SoCal Autograph Odysses

 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...