2000 Fleer Greats of the Game - Sutter and Yastrzemski

I started working on the getting the 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game set signed in 2003, when I sent my first one to Bobby Doerr.

I've worked on it gradually since then, buying some of the certified signed versions as well as getting the base cards signed both ttm and at signings.

I just added two more today with a purchase from Bud's Sports cards via eBay: Bruce Sutter and Carl Yastrzemski.

This is one of two post-2000 sets I work on with the 2008 Goudey being the other.  Both sets have some great names and good signers which make them a reasonable project to work on.  I still have several signers left to get in the GOTG set, but some are pretty expensive, like George Brett and Mike Schmidt.  There are also a few I missed simply by not really focusing on the set hard enough.  Rico Carty and Dave Parker come to mind.

Following up on the smeared cards from the Vicente Romo signing, the promoter has agreed to refund the signing fees on the smeared ones and is also trying to find a replacement for the 75 Topps, which he thinks he might have from a previous signing.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have a 71 Topps, so I went ahead and bought one on eBay today.

Signing Returns (Disappointing) and a Goose Gossage TTM Return

The highlight of the day was a return from Goose Gossage, who signed his half of the 1979 Topps Leading Firemen card as well as his 2025 Allen & Ginter.  He always does a great job.  It looks like he will sign for $10 per card, but the fees people on SCN include vary between $10 and $25.  I included $20 per card just to be safe.  

I have at least one more card I'd like to get signed by him and that's his 1982 Topps.  I have his "In Action" and "All Star" cards signed from that set already.

I also received returns from three signings from the same promoter that I think were done in Mexico, but I'm not 100% sure on that.  Three signers that don't sign ttm so these signings are great to fill holes in set collections.  It's odd how affordable the fees are ($10 per card), yet signed cards sell for significantly more online $30 plus for many of these cards.

I sent in a single card to Orlando Sanchez, a 1982 Topps, which turned out nicely.

I sent five cards to their signing with Horacio Pina, which also turned out nice.

I sent in 10 cards to their signing with Vicente Romo, which included cards from many of the sets I work on, as well as a duplicate 1971 Topps, which is a high number card.  I bought a nice, graded copy of the card for over $20, and also ordered a lower quality card as a back up in case the nice one didn't arrive in time.  They both arrived, so I included them both.

Unfortunately, not only were both of the 1971 Topps cards smeared, but the 1972 and 1975 Topps were also smeared.  4 of the 10 cards were smeared.  The most disappointing part is that the promoter simply returned the cards with no note or anything to acknowledge the situation.  They had to notice that these were smeared.

Other promoters I've worked with in the past under similar situations at least included a different signed card to try to compensate for it.  And I've had two incidents with Fan HQ, where they went WAY out of their way to correct a signature, at their effort and expense, which far exceeded my expectations and I would trust them with any item in the future.

Anyway, I've reached out to them on SCN and can see that they've read my message but haven't replied yet.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one who received smeared cards if nearly half of mine were.  Here's a better view of the affected ones.

TwinsFest Consignments and Another 1971 Topps Lou Brock

"Didn't you just buy a 1971 Topps Lou Brock", you might ask.  Yes.  Yes, I did.  But can you really have too many?  This one was more of an investment I guess.  I just thought it was cheap enough that I should buy it.  I don't have any intention of selling it any time soon, but when I do I'm sure I'll make an enormous profit. Kidding of course.

I sent in quite a few cards for a Twins Caravan/TwinsFest consignment and only got two signed.  I didn't really know what to expect.  Since TwinsFest typically allows you to only get 1 item signed per line, there's not a whole lot of opportunity to get a ton of things signed.  I know some people will present the player with a whole page of cards to sign, even though they only paid for one, hoping the player will sign more.  Also, the Caravan events aren't a paid autograph opportunity, so you hope to get some autographs for free at those stops.

Anyway, I was able to get a 2016 Glen Perkins card signed, as well as a 2024 Topps Heritage Pablo Lopez.  I paid my consignor less than the $50 fee that was posted for Lopez at TwinsFest, so he must have gotten more than mine signed there.  I didn't look at the Caravan stops so can't say if Lopez attended that or not.

Some More Purchases

I added a few more Hall of Famer autographs to my collection by bidding on Tom Orr's eBay auctions.

I needed these two Tony Perez cards signed for my 1975 and 1978 Topps set collections.  The 75 is smeared just a little bit, but not too bad.

