While most were in the Palmer House Hilton’s Red Lacquer Room as this season’s White Sox players were introduced to a crowd, a fairly sizable group of savvy collectors had gathered downstairs in the exhibition hall where game-used equipment, photographs and other Sox memorabilia was for sale.

“This year, Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez were the two hot players,” explained Jeff Szynal, the team’s historian and hall of fame curator, “and [collectors] wanted everything—their bats, gloves, helmets—anything they could get.”

Game-used stuff for sale is nothing new. Former Sox owner Bill Veeck was one of the first to sell it off to local collectors.

“He’d say, ‘Make me an offer,’” Szynal said. “He would use [the proceeds] to make payroll.”

When the Sox saw how successful their sale was of old Comiskey Park artifacts in 1990, Szynal said, the Sox marketing department decided to make it an annual thing. Like the Cubs’ arrangement with their charity arm, proceeds go to White Sox Charities. Game-used equipment, Szynal added, is available for sale “every day” during the season at U.S. Cellular Field.

Sports memorabilia has become a multi-million dollar industry and the professional collectors certainly were present at SoxFest this weekend, just as they were at the Cubs Convention two weeks ago.

Getting lumped in with this group is the considerably larger population of fans who collect autographs and memorabilia for their own enjoyment, with no intention of selling it on e-Bay. But unless you’re a child, some fans say, players seem to have some suspicion for anyone with a Sharpie.

“It’s all for my personal collection,” said Darrin Sopczak, 36, of Tinley Park, “but I can tell when a little one gets an autograph, it’s different than for me.”

Roger Rankin, 66, of Somonauk, said it was well worth the extra $200 upgrade package for SoxFest, which included other goodies such as having breakfast Saturday with members of the pennant-winning Go-Go Sox of 1959. A regular ticket for the weekend was $70.

“Look, you can actually read their handwriting,” Rankin said, pointing out the penmanship of Jim Landis and Billy Pierce. “You should see some of the garbage signatures the current players give. I don’t know if they don’t want to be identified or what. If they don’t put their numbers down, you can’t even begin to identify it.”

Rick Barnett, 24, of Chicago, admitted he comes to SoxFest “mainly for autographs, it’s one of my hobbies. But it’s just a hobby. Unless it’s a Hall of Famer, it’s not going to get you a lot of money anyway.”

Barnett recalled Sox broadcaster and former pitcher Steve Stone, who won the Cy Young in 1980 for Baltimore, told him recently to come back with a pen after he was asked to sign an autograph.

“He said, ‘If I sign with a Sharpie, you’re just going to turn around and sell it on e-Bay.’.” Barnett said. “So I came back the next day with a pen and two cards and he said he’d only sign one because he obviously thought I was going to sell the other one. I wanted to tell him, ‘Your card isn’t worth that much.’”

Mike Carney, 57, of Mount Prospect, said a Sox employee was telling those waiting in line Saturday for a Quentin autograph that he would personalize it (making it less valuable) but he wouldn’t sign bats "on the sweet spot."

Another Sox employee speculated Quentin might have a deal with the bat manufacturer that precludes him from signing one on the sweet spot. Either way, it sort of took the fun out of the whole thing until Carney’s son Ryan, 28, of Bolingbrook, dared to ask Quentin a question, which isn’t encouraged in the autograph line.

“I was dying to ask him if he was eager to get live pitching after his wrist injury,” Ryan said, “and he gave me this look and said, ‘I can’t wait to see some live pitching.’”

Autograph sessions usually do not allow for much interaction, which is why the Carneys said they prefer the photo opportunities.

“It’s more personal, you get to shake hands,” Mike said.

Sox spokesman Scott Reiffert said, conservatively, there will be 17,000 autographs signed at SoxFest.

The irony and—for players who detest the idea of handing over their signature to a collector who will turn around and make a profit from it—the beauty of that, along with the current game-used equipment craze, is that the market probably is getting diluted somewhat.

That is not heartbreaking news for fans like Kris Dixon, 43, of Lake Geneva, a Sox season-ticket holder who attended SoxFest with her husband Dave, 45.

Dixon, who grew up in Bridgeport, said she remembers standing in the parking lot at Comiskey Park and “begging guys for autographs the old-fashioned way.”

Slumped in a corner Saturday, and surveying the scene, Kris Dixon shook her head.

“Personally, I’m disturbed by the whole thing,” she said with a laugh when asked why she came. “I asked my husband in the last line, ‘Why do you like this so much?’

“It makes no sense. I told [my husband], ‘Let’s go to the Art Institute.’ I’m a huge Sox fan, a season-ticket holder. [Getting autographs] at the game, I get that. And I can see little kids with their idols. Me, I’m a grown woman. I feel like a crazy person waiting in line for an autograph and paying for a weekend at the Palmer House.