Four More Returns Including a Couple HOF 1983 Rookie Cards

My mail is all caught up with the Informed Delivery email now, as I received the three returns that were in my email from yesterday, as well as one additional that was in this morning's email.

I haven't sent out very many cards from the 1983 set I recently purchased, but I did send out a few that I really wanted to make sure I got done while it was relatively easy and cheap.

I received a signed 1983 Topps from both Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg.  These happen to be their rookie cards as well.  Boggs charges extra to sign a rookie card, an unfortunate trend in the hobby, which is $20 instead of his usual $10 per card.  Still a bargain.

I sent $10 along with my request to Ryne Sandberg.  His fee isn't clear these days.  He used to sign for $5 per, but then started returning some cards unsigned, while keeping all the cash enclosed.  It's probably safest to send one card at a time with $10.  I see some returns on SCN where they've sent two cards and $20, but he only returned one card signed.

A couple weeks ago I posted about a small card show I went to where I got a couple Juan Berenguer signatures.  At that show, I bought a 1955 Golden Stamp of Carl Erskine.  I had never seen these stamps before but thought it would be a cool item to get signed.  I sent $5 along with my request.  His signature is getting a little shaky, not surprising for someone 94 years old, but I think it looks very nice.  He also added his jersey number inscription.

Finally, Dave Leonhard signed his 1968, 1971 and 1972 Topps.  A little over 10 years ago, I sent him a 1971 and 1972 Topps.  He didn't return the 1972 Topps and the 1971 was signed in fading, black marker.  I'm not sure why it took me so long to send to him again, especially since I've been looking for more 1972 cards for my set.  It might be because his return times can be long, so when I looked at SCN outstanding requests in the past it may have appeared as if he had stopped signing.  I sent this back in February, so it was almost five months, but his success rate on SCN is very high (95%).

Four TTM and a Private Signing Return - Including Bill Mazeroski and Denny McLain

I know I kind of obsess over my Informed Delivery email, and you probably don't care, but I'll talk about it anyway.

My email this morning showed three TTM returns. Based on the stamp on one of them, it was more than a couple weeks old, and potentially a year or more old.

But when I went to my mailbox, I had four returns, and none of them matched the ones in my email.  I think the holidays throw off the timing of when the scanned images actually reach my mailbox.  Hopefully I get the three returns from my email in my mailbox tomorrow.

The four ttm returns I received include:

Jack Aker, who signed his 1971 Topps with $5.

Dave Bristol, who signed his 1971, 1976 and 1980 Topps.

Bill Mazeroski, who signed the 1961 Topps commemorating Game 7 of the 1960 World Series and his walk-off homerun.  I can't believe I didn't get this card signed earlier, especially since he's been pretty automatic ttm for a while now.  The card itself is hard to find in decent condition, and gets very pricey as the condition goes up.  Good centering is especially hard to find.  I settled for this card, with printing dots and nearly mis-cut, and still had to pay $16 for it.  It's a cool card though, and I have been casually working on the 1961 set over the years, so I'm glad I added this one to my collection.  I enclosed $10 with my request.

Buddy Schultz, who signed his 1978, 1979 and 1980 Topps for me.

I also received four cards back from a Denny McLain signing.  I paid $10 per card, which is what he charges ttm, but I thought it would be safer to have a promoter there making sure they got signed nicely and with a decent pen, etc.  This isn't normally an issue with McLain, who does a lot of signing, but I had to pay a bit for these cards so I wanted to be sure.

The 1971 and 1972 cards are high numbers, so they weren't cheap.  I paid about $17 for the 1972 and probably something similar for the 1971.  Too much, really, but I'm running out of cards I need for both these sets and the ones remaining are either players that charge, cards that are expensive, or both, as in this case.

I have a few more private signings that I'm sending out to.  I'll wait until they come back over the next month or two to post about them, but I will note that I'm sending a Gold Glove ball to a Bill Mazeroski private signing.  I have one Gold Glove ball left and was contemplating sending it directly to Mr. Mazeroski, but I didn't want to risk it not getting signed correctly, or getting signed in sharpie or something.  Mazeroski has eight Gold Glove awards.

