SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Today I attended the Front Row Card Show down in San Diego for the second time in 2025. You can read my recap of my experience in May  here . This time, I went in with a plan of selling one of my two Cristiano Ronaldo autos so that I could turn that money into two big autos elsewhere. I feel that I accomplished this goal because I added Stephen Curry and Kylian Mbappe to my growing autograph collection. The Cristiano Ronaldo auto plus one Mosaic rookie card of Jared McCain (not signed) netted me just under $1000. I bought the Panini NBA Hoops Curry auto and the graded Kylian Mbappe Prizm auto for a bit over $900. 

 One of my last few through the mail requests that I still have pending came back to me signed yesterday, and it came with a bit of a bonus. Former US Women's National soccer team defender Joy Fawcett sent me a signed rookie card back (from 1994 Upper Deck). Joy was a member of both the 1991 and 1999 World Cup winning teams, with the '99 team in particular being a huge influence on the popularity of women's sports in America today. She also played a few seasons for the San Diego Spirit, which was a team that played in the early 2000's in the now defunct WUSA soccer league. As my experience with her former teammate Brandi Chastain went, Joy included a littler personal note in addition to the card she sent back signed.  I am excited to add this autograph to my collection because that 1999 World Cup team put women's soccer on the map and my daughter plays the sport now, so I am invested in women's sports being a success here. As you can see by the note above, we al...

 The National Sports Card Convention is the biggest collectibles convention that happens every year, and as such, it brings over a hundred athletes to the event for signings. This inevitably leads to a bunch of third party organizers that I find on sportscollectors.net posting about them participating in said signings and acting as consigners. One of the signers I sent in for was NFL Hall of Fame lineman Orlando Pace.  As you can see, he also included his HOF 16 inscription. I sent a 1997 Topps rookie and am happy with how this came out.

 Another mail request came back successfully this weekend, this time as NFL pro football Hall of Famer and former CBS color commentator Dan Dierdorf sent me a signed card back. As you can see, he also included his HOF 96 inscription which is always a nice touch to a signed card. I sent him a 1974 Topps card, thinking that it would look good with a signature on it. I'm happy with how this one turned out.

 I went to my local LCS recently and picked up a card I think has the potential to go up in value over the next year or two. Cardinals top prospect JJ Wetherholt has been on a binge lately and moved up the prospect rankings, so I was happy to take a shot on this 1st Bowman auto /150.

 Today I received a card returned to me by NHL and hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely. This guy was the ultimate power forward in his day, which happened to coincide with the years I grew up watching hockey. I always wanted the Kings to have a player like Neely. Unfortunately, injuries really derailed his career because his numbers would have been a lot better. As it is, he was still an elite player who ended up in the hall anyway. I am happy with the result of this request.

 To be honest, I don't know much about a few of these players I send autograph requests too. I just filter to Hall of Famers, see who has recently signed, and then look them up online to see what they were known for. It only applies to probably 2% of my requests, but one of those was in fact basketball Hall of Famer Bobby Jones.when I looked him up, I discovered he was an elite defender during his day. He was cool and sent me a card back. I'm not on board with what he inscribed but I'll never begrudge someone for their beliefs. He also included a little religious packet. Thank you Mr. Jones.

 I'm always watching signings that are going on. I go onto  Sportscollectors.net  at least twice a week to peruse two things. One, I check to see if any Hall of Famers are signing through the mail that I do not already have in my collection. Two, I go to the private signings page and look through the list of all the upcoming signings that people are running with athletes. At all times there are least 200 names on the list, even more when there is a big convention coming up like last week's National. I cannot recommend using that site enough and have probably harped on it on this very blog a dozen times or more. I wanted to bring it up again because it had been a while since I last mentioned it. It's $15 for the year. It gives you access to all of this information plus more.  One of the signings I decided to partake in recently was that of one being hosted with Larry Bird. Odds are if you're reading this blog you know very well who that is. He's one of the best NBA p...