We’ve written before about how some celebrities won’t sign autographs with a blue pen. In fact, Claire Foy refused to give her autograph to a fan recently, explaining that she doesn’t “do blue”.
This is because blue ink is easy to scan and forge, so some A-listers avoid it altogether. But it turns out that blue isn’t the only forbidden fruit in the world of celebrity autographs ― certain stars won’t sign blank sheets of paper, either.
Why?
Well, part of it has to do with (you guessed it) money.
Autograph hounds shared that some celebs refuse to sign on a blank sheet of paper, also known as a ‘blank’ in the industry.
‘Blanks’ are worth less than a signature which is written on a poster or prop, not only because the former has added fan appeal, but also because of the quality of the paper involved.
World of Autographs shared that in some cases, “The collector has the celebrity sign the blank sheet of ink-jet paper (usually in a blue Sharpie as most other colours do not work), then later, once they are home, they load the paper into their ink-jet printer and print an image of their choice onto the sheet and over the autograph. For some reason this works and does not damage the autograph.”
This links back to Claire Foy’s “I don’t do blue” policy.
The autograph then degrades much more quickly than an autograph written onto a poster or prop would ― “Unfortunately, ink-jet photos can start to fade very quickly (sometimes as quickly as a month) depending on the quality of the paper and what types of ink they used to print the photo. They are very cheap to create and of very cheap quality,” World of Autographs shared.
On top of that, autograph hunters themselves admit that you can print any image you like onto the paper.
“Some celebrities, especially those with nude photos circulating, refuse to sign blanks, because any photo can be printed over it,” they added.
So, those who “don’t do blue” might also shoot you a “no blanks, thanks” if you’re asking them to sign a sheet of printer paper.