SoCal Autograph Odysses

 2021 was a huge year for me from a collecting standpoint.  I don't think I've ever added as many autographs to my collection in one year as I did this year.  Since I currently have zero pending through the mail requests out there, I figured now was as good a time as any to recap my Through the Mail successes.  Please keep in mind there is a tracker I update on this blog for this very purpose.  You can also search by any player name in the upper corner of the blog.  Click the link on every player to read about each and see the photos taken at the time they were returned.  To recap: NFL: Roger Staubach Lance Alworth Frank Tarkenton Aeneas Williams Tony Dorsett Steve Largent Ozzie Newsome James Lofton Sonny Jurgensen Larry Little Kenny Easley Dermontti Dawson Walter Jones Anthony Munoz Jerry Kramer Warren Moon MLB: Whitey Herzog Jim Rice Nolan Ryan Juan Marichal Brooks Robinson Rollie Fingers Bill Mazeroski Tony LaRussa Bert Blyleven Lee Smith Gaylord Pe...

 I received a great item back in the mail yesterday, which came via a signing I found on SportsCollectors.net, via a signing done through Atommic Sports, who I mentioned a few posts back.  Again, it's a very easy way to find out which athletes sign autographs through the mail as well as see which athletes are doing private signings being orchestrated through third parties.  I've added so many autographs to my collection because of that site.  This time, I got Red Sox legend Carl Yastrsemski on a card.   It's not a rookie card, because I didn't feel like shelling out $100 plus for a card, but it is vintage and the blue autograph on the jersey really stands out.  I definitely like the result of this.  I had previously sent in for a Yaz signing in which I received a signed baseball, which is posted here from a couple years back.  

 I've taken a chance on a couple Ebay items recently.  The first one is a Panini Optic blue Ryan Mountcastle on card auto numbered to 75.  The seller accepted my offer, which was 60% of the initial asking price, which surprised me a bit but I think it's a win. I know Panini doesn't hold the same value as Topps and Bowman due to their lack of MLB licensing but I really liked this card in particular.  I think it looks sharp.  Mountcastle also had a very good rookie season, so I think the value of this compared to what I paid right now will arrow up. I also purchased a Bowman Chrome prospects card of one of the better pitching prospects in baseball, Max Meyer of the Miami Marlins.  He was the third pick in the 2020 MLB draft, and while pitchers don't hold the same value as hitters in terms of collecting, for under $10 this screamed bargain bin to me.  When he gets called up, it will also go up a bit and hopefully he hits his immense ceiling. It's not a 1s...

 I decided to stop by two stores the day after Thanksgiving.  My first stop was to Barnes & Noble, because I wanted to so see what signed books they had this year.  I ended up picking up four books.  The first one was I didn't expect to be there, which is a book signed by former NHL great and Hockey Hall of Famer Mark Messier.  'No one Wins Alone'.  I'm still debating what to do with this.  The autograph above is very nice and clean.  I would typically cut the auto and frame it with a photo, similar to what I did with some actors like  Tom Hanks  and  Jim Carrey .  However, signed Messier photos are not super expensive, so I'm debating the cost to final product value. The second book I bought was a personal favorite of mine, as I am a huge fan of 'The Office'.  If you've read along with my blog before, you'll know I took a photo with Brian Baumgartner, the actor that plays Kevin in the show. I met him at a celebrity go...

 Yesterday I received another signed card back from a private signing I found on  sportscollectors.net  and it was through yet another signing done by Tom Orr of Atommic Sports.  I've done most of the baseball private signings through Tom as he has signings constantly lined up and I've never had any issue.  The Yount card that took a month to come back was also through Tom, but was clearly an issue with USPS because he put that in the mail more than one month before I got it.  I felt it was time to give him a shoutout as I've added a lot to my collection thanks to Tom's signings.  The Trammell signing happened on 11/5 and I got the card back two weeks later.   As you can see, I went with the 1987 Topps, as I have done for Rafael Palmeiro, Cal Ripken Jr., Jim Rice, Barry Larkin, and Carlton Fisk.   I have now used Tom Orr for the following signings; Pete Rose Trevor Hoffman Orlando Cepeda Cal Ripken Jr. Barry Larkin Robin Yount Alan ...

