Bill Belichick-TTM

It has been awhile since I tried getting an autograph through the mail, and as mentioned before I usually do a pretty thorough job of researching which sports figures are more apt to send an autograph back.  I also delve a little deeper than that and look into who really signs the stuff sent to them, or who possibly uses a "ghost signer".  Ghost signers are the people that don't actually sign the items you send themselves, but have someone else do it for the.  One athlete rumored to do such a thing is Mike Schmidt, so although people will receive their items in the mail, the signature looks nothing like the signature you'd get from Mr. Schmidt in person.  All this being said, I've been five for five in getting authentic items back in the mail from athletes.  They include Dirk Nowitzki, Ryne Sandberg, Wade Boggs, Al Kaline, and Bobby Doerr.  This time around, I decided to send a couple of 8x10 photos to Patriots head coach and one of the greatest of all time, Bill Belichick.  The idea actually started with me wanting to get one as a gift for my father in law, who is a major Patriots fan, but since I was sending something anyway, I decided to slip another 8x10 in there and see if he'd sign both.  I sent these off around two weeks ago, and yesterday opened the mail to find this...

Needless to say, this was a promising start.  I also like that it comes in an official Patriots cardboard envelope, because there was no way the stuff would bend this way.  upon opening the envelope, I not only received both photos signed as requested, but a letter written by someone in the office of Bill Belichick (I doubt he has the time to write all the mail himself) and signed by him as well.

Pretty cool touch, even if in the likely event someone filled the letter out for him.  My photo came out a bit light compared to the one for my father in law, but that's okay.  It's still a really cool piece to add to my collection.  I'm going to have the 8x10 and letter matted and framed nicely and give it as a gift for my father in law. 

As always, thanks for reading.  I have a couple of more ideas for through the mail signatures from some pretty major athletes that are known to be great signers, so keep an eye out.