Daniels, Gelnar and Law TTM and a Pete Rose Purchase

I received three more ttm returns today.

Bennie Daniels, who is 91 years old, was kind enough to sign his 1958 Topps and the 58 Pirates team card, as well as the 1965 Senators team card.  I have two 1958 Pirates team cards in process and both are getting quite full.  The team cards from that year are pretty horrible for many signatures as there is very little open space.  Mostly pictures of players and lots of text with the players' names.  Mr. Daniels has signed for me many times over the last 20 years and still has a very nice signature.

John Gelnar signed his 1965 and 1971 Topps as well as the 1965 Pirates and 1972 Brewers team cards.  I sent him an unsigned team card even though I received my in-process card back from Vern Law today.  I had started this new Pirates card since I didn't think the one I sent to Bob Veale was coming back after more than four months.  When it did, I sent it off to Vern Law.  I'll have to wait a while and send this one off to Gelnar to keep adding to it.  Coordinating getting these team cards signed is surprisingly complicated, at least for me.  Especially if you really want to make an effort to get them signed by as many players as possible, as opposed to just sending them out when you are sending requests to the players anyway.

Vern Law signed the 1972 Topps Cy Young Award card as well as the 1965 Pirates team card.  I included $20 with my request.  I have ignored these Award cards from the 1972 set but am starting to work on them now.  I think I'll try to get multiple players on these cards but try to keep the players on each card from the same era as much as possible.

Finally, I received a Pete Rose-signed 1963 Cincinnati Reds team card with the "Hit King" inscription, authenticated by PSA with an autograph grade of "Gem Mt 10."  This is as close to getting his rookie card signed as I'm going to get probably.

I'm sending off a Dave Winfield 1974 Topps rookie card to a Tom Orr signing.  I already sent in a Gold Glove baseball earlier.  This signing was delayed by at least a month or two, so after sending the ball, I decided to also send in the card to try to keep my Hall of Fame signed rookie card collection moving.

Wayne Causey and Bill Roman TTM Returns

I received two more ttm returns today.

I have a lot (like 16!!!) mail-in signings in progress right now, with many not occurring until late this month, but a few will trickle in before that.  I have spent WAY too much so far this year and have to scale back, hopefully sticking to sending out cards and items I already own to avoid more purchases.  And I need to scale back on any new mail-in signings unless they are rare opportunities.

Anyway, I received a 1965 Topps back from Bill Roman which was previously signed by Bruce Brubaker.  Mr. Roman is a generous signer with a 93% success rate on sportscollectors.net (SCN) but lately people had been getting their request returned due to an address issue.  

Luckily, I purchased Harvey Meiselman's baseball address list this year which had the current address.  If you don't buy this list, you should!  Not only do you get the hardcopy list, but he sends you email updates throughout the year with updates and changes, including fee changes and deaths.  I suspect many of the addresses on SCN came from Harvey's list.  For that reason, when I use an address from his lists that aren't already in SCN, I list the address as "Harvey 2024" to let people know where the correct address can be found.  I don't think it's right to publicly post the address that he spent time and money identifying.  However, in the spirit of helping my fellow collectors, if anyone reaches out to me asking for the address, I will share it with them.  I think this is a reasonable balance between giving Harvey credit and protecting his work, while also helping out other collectors.

These days, I don't buy the list every year, but every other year instead.  I might rethink that since I've really increased the number of requests I send, but I'll worry about that in the fall when he starts taking orders for the new book, typically shipping early in January each year.  You can order it here: https://sportsaddresslists.com/.  It's gotten a little expensive over the years ($49.95 now), but it now provides over 9,000 addresses!  I think the cost of postage has greatly increased as well.  I paid $33.95 for my first list back in 2006 and have bought 15 lists over the last 21 years.  Some years I bought the bundle of all lists (football, basketball, hockey, etc.) but send so few requests other than baseball that I quickly stopped doing that.