 This was a return I was actually nervous about not coming back, since the guy who organized the signing with Robin Yount had put my card in the mail over a month ago and it did not show up until yesterday.  I've used this gentleman on quite a few occasions, so I did not think the issue was on his side but the USPS.  Sure enough, when the envelope arrived it had many markings on it, as if it went to the wrong place and then got redirected at a later time. I have to admit, I always gamble by using standard white envelopes and shipping on my returns, so the fact that none of my items have been lost in the past (either through TTM requests directly to the athlete or through a set up signing like this one) is actually quite lucky.  There is no tracking when I do it this way so there really is no recourse if something goes awry on the return back.   This is the first signed item I have of Mr. Yount. 

 The November train kept rolling along as I received my request from Warren Moon back the same day I received my Landon Donovan return.  As you have probably noticed if you have read this blog at any point in the past, I typically send out only one card per request I send to an athlete.  The reasoning behind that is that I don't sell or trade my collection, so I only want and need one card.  However, this request ended up being a bit different because Mr. Moon charges $10 per request and I only had a $20 but had two cards, so sent them both in rather than trying to make change.  I like the results on both, though typically I will send a vertical card rather than a horizontal one.  This time I sent one of both. Warren also added the HOF 06 inscription as I requested, which is a nice boost to the cards.  I've had pretty amazing success with Hall of Fame Quarterbacks.  This joins right along with Peyton Manning, Roger Staubach, Dan Fouts, Fran Tarken...

 November has been a terrific hit rate month so far, as over the weekend my last two remaining TTM requests came back.  The first that I'm going to post about is the one I waited a longer time for, and that is of Landon Donovan, arguably the greatest US mens national team soccer player of all time.  Landon had a fantastic career, leading the LA Galaxy to multiple titles, getting loaned out to English Premier League club Everton, and starting his career well in the Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen.  At one point, he even had a brief spell and Bayern Munich, one of the world's giant clubs.  For those that don't know, when Landon was doing all of this, it came at a time when not many Americans if any had ever been able to get into that level of world soccer clubs.  He also scored some of the biggest goals is USMNT history in the World Cup.  I was excited to take the risk and send a card back in late July to the San Diego Loyal, a local lower tier club tha...

 Thanks to information gathered from my usual source, SportsCollectors.net, I was able to participate in a private signing being done with Vladimir Guerrero, the elder.  I found his 1994 Upper Deck prospect card and decided that it had a very good background on it for an autograph.  Plus, I found one on eBay for $4.50, so this was one of the rare instances where I thought sending a rookie card to a signing made sense for me.  I really like the result, and it came with JSA authentication.  I opted to have the sticker put on the back, which I know makes a lot of collectors squeamish to think about.  In my case though, I don't really have to send this one in to get slabbed now and I don't really plan on ever selling anything anyway.  I pulled Vlad's son Vlad Jr. in a Topps Heritage blaster retail box back in April, so I was able to add both of these sluggers in the same year, which is cool. As you can see by comparing the two autographs, they have very si...

 In what ended up being one of my longer waits to get a return back, over this past weekend I received a signed card back from former PGA tour member Ben Crenshaw.  Ben won 19 PGA tour events, the two most notable being Masters Champion, once in 1984 and again in 1995.  Having used  SportsCollectors.net  as I always do, I knew that the turnaround time on Mr. Crenshaw successes could be a few months, which turned out to be very accurate.  I can't recommend enough using this site for anyone interested in this hobby.  I chose a 2013 Upper Deck card as my go to for this autograph, as the background is white and he is wearing a light shirt, perfect for an autograph.  

 Over the weekend, I received two more through the mail requests.  The first one I am posting about is of former Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Jerry Kramer, who was inducted into the pro football Hall of Fame in 2018.  Jerry was a member of the NFL's all decade team of the 1960's.  In sticking with my strategy of picking a card that has a good background for an autograph and won't break the bank, I chose a 2019 Panini Legacy Legends version.  Mr. Kramer was also kind enough to inscribe HOF 2018 on the card as well. I've had pretty great success with some of the NFL's greatest lineman via TTM requests.  This card goes in line with successes such as Bob Lilly, Anthony Munoz, Walter Jones, Larry Little, and Dermontti Dawson. 

