SoCal Autograph Odysses

 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 golf tournament here in San Di

 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 Trammell I also have a couple of cards

 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 Tarkenton, and Sonny Jurgensen.  They

 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 that he currently manages

 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 similar styles of autogr

 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 authentic.  The inscriptio

 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 remaining rewards points,

 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.