My Favorite! Suddenly Susan Talks About The Best Piece In Her Collection… Her River Phoenix Signed Jacket!

So, a new column we’re getting going here at MTF is called, “My Favorite.” It’s a great way to showcase some of your favorite pieces. Every collection has their showpieces, I know I can think of several of mine that come to mind.

Check it out below!

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This hobby has a lot of pros and cons. But sometimes the cons are the pros. By that I mean you can spend hours waiting some days and you pass the time by chatting with those around you. I’ve made some lifelong friendships during those hours.

The time certainly flies when you can chat up your auto buddies. One topic that always comes up is what are some of your favorite autographed pieces? It’s so difficult to choose. Mike and I had discussed a scenario of only being able to keep 5 items, as if your life depended on it.

An item popped immediately into my head. The funny thing is that it’s not even an item I got myself. It’s one I purchased. Now, before I get inundated with “you know better than that comments”, let me set the scene.

The year was 1997 and eBay was the place to buy cool stuff. You may remember that I am a huge River Phoenix fan. I scoured the auctions regularly for River memorabilia and amassed quite a nice collection. One item I found was especially intriguing. A young man had a denim jacket worn and signed by River himself. I emailed the seller several times and he was always very forthcoming. His story was that a scene from My Own Private Idaho was filming outside his apartment building in Oregon. He had been outside watching and with zero other Looky Lous he got to chat with River for quite some time. River mentioned that he was cold, and the young man loaned him the jacket, which he wore for the night. When River returned it to him, the young man asked him to sign it and River happily did on the inside pocket.

Is his story BS? Maybe. But, sometimes you just get a feeling and I believed him. He also shared some photos he took of the filming and his address was indeed in Oregon. It sounds like the low key kind of thing River would do and is almost too quirky a story to make up. Plus, the autograph also matches River’s, which is very unique.

So, aside from DNA testing, I’ll never be 100% sure it’s real, but I’m 99.99% and that’s good enough for me. I’m going to continue to believe it’s the real McCoy and enjoy it as one of my absolute favorite pieces of signed memorabilia.