Tommie Sisk TTM Return

I received a quick ttm success from Tommie Sisk, who signed the 1965 and 1966 Pirates team cards as well as the oddball 1966 East Hills Shopping Center card.  You can see that Roy Face signed over John Gelnar's signature on the 1965 Topps despite it having been the only signature on the card.  My guess is that Mr. Face is having some vision problems.

I already have Bill Mazeroski's autograph on his card from the East Hills set, and have cards out to Vern Law, Roy Face and Manny Mota.  There are 25 cards in the set.  I think there are only three more possible to get ttm above what I have and what is in-process.  Unfortunately, most of the players have already passed away.

I have sent requests to Mr. Sisk four times including my first request to him in 2005.  He has always used a fine, black marker.  I have seen comments on SCN about him using a blue sharpie, but I just haven't been that lucky.  I suppose I could request it in my letter, but I hate to sound pushy, especially when a player is signing for free.

I just sent a request to Rick Reichardt, who always seems to use a black ballpoint pen.  I included a blue sharpie with my request as well as $10, along with the four cards I requested he sign.  He doesn't charge a fee, so I'm hoping this shows that these cards are for my collection, and not to be resold.   We'll see if it works, or if he continues to use his ballpoint.  I think some players may use less-desirable pens when signing for free through the mail and reserve the blue sharpie signatures for paid signings.  I can't say this is the case here.  He might not put any thought into it at all, or maybe he thinks the black ballpoint looks best.  Who knows.

I have plenty of blue sharpies.  There was a time many years ago when someone posted on SCN that Staples (I think) had a super low price on a box of blue sharpies.  Like, ridiculously low.  Under a dollar for a box of 12 blue sharpies.  I ordered 10 or 12 boxes, thinking that the order would probably get canceled due to a pricing error, but they honored it.  I still have six boxes of these pens left.  They are probably 10 or 12 years old but appear to work just fine.  I always test out the pen before sending it and haven't come across any that appear to have had any problems.

However, the issue with sending a blue sharpie for the player to use is the postage.  I paid $4.11 to send my request to Mr. Reichardt.  And I included a return bubble envelope with my request with a Pirate Ship return label for another $4.11.  So, I paid $8.22 just in postage, plus $10, two bubble envelopes and a blue sharpie for a player that signs for free.  

I mainly wanted to upgrade the 1971 Topps he signed for me in 2021 using his black ballpoint that is nearly impossible to see.  I also bought one from Mickey's a few years ago that is signed in blue ballpoint.  It's better, but still not great.  I also sent a couple team cards, and many players use a ballpoint on these even if they use a sharpie on their individual cards.  I appreciate the effort, since it's hard to write small with a normal sharpie, and it shows that they care about how their signature looks.  However, I personally would rather have a large blue sharpie signature on a team card, than a difficult to read, small ballpoint signature.

However, at the risk of contradicting myself, one of the cool things about a full team card is the variation of signature styles and pens.  If everyone on the card used a blue sharpie, it would look fake.  Here's a very full 1965 Mets team card that only has a couple blue sharpie signatures.

Here is the 71 Topps he previously signed for me:

And here's the one I bought from Mickey's:

      

If I were being pessimistic, I would predict that ironically, Mr. Reichardt will use my blue sharpie, but it will get badly smeared.  Anyone want to bet?  I just sent it two days ago, so I'll have to wait 10-12 days for it to get returned if all goes well.