Whitey Ford and Harmon Killebrew

I'm running a bit behind on my posts as I've been busy attending some of my sons' year-end playoff and tournament games.

On Thursday I received a success from Whitey Ford who signed a 1961 Topps for me.  I had enclosed $25 with my request.

I also received an Ebay purchase: an 8x10 signed by Harmon Killebrew.  I have plenty of Killebrew pictures and other autographs, but he's a favorite of mine and the price was right.

Carlos Gomez and Some 1972 Topps Purchases

I haven't been mailing out many requests, but I did send some cards to a Carlos Gomez signing and purchased some 1972 Topps from Mickey's on Ebay, all of which arrived in my mailbox today.

I've been trying to work on some of the Allen & Ginter and Topps Heritage Twins team sets so I took the opportunity to have Gomez sign his 2008 AG and 2009 TH.

I had this photo of him to get signed at TwinsFest or some other opportunity but then he was traded from the team.  I decided to send this in as well since I think it's a cool picture.  Gomez's signature isn't too impressive!

I purchased four signed 1972 Topps but I already had two of them.  I"m not sure what I was thinking.  They weren't too expensive, so no harm done I guess. I added Dick Williams and Joe Rudi as the two cards I didn't have yet.

Ken Singleton and Jim Roland are the duplicates.

Steve Dunning

Yesterday I received some cards I sent to Steve Dunning back in January.

He signed a 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1978 Topps for me.

This brings me to 362 signed cards from the 1972 Topps set.

Bobby Valentine

I was surprised to find any return in my mailbox today, and more surprised to see that it was Bobby Valentine.  This is the second 1972 Topps I received back from him.

I sent one to him way back in September of 2010.  When I didn't receive anything back and saw some successes from him posted on SCN, I sent another in July of last year.  When I received the first one back in September (which I posted about here), I assumed it was the one I just sent, but now I have no way of knowing.

Regardless, he was kind enough to sign my card and send it back.

Update on 2012 Collecting Goals

 I can't believe the year is half over already.  I really haven't done any requests through the mail for the last few months so I've avoided updating my goals, but here it goes anyway:

• Goal: Send out 150 requests through the mail.  Status: I've sent out 77 requests so far, just 7 since I updated my goals in early April!  The only cards I have to send out are ones that I already have signed, so I'll need to come up with a new project or two to get me going.

• Goal: Get 3 more bobbleheads signed from the 1987 Twins set.  I only need Don Baylor, Randy Bush, Mark Davidson, Greg Gagne and Les Straker to complete the living players.  Status: I got Mark Davidson and Greg Gagne to sign their bobbleheads at the Minneapolis Sports Card and Autograph Convention.  Now I'm down to needing just Baylor, Bush and Straker.I haven't made any progress on this goal in the last three months.

• Get 8 more bobbleheads signed from the 1991 Twins set.  Status: I've already surpassed this goal, having gotten 6 of them signed at TwinsFest, as well as three others.  It will get more difficult now as I've gotten the easy ones done.

• Reach 400 signed 1972 Topps. I have 323 so far, so I'll need to add 77 more.  Status: I have 361 signed, so I've only added 38 so far.  This will be a tough one to reach.

• Additional sets - Add 5 more 1958 Topps (not including team cards), 15 more 1961 Topps and  10 more 1965 Topps.  Status: I've added one 1958 Topps, 10 1961 Topps, and 2 1965 Topps.  I'll have to open my wallet to make much progress on these.  

My boys' baseball seasons are wrapping up so I hope to have some more time to send out requests and go to shows to buy cards.