Strom Thurmond may be gone, but you still can get an autographed letter from him in the mail -- if you're the highest bidder.

But look closely; it may not really be his signature.

Since Thurmond's death June 26, the Internet auction house eBay has been inundated with memorabilia spanning his political career. There are letters from the governor's office, bumper stickers from his 1972 Senate campaign, and pins from his 1948 Dixiecrat presidential run.

A copy of his 1947 inaugural speech as governor is being offered for an opening bid of $19.99. Autographed photos start at $9.99, and signed letters have been selling for $50 or more depending on the date and content. The older the better.

Some of these items are generic knickknacks that people have pulled from their attics, such as newsletters mailed to constituents. Others are personal notes congratulating people for such auspicious events as their 90th birthday.

Most of these items are pretty inexpensive, certainly cheaper than signed photos of Katharine Hepburn, who died June 29. Those are running between $90 and $450.

"There's a lot of Strom stuff out there," said Mike Safran, a Columbia antiques and memorabilia dealer. "Probably eBay is driving prices down because there is so much stuff."

The trade-off for lower prices is that you can't see what you're buying, Safran notes. There are tons of campaign bumper stickers and pins, which are fine, but the more unique items are more risky to buy over the computer. For instance, do you really believe that a baseball ($60 opening bid) was signed by Thurmond last year? Ever tried to sign a baseball? And you're probably not 99, as the senator was last year.

Above all, these items speak to the unique character of Thurmond. For instance, one eBay seller offers a photo of a then-70-year-old senator, describing it as "a youngish" Thurmond.

Some memorabilia dealers and official archivists of Thurmond's papers say collectors need to be careful about what they are buying. A lot of the stuff being marketed as autographed items, in a word, ain't.

While it's hard to put a value on a signature -- there are a lot of variables, including what the autograph is on -- Thurmond's distinct scribble was worth about $25 before he died. It now may be edging close to $100, some dealers say. The problem is that his signature is a little rarer than the number of online auctions indicate.

Thurmond's Senate office used an auto-pen for much of its correspondence, and sometimes staffers signed his name.

James Cross, a manuscripts archivist with the special collections unit of the Clemson University Library, where Thurmond's papers are held, said it's a matter of simple logic.

"His Senate office was getting hundreds of letters, and sending out hundreds, every day," Cross said, noting that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to keep up with that much correspondence personally. "He had a lot of things to do."

The volume of personal letters is not surprising, Cross said, because of the legendary constituent service work that Thurmond's office handled.

"There ought to be tons of that stuff out there," Cross said. "If it all came out at once, the bottom would drop out of the market."

Instead, interest built steadily in Thurmond memorabilia as he aged.

So far, campaign buttons and literature from his 1948 run for president as a third-party candidate on the Dixiecrat ticket have sold best.

Safran said collectors interested in these things are mostly history buffs, and Thurmond certainly is of historical interest.

One of Safran's most notable items is a 1954 sample ballot from the Thurmond campaign showing how to write in his name. Thurmond won that election, the only person ever elected to the U.S. Senate on a write-in campaign.

Safran said it's hard to inspect signed items online, and he suspects a lot of the routine items were signed by secretaries. He looks for signs of authentic signatures in personal letters, something outside of the normal congratulations note.

Perhaps the most rare item that Safran is offering online is one of his newest: It's an invitation to Thurmond's 100th birthday party in Washington, the event at which then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott cost himself his leadership post when he said America would have been a lot better had the then-Dixiecrat won the White House in 1948.

Now Lott has more than one reason for wishing he'd held onto that particular invitation.

Contact Brian Hicks at bhicks@postandcourier.com or at (843) 937-5561.