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Well, today was another great mail day for my 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates TTM project. I got returns from Bob Friend, Hal Smith and Bennie Daniels. I sent the Friend and Smith requests on Saturday, May 2nd and got them back today. That's a total of five days. If you recall, my returns from Roy Face, Dick Schofield and Bob Skinner also came back in 5 days. The other return I received today was from Bennie Daniels. That request took a total of 10 days to come back.
This puts me up to seven of a possible twenty autographs from the 1960 Pirates team. I still have only sent a total of twelve cards out. I have a few more cards sitting on my desk that I still have to write letters for and mail out.
The cards that are still out there are George Witt, Gino Cimoli, Danny Kravitz, Don Gross and Roman Mejias.
I'm thrilled so far with the returns from the members of this team. You'd never see this from the modern players.
I'm going to run a contest for a free autographed Bill Virdon card. Mr. Virdon was nice enough to include an extra signed card of his with my TTM request. Since I'm only collecting signed 1960 Topps Pirates cards for this project, I figured it would be nice to send this card along to another collector that will appreciate it.
Just leave a comment below on this post to enter. The deadline will be noon tomorrow. I'll select the winner by using the random number generator at random.org and will announce the winner tomorrow night.
Good luck and thanks for reading!
Date sent: 4/27/2009
Date returned: 5/4/2009
This is my fourth return out of twelve sent in my quest to get a signed 1960 Topps card of every living member of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Bill Virdon was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1956-1965 and 1968. He was known as a premier defensive center fielder, winning a gold glove in 1962.
Virdon was also a manager in the major leagues from 1972-1984, amassing a 995-921 record. Virdon managed four different teams (Pirates, Yankees, Astros and Expos) in his managerial career. He managed those teams to the NLCS three times, losing all three times.
This was a very quick return and another key addition to my collection. I hope to report some more returns soon.
You don't see these every day. It's a 1952 Topps 5-cent wax pack. The pack is currently at $2,650.75 on eBay with just over eleven hours to go.
I'm not sure how or if you can tell if it's a high number pack that might contain Mickey Mantle's rookie card. Whoever purchases this probably won't open it anyway. It's such a rare pack that it's better left unopened.
Vintage wax like this has to be one of the best long-term investments in the hobby. There's just not much of it left and it will only continue to appeciate in price over time.
The same seller also has a more common 1952 Topps penny pack on eBay right now too.
Date sent: 4/27/2009
Date returned: 5/2/2009
Yesterday was an awesome mail day for my 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates Project. I got returns from Roy Face, Dick Schofield and Bob Skinner. I had just mailed them out on Monday of last week. How often do you send a TTM request and get in back in the same week? How often does that happen with three different players? The one that really amazed me was Bob Skinner. He lives in San Diego, CA and I'm in Alexandria, VA. He must have put the card back in the mail the same day he received it. I'm thrilled with these returns.
I mailed out seven requests on 4/27, so four of those are still out there. I sent out another five yesterday. There are twenty surviving players from the 1960 team. Sixteen of those players are highly reliable TTM signers, four of them are tough. I've sent a total of twelve cards out. I plan to get the next eight out within the next two weeks.
I still need to purchase cards of Joe Gibbon, Vern Law, Bill Mazeroski Bob Oldis and Dick Groat. There's a member on eBay that broke up a 1960 Topps set and the auctions are ending today. I plan on picking up a few of these from those auctions.
Upper Deck announced the first two 2009 Upper Deck SPX Baseball rookie exchange cards a couple weeks ago and I've been meaning to write a post about them since. The two cards announced were Koji Uehara of the Baltimore Orioles and Colby Rasmus of the St. Louis Cardinals.
The player selection starts of well enough but that's not my problem. My problem is with the autographs. The regular Uehara comes autographed in English while the limited version, numbered to 25, comes autographed in Japanese. I like this idea. The Rasmus is a completely different story. His regular version comes autographed but the limited version comes with an inscription of "Go Redbirds #28". That's it! There's no autograph on the card.
Will collectors really pay a premium for limited version of this card without an autograph? If I were a Rasmus collector I'd actually be upset to receive the limited card. I'd much rather have the autographed version.
You can check out the pictures of the Uehara on Upper Deck's Facebook page.
Date sent: 3/13/09
Date returned: 4/2/09
Ozzie Newsome was one of the greatest tight ends of all time. He amassed 662 receptions, 7,980 yards and 47 touchdowns in thirteen years with the Cleveland Browns. The receptions and yards still stand as all-time records for the Browns. Newsome also caught a pass in 150 consecutive games, the second longest streak in the NFL when he retired.
Newsome became the first African-American general manager in the NFL when he filled that role for the Baltimore Ravens in 2002. He has done an outstanding job of rebuilding the Ravens through the draft and free agency. The Ravens have a team right now that should be successful for years to come and much of that credit goes to Newsome.
Newsome is known as an exremely fast and reliable TTM signer. I've sent two requests to him and both have come back in under three weeks. He has a great signature and has included a HOF '99 inscription on both requests without me asking.
The first card I sent to him was a 1987 Topps. The second card I sent was, of course, his 1979 Topps rookie card. I've mentioned in many previous posts that I like to get rookie cards signed and this request was no exception.
Well, today was another great mail day for my 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates TTM project. I got returns from Bob Friend, Hal Smith and Bennie Daniels. I sent the Friend and Smith requests on Saturday, May 2nd and got them back today. That's a total of five days. If you recall, my returns from Roy Face, Dick Schofield and Bob Skinner also came back in 5 days. The other return I received today was from Bennie Daniels. That request took a total of 10 days to come back.
