As I mentioned yesterday, I was expecting a return from former-Twin Camilo Pascual. Thankfully, it arrived today, after appearing to be stuck at a local sorting facility for a day or two.
He signed the 1959 Topps Pitching Partners card previously signed by Pedro Ramos. Ramos is a tough signature as he lives outside the U.S. If you write to the U.S. address that is in Harvey's book, or posted on SCN, you'll get a note that he currently lives in Nicaragua. I don't know if that's true or not.
I happened across this card on eBay, signed by Ramos and slabbed by PSA/DNA. It's one of the best Ramos signatures I've seen on any card, because most are in ballpoint, and written over busy or dark parts of cards. I paid too much for it at about $75, but I hadn't seen one signed by him before, so I snapped it up. I'll probably start seeing them all the time now for about $20, but that's how it goes.
About two weeks ago I cracked it open to send to Mr. Pascual. I wrote a lot of instructions such as where to sign, how to sign, let the ink dry before putting back in holder, remove card from holder before signing, etc. I was afraid I might offend him with all the instructions, but I really didn't want this card ruined. I included a new blue sharpie for him to use, as well as $20 instead of the usual $10. I explained to him that this was an important card to me, so hopefully he forgave me for all the instructions. I had one request to him back in 2022 with two team cards and two pitching leaders cards, which he smeared all four! That's the only request that I've sent him that has been ruined, but it was pretty disappointing.
His signature appears to go off the right side of the card, which is no big deal and oddly, is very common for him. He did that on the other copy of this card I sent him, and many cards that are in portrait orientation, as opposed to a card like a 1956 Topps in a horizontal, or landscape orientation.
I received a return from Bill Mazeroski, who signed his Hall of Fame postcard for his $10 fee.
Bery Blyleven signed his 1975 and 1978 Topps. I have a few other cards I need him to sign for my sets, and I may upgrade a few as well, such as the 1972 Topps that he signed in black for me at TwinsFest back in 2012. This time, I asked him to place his stickers on the back. They are your typical "tamper proof" oval-shaped stickers. They say "Blyleven 2011" as well as a unique number. Mine are numbers 1050 and 1051. I don't know that there's a record of these or a place to look them up, but I thought I'd request them this time just to see what they looked like.
And I received an eBay purchase including a Hall of Fame postcard signed by Frank Thomas with JSA authentication, and a PSA/DNA slabbed 1991 Upper Deck Chuck Knoblauch card. This Knoblauch card was one I purchased from a card shop back in the junk era thinking it would skyrocket in value when he became a great player. Even after winning Rookie of the Year, this was probably a $2 card. The scan makes the ink look black, but it's a nice dark blue.
I've been sending a handful of requests every week lately so hopefully my returns are consistent. I think my spring training requests are likely about done. I received 6 of my 25 requests. Many of my requests were long shots, like Carlos Correa, Sonny Gray, Luis Arraez, Miguel Sano and Joey Gallo. But there are still some outstanding that had some returns this year like Kenta Maeda. It's possible some will come back during the year or at the end of the season. Those are always nice surprises.
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