SoCal Autograph Odysses

 I guess that vocalizing my lack of through the mail successes on my last post triggered something in the universe, because the next one came back just two days later. Former Broncos safety and NFL Hall of Famer Steve Atwater returned a card to me.  As you can see, it's a bit of a simple autograph but I'll never complain about a free autograph from a Hall of Famer, that's for sure. This request was actually sent to the Broncos stadium in Denver a little over a month ago. To keep track of all my requests, check out the link to the tracker on the first page.

 I knew it was bound to happen at some point with the amount of requests I have been successful with over the last few years, but the sheer number of returns I've been getting has slowly been dwindling down. It was to be expected as when I started out on this project I was specifically targeting the athletes that had the highest % of success rate and quick returns that were cheap. From there, I started going after some of the guys that were a bit pricier, and then when I figured out the Canadian mailing situation I started sending to players that resided there as well. When you combine all these facts with the main fact that 98% of the time I'm going to only send requests to Hall of Famers, then you start working with a limited pool of players. As such, the number of pending requests I currently have is smaller than it was during any point over the last few years sans the times I took some brief hiatuses. That being said, the dry spell was ended with a return coming back from f

 Back in February, I sent a Tom Glavine 1988 Topps rookie card to a third party I found on  sportscollectors.net  that was going to be conducting a signing with Tom in May. Well, the signing recently happened and I got my item returned to me back through the mail yesterday. As you can see, I also paid for the HOF 14 inscription as well. It's getting to the point where there aren't a lot of living baseball Hall of Famers I have left to add to my collection. I currently have a couple of more cards currently out for two more private signings going on, both of which I will be excited to post about on this blog when I get them back. Again, for anyone interested in getting into this hobby, I cannot recommend sportscollectors.net enough. It is a one stop shop for all private signings and through the mail request rates/addresses etc.  

 May has been a slow month by recent standards, so it figures that what broke up the monotony of not getting any autographs was arguably the biggest name now in my autograph collection. Leo Messi, arguably the greatest soccer player of all time or at least on the Mt. Rushmore, has a contract with Icons.com in England. He has been their exclusive athlete for ten years, so they are rightfully seen as the apex of Leo signed memorabilia. I was recently perusing their website when I cam across some Messi signed artwork that they still had available. After communicating with my wife about this particular item and getting her stamp of approval (important when dealing with expensive items), I ordered one. Just a few days later, it was delivered to my home from England.  I am absolutely ecstatic with this piece, and like the fact that it was also signed by the artist and numbered 35/100. On the back is all of the authentication from Icons including the date it was signed (April 13th 2022 in Par