 After a slow October, November has come in hot with multiple returns in just a few days of time.  Late Friday afternoon, I found one return in my inbox so raced back into the house to see who it was.  Upon opening the envelope, I discovered it was Basketball Hall of Famer, and former star in both the ABA and NBA, Artis Gilmore.  The odd thing about this return is that it looks like the autograph and and the HOF 11 inscription are different color ink.  I can't tell if that's because the background of the card is two different colors, or if it's actually a different sharpie.   I tried looking up different version of his inscription on other items, but every one I see is quite a bit different, which is peculiar.  I have no idea if Mr. Gilmore signed it or not, and that's part of the gamble with requests when you don't see the person signing in front of you.  The signature itself does look like other examples, so I think that part at least is au...

 Since October was a bit of a slow month, I have added a handful of non big name additions, which I will share here.  The first I'll mention is of course a member of my favorite team in any sport, the Los Angeles Kings.  I actually had accumulated some Panni Rewards points and decided to cash those in to add Dustin Brown to my personal collection.  I now have all the main members of the Kings two Stanley Cup winning teams in my collection.  Anze Kopitar (puck, photo, card), Dustin Brown (Puck, card), Drew Doughty (puck, photo), and Jonathan Quick (card).  This is a clean, on card auto so I couldn't pass it up. I think the premise of the 'Social Signatures' is a bit hokey but the card was from 2012, the first year the Kings won the Cup.  I'm happy to add this one.   The other card I added was a Rookie Patch Auto, or RPA, of NBA former high pick Justice Winslow.  The kid didn't pan out as everyone expected, but to be honest with only 250 r...

 For the second time in a few days, I received a through the mail request from an NBA Hall of Famer.  This return comes from former Utah Jazz (among other teams) Adrian Dantley.  Mr. Dantley signed the card I sent nicely in blue, with the HOF 2008 inscription. 

 It what has been a really slow October, I was happy to receive a through the mail request from former Houston Rockets and NBA Hall Of Famer Calvin Murphy.  Mr. Murphy also wrote out the Hall of Fame 93 inscription rather than the standard HOF 93 you'll see.   He also wrote a quick note on the back of my letter of request, which is a nice touch.  In the nest day or two I'll have a post about some October adds through other means than through the mail requests.  Also, I have a few private signings that should be coming back here over the next few weeks.  I have another that may have gotten lost as it got shipped back.  

 Yesterday I had another one of my through the mail requests come back, and this time it was NBA Hall of Famer and former Piston Dave Bing.  I had searched Ebay to find a card that would look good signed, and ended up choosing the 1969 Topps.  I like the look of the older cards signed, granted I can find one relatively cheap and also lending itself to a good clean signature.  I have found that with NBA cards in particular, there is often a dark background on the action shots because the arenas are dark in the stands, so sometimes it's tough to find a good card to have signed. Dave played in the 60's and 70's so isn't as household of a name to modern NBA fans, but based on what I looked up, he was one of the first point guards to also be a scorer as well as a facilitator.  He was the Rookie of the Year in 1966-67, a 7x All Star, and the 1967-68 scoring champion.  Look up his basketball reference page  here .   I recently bought a few more NBA ...

 A legend in the world of golf came through in the clutch, and returned an 8x10 photo I sent him back to me signed.   Jack Nicklaus is one of the absolute legends of his sport, so getting this back was one of my better all time success stories in this through the mail autograph hobby.  The only downside is during travel the photo did get a couple of creases in small areas, but that can happen and is often expected when sending photos back and forth.  This return took about six weeks to eight months, check my through the mail tracker on this blog to confirm exactly how long.  I like the fact that Mr. Nicklaus chose a light spot of the photo to sign, because it really makes the autograph stand out. 

