SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Yesterday I received the last of all of my recent through the mail requests, as I got a return from former St Louis Cardinals (before they moved to Arizona) cornerback Roger Wehrli. He was kind enough to include his HOF '07 inscription, and the card I chose to send him was a 1976 Topps. As mentioned, this is the last of the returns I expect to get back at this point. I have a couple of other pending requests but it has been months now so I will assume those ones are gone. I'm going to need to find a new batch of players that is signing through the mail, but it's getting tougher and tougher to find Hall of Famers I do not have yet in my collection. 

 I had the opportunity to send a couple of cards in to a signing with two hockey and NHL Hall of Famers, Brett Hull and Adam Oates. Both of these players played smack dab in the middle of the timeframe that I grew up watching hockey, so I have many memories of both. Hull was always a sniper that scored goals and Oates was a great passer and playmaker.  I've had that Brett Hull Upper Deck card for years and even as a kid always thought it lent itself to being perfect for an autograph. Turns out I was right, because that card looks great signed on the ice where he signed it. I now have both Hulls in my autograph collection, father and son. I purchased the Oates 1987-88 Topps rookie card because red is an easy color to see a signature over and because it was an affordable option. The interesting thing about sending in to hockey Hall of Famer signings is that they are always so much cheaper than all but the oldest baseball Hall of Famers. It is really easy to build a hockey signed...

 It's always a good success when you get a through the mail request returned, and even more so when it's a Hall of Fame quarterback. That's what happened yesterday, when I received my card back from former Miami Dolphins QB Bob Griese. Griese was the QB of the Dolphins team that went 14-0 for the first handful of game before getting injured and having to be replaced, but he did return to lead the team to the Super Bowl that season. I now have 10 signed cards from NFL Hall of Famers. Peyton Manning Brett Favre Drew Brees Sonny Jurgensen Roger Staubach Frank Tarkenton Warren Moon Dan Fouts Jim Kelly Bob Griese

 My last post of the day will be a guy that people my age will remember as "The Dream", NBA Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon. I was never a big NBA guy compared to the other major sports but I do remember watching Olajuwon play with a finesse seldom seen in big men in the NBA.  The card above is a 2020-21 Panini Mosaic auto that I added via eBay. A Pattern I've begun noticing is that a lot of Hall of Famers charger more to send a card to a private signing than their certified autos go for on the resell market. In other words, it was cheaper for me to buy this than to buy a card, send it in to a signing, and pay the fee for the signature. I've added a few Mosaic autos similar to the above over the last couple of years. A couple were cards I pulled from packs myself like Fabio Cannavaro and others I bought like Wayne Rooney. The shininess to the cards make the sticker autos harder to see in my opinion, which is a bonus. 

 Sorry for the information dump but I have accumulated quite a few cool autographs over the past six weeks or so and hadn't caught up on the posts until today. Three of those additions were Major League Baseball Hall of Famers. Well technically two of them are already in and one is expected to make it over the next few years.  The first autograph is of Mike Schmidt. I had not yet added Mr. Schmidt to my autograph collection and had considered either sending a request through the mail or via a private signing, which he does a few of every year. However, there are rumors (it's likely more substantiated than rumors based on how they look) that his TTM autographs are actually ghost signed. In terms of the private signings I noticed that buying a certified auto straight off eBay was actually cheaper than sending in my own card to get signed, so that was the route I took.  The second autograph I want to discuss is another Topps Heritage autograph, my  feelings  of whi...

 I posted about a month ago about finding two autographs out of one blaster box of Panini Prestige Football 2022, so I had to go and buy a few more boxes to see if my luck would continue. I did end up hitting a couple more autographs, including the number one overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft, Jags rookie defensive end Travon Walker. When you combine this card with the Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner and the Derek Stingley Jr. autographs from that one box I posted about before, that gives me three of the top four picks from the 2022 draft. Obviously they are all defensive players which have less value but there is a good chance at least one of these guys becomes a bona fide star in the NFL. Three rookie card autos out of the first four picks in the draft is something I was not expecting to hit. My luck did not stop there, however, as a few boxes later I pulled yet another first round defensive lineman autograph rookie card, this time of Packers defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt. That mak...

 I received a through the mail return from a football Hall of Famer earlier this week, former Minnesota Vikings safety Paul Krause. This was a quick turnaround for my 1975 Topps card. One thing I've noticed about these vintage football cards is that they always had the players pose in goofy stances and there were never really any action shots. In looking through my collection I see that all of the older cards look either like the one below or just the player sitting there smiling like a yearbook photo. Modern cards are definitely cooler but I still dig the way the autograph looks on the vintage cards too. 

 I recently got a card back for a signing from yet another Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, this time from a player I've never had an item signed by. I am talking about the stolen base king Rickey Henderson. I am really running out of Hall of Fame baseball players to add to my collection, at least when it comes to guys who played in the 90's and before. The modern guys are a bit more expensive so maybe someday a lot of them will come down in cost to the point where it's worth adding a lot of them as well. 

 Former Major League Baseball commissioner, Milwaukee Brewers owner, and Padres  legend  Bud Selig was my most recent through the mail success. That last part is very tongue in cheek for Padres fans. If you don't believe me, check that link.  I picked an Allen & Ginter card to send to the former commish, and this was a very quick turnaround of about a week wait. He is the second baseball commissioner I have added to my collection, joining current commissioner Robert Manfred, who sent me a signed  baseball  two years ago. I know Mr. Selig oversaw the whole steroid era and the mistake of making the All-Star gar mean something, but he also helped usher in Interleague play. I am happy with this return because there aren't a lot of commissioners in baseball history, and I have autographs from two of them.