wrist. While he is sleeping he has a dream where he is Super Spy 0014 (because he is twice as good as 007). This scene is from the beginning of his dream where the Professor, acting as an M-like character, briefs Gilligan.

 

The card shot up in price after Johnson’s death and I have been waiting patiently for it to drop back down, and like most of Russell Johnson’s autographs, it finally did drop in price. After months of sitting at $19.99 and not selling the dealer first dropped it to $14.99 and then finally down to $11.99. I am very excited to have this card finally, now I can start looking to add a Dawn Wells autograph to my collection.