I very casually work on the 1979 Topps set.  Which means, I have the complete, unsigned set and include a card in my requests if I have room for it.  So, if I am sending out a 75 and a 78 Topps to a player, I'll also include a 79 Topps if the player has a card in the set and they appear to sign at least three cards based on their history on SCN.  I have about 225 cards signed from the set.  Buying this card for $5.99 was a no brainer, since I wouldn't pay Jim Kaat's ttm signing fee ($25) to get it done.  And his 1968 Topps Checklist card was an impulse buy for just $7.50.

Finally, this Orlando Cepeda 1982 K-Mart card was also an impulse buy.  It pictures his 1967 Topps, which was the year he won the MVP Award.  At $7.99, this purchase was cheaper than sending it to him ttm when he was still with us.

I'm surprised and disappointed to realize I never sent Cepeda a copy of the 1972 Topps card that memorializes the MVP Award.  Towards the end of his life, I was struggling to find cards to send to him that I hadn't already sent, and the MVP card should have been on my list.  I 've only sent that card out to eight players, so I need to make more progress on that one.  The players include:

1. Andre Dawson
2. Bobby Shantz
3. Dennis Eckersley
4. Denny McLain
5. George Foster
6. Jim Rice
7. Rollie Fingers
8. Steve Garvey

Here's Bobby Shantz's signature on the card:

I should be getting back some mail-in signings returns this week, including some Central-American players and also a couple cards that I paid someone to get for me at TwinsFest (Pablo Lopez and Glenn Perkins).

A Bunch of Autograph and Storage Case Purchases

Yesterday I received a bunch of autographs that I bought from a seller on eBay.

These are mostly Twins players from the 80's that I didn't yet have, as well as a few that are upgrades to existing cards in my collection.  There is nothing rare or expensive in this lot, but it's a quick way to fill some holes in the sets I'm working on.

Besides the monetary investment for a purchase like this (which was about $3-$4 per card), there is an investment in the time it takes for me to catalog and document these cards for my collection.  It's been a while since I discussed this, and it hasn't changed, but for each card I get, I:

1. Scan the card on my flatbed scanner.  I can scan up to 9 cards at once, but then have to "cut" each card from the scan so I have individual cards of each one.
2. Update the directory page of my web site, to either add or update the player and add them to the "Recently Received" section.
3. Update the individual's page on my web site to include the scans of each card and details such as how it was obtained (purchased or ttm), the cost (sometimes) and sometimes the source of the purchase.
4. Upload the new pages and scans to my web site's servers.
5. If the card was obtained ttm:
1. Update my spreadsheet that I use to record every single ttm request with details such as when it was sent and received, what cards or other items were sent and received, any donation included, and any miscellaneous notes about the request or response.
2. Update SCN to log the return with the details of the return and upload the scan of the item(s) returned.
6. If the card belongs to a set that I am working towards completing, I update the "wantlist" section on SCN for that set to mark off that I now have that card in my collection.
7. Update this blog to share the return with the world.  Or at least the 15-25 people who read my blog each day.  Thank you to everyone who reads my blog!

Most days it doesn't take very long to do all this.  Maybe 10 minutes if I received 1-2 returns.  But, if I have 15 new cards, it probably took me closer to 25-30 minutes.  This was mostly scanning and updating the web site because these weren't ttm requests that had to be logged.

You can view my personal web site which I use to catalog my entire collection here.

Today, I received an order of four Vevor hard-sided cases in which I intend to store my slabbed cards.  I bought these from Temu, so I was suspicious of the quality.  I read a bunch of the reviews but take those, especially the positive ones, with a grain of salt as they can easily be manipulated.

I wasn't too concerned about the cases being super sturdy though.  I just intend to use these to store my slabs in my home.  I don't plan to use them to travel with the cards or to ship the cards inside these cases.  I currently put my slabs in the same two-row "shoebox" cardboard boxes in which I store all my autographed cards, which are each also inside an Ultra-Pro semi-rigid card holder.

The quality seems pretty nice.  Better than I really need, as long as the hinges and other hardware hold up over time. I think I can store about 112 slabs in each case, which is 28 cards in each of the four rows.  Each case includes a very generous number of foam divider pieces to help keep the slabs from moving around if the row isn't completely full.

They weren't super cheap at over $35 each, but I used a lot of credit card points to bring it down to nearly half of that.  There are other, cheaper options on Temu (and eBay, Amazon, etc), but many of those had negative comments about the build quality and a general lack of sturdiness right out of the box.  You also need to be absolutely positive that they hold graded cards.  Many options on Temu had descriptions that included graded cards, but then commentors/reviewers said that graded cards would absolutely NOT fit in those cases.

I've been watching these cases for many months, and never really wanted to spend the money on them when I could use the money to buy more autographs instead.  But my latest grading submission return pushed me over the edge with no good location to store them.