Okay, unpaid endorsement complete.

I also received a return from Wayne Causey, who, like Roman, is a very generous signer with a 97% success rate on SCN.  He signed his 1965 Topps, which is a nice blue sharpie upgrade to the one he signed for me in 2005.  

He also signed team cards from 1956, 1958 and 1965. 

The 1958 Orioles team card is one I bought as part of a lot of signed team cards that already had Joe Ginsberg and Billy Gardner (upside down) on it.  I previously had Causey sign a version of this card that I have been sending around, so decided to add him to this card as well.  His is the first signature on the 1965 Athletics card.  I had another version with 5 or 6 signatures on it that I sent to very reliable signer Jim Gentile, that has been outstanding since last September.  I am afraid that perhaps he is in poor health, because he has not had any returns for many months.  In the past, he normally replied in about three weeks, but had some fairly regular returns in the 5-6 months range.  I also sent two other team cards with a handful of signatures on them that I am now afraid may be lost forever.  I wish him the best and hope he is doing well.

Cards missing in action:

I have sent many Orioles team cards to Brooks Robinson, with the intent to keep his signature as the only one on it.  I've done the same with Orlando Cepeda.  I wish I had thought about team cards when Al Kaline was still around as I'd love a few Tigers team cards with just his autograph on them and he was such a great signer.

Four TTM Returns and Some More Purchases

The TTM returns are starting to pick up.  I received four today as well as a few purchases from eBay.

Don Kessinger signed his 1966 Topps and a few team cards including the 1979 White Sox card when he was manager.

Phil Mankowski signed his 1977, 1978 and 1980 Topps as well as the 1978 Tigers team card.

Fred Norman signed his 1965 and 1971 Topps for my sets.  He's a reliable signer, but charges $10 per card, so I have put off sending to him until now.

And Bobby Shantz, at 98 years old, signed four team cards for me.  He played for three different teams in 1964, so he has signed three different 1965 team cards for me, including the Cubs in a previous request.

Even though I recently bought this 1969 Boswell card signed, I also impulse-bought another one in nicer shape and slabbed by PSA.

And from another eBay seller, I bought this Harmon Killebrew-signed postcard and a magazine article signed by Phil Niekro.  More impulse purchases that need to end, although I paid less than $10 each for these two autographs.

Art Mahaffey and Rollie Fingers TTM Returns, Harrelson and Killebrew Purchases

The mail continues to be VERY slow lately.  I see tracking updates from some eBay purchases that sit at centers, including Memphis and St. Paul, for days with no updates.

I received a package from Rollie Fingers today, which I Sent a while ago.  He signed promptly and returned it, but it took a while to get it back.  He signed his 1969 Topps rookie card, 1975 Topps World Series Summary, both 1983 Topps and a 1985 Topps as well as a Hall of Fame postcard for his $15 per autograph fee.  I think I have all the Rollie Fingers autographs I need now, but maybe there are some multi-player cards I haven't discovered yet.

And Art Mahaffey signed a 1963 Pitching Leaders and 1963 Philles team card for his $10 per card fee.  Even though there are only seven autographs on it, I am considering retiring this team card.  It has one deceased player (Mel Roach) and a couple who may have stopped signing according to SCN.  I'll double check who I have left to send it to, and unless they are automatic, I'm going to hold off on any more attempts.

I impulse-bought this Harmon Killebrew-signed 2005 Diamond King relic card.  I don't normally like the sticker autographs, but this one seemed cool with the bat and jersey relics alongside the autograph.

And finally, I bought a 1994 Ron Lewis 1969 Mets postcard set, which included a signed Bud Harrelson card.  Apparently, some of the sets came with one signed postcard, and it includes a COA of sorts from Art Shamsky, which seems a little odd.  I have one of these postcards to an Art Shamsky signing to upgrade the one I have.  This Harrelson is also an upgrade to the one he signed for me back in 2011 in fine, black pen.