And Then There Were Three

 

Tonight the final three competitors will go at it to see who's the season eight champ on American Idol. You've got Adam Lambert, the Broadway trained stylish guy who screams in every damn song he does, David Gokey, who with his glasses on looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man and Kris Allen, who I know nothing about and assume he's around still mainly because of the teenage girl vote.

As shown above, all three have autographs in Upper Deck's American Idol set. Here's a gallery of the autograph set. According to the prices that the three are selling for, there is a clear front runner. Allen's cards are currently selling on eBay in the $40 range. Gokey's been a little more scattered. While he's had one finish at $110, he also had one close for $18 right before it. The average cost right now is around $50-60. And then there's Lambert. Of the last ten sold, two sold in the $120 range while the last one went for a head-scratching $295. If that's the new benchmark, I don't expect it to go much higher if he does win next week.

As the show comes to a close, expect to see all but a couple of the autographs in the set to plummet in price as the signers disappear back into obscurity. But that doesn't mean that a couple won't reemerge. 

 

Such was the case with Jennifer Hudson. A couple of years ago I picked up a couple right before the Oscar nominations for less than $10. Two months later I had one end within 30 minutes of her winning Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls and managed to get $65 for it. Of course, the price has since dropped again to the $10-20 range but I'd consider it to be one of the better bargains in the non-sport realm as she continues to land strong Hollywood roles all the while singing still.