Q2 2021 Goals Update

Happy 4th of July!  I'll take this pause in the mail schedule to update my goals for the second quarter of the year.

Goal:  Add 10 cards to my 1965 set.

    Progress: I've added eight signed cards from the 65 set so far.  Up from three in the first quarter.  This one shouldn't be a problem.

Goal: Add 25 cards to my 1971 set. 

    Progress: I've already surpassed this one.  I've added 49 cards, up from 32 in the first quarter.  Some were purchases, but many were ttm.  

Goal:  Add 15 cards to my 1972 set.

    Progress: I've added 15 cards to this set.  So this one is complete.

Goal: Add 50 cards to my 1978 set.

    Progress: So far I've added 39 cards to this set, up from 19 in the first quarter.  This should be easy to get done, even without spending  much money.

Goal: Add 5 signed baseballs to my collection.

    Progress:  I am at three.  One ttm, and two purchases I haven't posted about yet.  I"m confident I'll get this one done.

Goal:  Add 5 signed magazines to my collection.

    Progress: I've added three so far, up from one in the first quarter.

Goal: Send out 200 requests.

    Progress: I was couple short as of the end of June, but am now at 206, so this goal is complete.

I also picked up a couple projects as the year has progressed.  I don't have any specific goals, but I've been working on the 1964 Topps Stand Ups, 1977 Pepsi Discs, and 1983 Topps sets.

Four Returns

Today was another pretty good day for returns.  A little odd, but 15 more cards, just like yesterday.

The odd part was two players each didn't sign one of the cards I sent, but one player included two extra signed cards.

Jim Beattie signed his 1979, 1983 and 1985 Topps.  He didn't sign, but he did return his 1987 Topps.  Although I do see s return of four cards on SCN, looking at his history, he seems to max out at 3, and return the rest unsigned.  I didn't notice that when I sent it out.

Barry Foote signed the 1976, 1978, 1979 and 1983 Topps I sent.  He also signed and returned a 1981 Donruss and 1982 Fleer.  There was no note or anything, so I don't know if this was a mistake, or a kind gesture, but I'm happy to have them.

Steve Hargan signed his 1968, 1969 and 1976 Topps.  He didn't sign, but did return, the 1975 Topps I enclosed.  I see plenty of returns where he's signed 4 or more cards.  The 1975 Topps has a facsimile signature on it, so maybe he thought he already signed it?  Or perhaps just an oversight.

Finally, Nyjer Morgan signed his 2008-2010 Topps Heritage cards.  I know this return doesn't exactly fit my normal requests, but I had noticed some returns on SCN and I had some Heritage cards of his, so I sent them out.  I really like the Heritage sets so I'm happy to have these.  I'm not quite sure what his inscriptions are.  Maybe his jersey number, then a smiley face, on top of a "T"?

It will be at least a couple days now before I get another return due to the holiday on Monday.  I think tomorrow I'll update my goals for the year now that we're at the half-way point.

Five Returns Today

I received five returns today, for a total of 15 signed cards.

Larry Lintz signed his 1975, 1976 and 1977 Topps.

Gary Neibauer signed his 1971 and 1972 Topps.

Doug Rader signed his 1971, 1976, 1978 and 1985 Topps in just seven days.

Darrell Sutherland signed his 1966 and 1968 Topps.

Finally, Tom Walker signed his 1973, 1975, 1976 and 1977 Topps for me.

I continue to do a pretty good job of sending out requests and have over 30 requests outstanding from just the last month or so.  I have a few cards out to private signings as well.

Jim Small - 1957 Topps

I received a nice vintage return from Jim Small today, who signed his 1957 Topps nicely in about 2.5 weeks.

I had sent him his 1956 Topps back in 2005 which he also signed quickly back then.