 I went to Walmart last week, and for the first time in quite some time, actually found some product on the shelves.  I bought two Panini Prestige football blasters, one Panini Prizm baseball mega box, and one Topps Chrome baseball mega box.  I actually did hit an autographed card in the Topps Chrome box, which was not guaranteed.  The auto was a RC refractor numbered to 499 of Luis Garcia, the pitcher on the Astros. This isn't the worst hit, as it's numbered and it's a rookie card.  Plus, Garcia has had a pretty good first season and the Astros are very good at churning out good Major League caliber pitching.  There is some upside here even though it is a pitcher.  It's also an on card auto, which aesthetically is more appealing.  The Prizm box was guaranteed an auto, but my hit wasn't great.  I pulled a Billy McKinney auto.  He currently plays for the Dodgers but I believe he previously played for both the Brewers and the Blue Jays....

 On Friday I received a pretty cool return through the mail, coming back from a private signing that I found on SportsCollectors.net .  A couple months ago I sent a Winfield rookie card to the third party that was doing the signing, and it had a bit of extra meaning to me since the card is when Winfield was a member of the San Diego Padres.     

 Target has been selling cards online for awhile, and it's hard to find the products people want because they have bots programmed to pick up all the good stuff immediately.  That, combined with the fact I have to wake up at 4am pacific time to even have a shot at anything has made it very difficult to procure and NFL or NBA product.  Last week, I was actually able to get one blaster of Panini Select NBA and one blaster of Panini Prizm WNBA.  On top of that, I also bought a hobby box of 2021 Topps Fire baseball, which comes with two guaranteed autographs.  The products arrived today, and after finding nothing of note from an autograph perspective in either basketball product, I opened the Fire box last.  I knew going in that the cards aren't really my style, and seem to be more targeted at kids with their design.  I figured that I'd have to hit some good autos to make the box worth my while.  In my opinion, I did pretty well.  The first card ...

 I promise that I'm really not the type to send multiple requests to one person through the mail, however in the case of MLB Hall of Famer and former Chicago Cub Ryne Sandberg, I've sent items to him on three separate occasions. The reason behind this that the first time I sent an autograph request to him through the mail, I asked him to sign a baseball.  When I started switching to trying to obtain autographed cards more often, I sent him a Diamond Kings card.  However, when I first got that card back I realized immediately that I made a poor choice in card to send, since Ryne was wearing blue in the artwork of the card and he signed in blue.  Therefore, the autograph was lost a bit into the card.  This time, I decided to send a rookie card, and the result was much more to my liking.  As a side note, if anyone has a duplicate autograph that they are willing to part with for a Ryne Sandberg auto, let me know.  Also, if you want to check out the previou...

 I have previously met Fergie Jenkins twice, once at the Tristar show in San Francisco in 2012, and once in 2016 at the MLB All Star Fan Fest in San Diego.  Both of those experiences were captured on this blog, so I recommend going and searching for those by using the search feature on the home page.  In 2016 I just chatted with him, but in 2012 I actually got a signed baseball with the HOF '91 inscription.  If you're a common reader of this blog, you'll recognize that over the last couple years I've started focusing on getting cards signed by Hall of Famers, since they take up less space and more importantly, I don't have to stress as much about them fading or bleeding like I have to do with baseballs and photos.  As such, I sent a through the mail request to Fergie a couple weeks ago.  Yesterday, he returned the card signed along with a mini postcard style photo.  

 Most people my age know exactly what the 1999 US Women's National Soccer team was all about.  They won the World Cup at the Rose Bowl, and the country got swept up in their success.  The success they had was even parlayed into a professional women's soccer league, though it didn't last quite as long as it should have the first time around.  The ladies and their success was the first wave of what has become a dominant run of the USWNT, from the likes of Mia Hamm leading to Abby Wambach, then on to Carly Lloyd to Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan.  The most iconic goal scored by the team though, was scored by Brandi Chastain during penalties.  Everyone knows what happened next.  But if you need a recap, click this  link .   I wrote a letter to Brandi explaining that the autograph was actually for my daughter, who loves playing soccer and that the influence she got from me to play the sport actually originally stemmed from me watching that tea...