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Date sent: 2/16/09
Date returned: 3/4/09
I'm too young to have seen Mike Ditka play but I remember him as the head coach of the Chicago Bears. He's also one of my favorite ESPN personalities as he always tells it like it is. Sports television is full of "analysts" that have no idea what they're talking about and they argue just to argue. Ditka knows the game from the perspective of a player and a head coach. There aren't many people on television that can say the same.
I mailed my request to ESPN Studios in Bristol, CT shortly after the end of the NFL season. It came in just over two weeks postmarked from Chicago, IL. I guess ESPN forwards his mail to him.
I was thrilled to get this one back. Ditka has a great signature as you can see from the photo. I think I'm going to purchase one of his vintage cards on eBay and send off another request to him once football starts again.
Up to this point Razor has been selling limited edition cards, autographed cards and printing plates on eBay. I just noticed tonight that they're selling game worn Team USA baseball jerseys.
I searched their completed auctions and they've sold seventeen in the last five days. Some are priced as low as $79 for a B. Dean (assuming that's Blake Dean) and as high as $1,999 for a Buster Posey. They do have the "Best Offer" feature turned on so you could always opt for that. It looks from the completed auctions that they have accepted a few best offers.
I'm sure that many of the players in these auctions will become stars one day. With many of these at $99 or below it would be well worth the risk to take a chance on one. I wish I had seen the Andrew McCutchen jersey before it sold for $169 with the "Best Offer" feature. I'm a Pirates fan and he's one of their most promising prospects. I would have loved to have had that in my collection. Too bad I didn't see it in time.
You can view Razor's auctions here.
My father grew up in Western Pennsylvania and rooted for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He raised me to be a Pirates fan even though we lived in Northern Virginia, within one hour of Baltimore, MD. It's been tough being a Pirates fan over the last sixteen losing seasons but it will make their resurgence that much sweeter whenever that day comes.
My father always told me stories about the 1960 Pirates team when I was growing up. Most of the stories were about Roberto Clemente but the best stories were about the 1960 World Series and the Pirates' improbable victory over the New York Yankees.
The name Bill Mazeroski always brought a smile to my father's face. About 10 years ago I dragged my father to a baseball card show with me, not telling him that Mazeroski was there signing autographs. He wondered what we were standing in line so long for but understood once he could see who was sitting at the table at the end of the line. I think it's the only time in my life that I saw my father in awe of something or someone. We both got baseballs autographed and my father traded a couple of stories with Mazeroski. Mazeroski couldn't have been nicer. It was a really special moment to share with my father.
I've been sending autograph requests through the mail for a couple months now and I was running out of ideas for new requests. Last weekend it hit me. I'm going to try and get every living member of the 1960 Pirates team on their 1960 Topps cards. I checked success rates on sportscollectors.net and it seems like this is a realistic project. There are only four players with low success rates, the rest are 80% or above. There are three players that didn't have a 1960 Topps card so I'll have to find another card for them.
I'm still trying to think of ways to display this but gathering all the cards and sending out the requests is my main focus right now. Once completed, I'll give this to my father as a gift. His birthday is in June so I'm really hustling to get all the cards and get them in the mail.
I will update my successes as they come in. If anyone has any cool ideas on how to display the cards I'd love to hear them. Leave them in the comments.
This is pretty cool. Upper Deck has some really great autographs in its 2008 Legendary Cuts product but this has to be one of the best.
How many Helen Keller autographs could possibly exist? I can't imagine that there are an abundance of them.
This one is at $676.00 and the auction ends on Thursday night. It will be interesting to see what it goes for. I posted about a Bruce Lee autograph from the same set back in March that the seller was was asking $20,000 for. It doesn't appear to have sold.
Here is the auction: HELEN KELLER 2008 08 UD LEGENDARY CUTS AUTO CUT 1/1 SP
Date sent: 3/13/09
Date returned: 4/8/09
I will start this post off by saying that Mike Mussina is one of the best TTM signers out there. You rarely find a modern day player of Mussina's stardom that signs so reliably. I've sent requests to him on three different occasions and each time received cards back signed in under 5 weeks. You can see from the picture that he has a very nice signature.
I thought it would be cool to get a couple cheap jersey cards and have Mussina sign those. As I've said before, I'm willing to send some nicer cards to players that charge for autographs, or in Mussina's case, are very reliable. So, I purchased two 2008 Topps Heritage jersey cards off eBay and sent them off. The cards only cost me a total of $10 with shipping included.
Here's where it gets a little odd... I had read some posts in the past on the sportscollectors.net forums that Mussina is a collector and tends to keep jersey cards that are sent to him. I'd read the same thing enough times to make me purchase two '08 Heritage jersey cards. Otherwise, I would have just sent one. I figured if I sent two that he wouldn't possibly keep both of them, I'd at least end up with one. I even said in the letter that I wrote him that he could keep one and to please sign one for me.
Well, on April 8th I opened my mailbox and there was an envelope with my handwriting and a return address of Montoursville, PA. I knew that it was my Mussina jersey cards. The minute I picked up the envelope I knew something was wrong, it just wasn't thick enough. I tore it open and found a 2006 Bowman Chrome and a 2001 Bowman Heritage.
I posted to the sportscollectors.net forums later that night asking if anyone had received my cards. I listed the cards that I had received and stated that I'd like to switch them out if anyone got mine. The only replies that came back were members that had sent jersey cards and received others in return, just like me. The rumors were true. Mike Mussina keeps jersey cards.
Am I upset? Not at all. I knew the risk and I'm thrilled to get back beautifully signed cards from Mussina each time I send a request to him. The signed Upper Deck rookie pictured above was a recent return from him. I'll just know not to send jersey cards to him in any future requests.
Date sent: 4/17/09
Date received: 4/23/09
I really can't believe this one. Duke Snider lives in California. I live in Virginia. I only sent this card out six days ago and already have it back. Amazing.
Snider charges $5 for to autograph a card. This is a great bargain considering he's a Hall of Famer. Factor in the quickness of the reply his nice signature and it's an even greater bargain. I may have to send a baseball to him soon.
Snider was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980 and one of the most popular Dodgers of all time. He finished his career with a .295 batting average and 407 home runs. He was a member of the '55 and '59 World Series Champion Dodger teams, hitting four home runs in each series.
Here's a link to an AP story that ran about Snider a few years ago: Duke Snider - The "Duke of Flatbush"
I couldn't resist pointing to this auction too. According to the latest BGS Population Report, fifty five 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookies have been graded a Pristine 10. This is the first one I've seen on eBay but I'm not in the market for one of these.
This is the top card produced in the 90's and one of the most famous of the modern era. You'd never be able to find a more perfect example than a BGS 10.
I wrote about a couple of the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey Buy Back Autographs earlier this month. They ended up selling on eBay for $1,600 and $3,650 respectively. I'm not sure why there was such a large difference.
Which card would you rather have? The perfect example of the Griffey rookie or an autographed version limited to 89 copies?
You can view the BGS 10 auction here: KEN GRIFFEY JR. 1989 UPPER DECK #1 RC BGS 10 PRISTINE
Date sent: 2/16/09
