Graphin'

Something a little different today...my autograph collection....and first things first...99% of your common cards from the 80's till now ain't worth shit, let's just get that out of the way early. Now, after a 25 year hiatus from collecting baseball cards I got back into it in 2001. I was up fishing in MT and visited my 'cuz in Missoula. He had a room full floor to ceiling with white boxes, each one full of basketball cards. I saw a card that had a piece of the players jersey in it, saw some with certified autographs, cards with bits of court floor, etc. I was intrigued and decided to start yet another hobby. Got home to Utah and began to frequent a card shop in Salt Lake. I soon found that cards weren't as they were back in the 70's...I saw a pack of basketball cards, 4 cards in one pack for, wait for it...wait for it...$399!! Each of those packs contained one common card and 3 cards with either jersey, patch, autograph, or multiple autographs. There were 3 older gentlemen that split the cost of the pack. I soon learned that what they were hoping for was a Jordan autograph, maybe LeBron. I don't remember what all the cards were but one was a Kobe Bryant/ Camello Anthony dual autograph. He probably wouldn't have made his money back on a sale. Look at sports cards in ebay and type in "jersey card" or "auto" and you'll get an idea of what they look like. I spent a LOT of money (money that could have been better invested in fly fishing) on cards each month. A box of cards will say something like, "this box is guranteed to contain one jersey and one autograph on average"...as a collector you end up buying the whole $50 to $100 box and hope to get a big star like Pujols, etc. 99% of the time you get a no name player or a player that ain't worth the cost of a pack, let alone the box. On occasion I got some decent hits....Cal Ripken autograph, Ted Williams uniform pants piece, Jeter sweet spot autograph...my biggest hit of all was a Reggie Jackson/ A-rod dual autograph serial numbered 3/5...there were only 5 of those cards produced. Put it on ebay and in two days the bidding was up to $300...I spent $30 on the pack. I took it off ebay and ended up selling it to the card shop owner for enough to buy myself a new Lamson reel.

After a couple years of this I decided to stop with the buying and start collecting autographs through the mail. I found a cool website, sportscollectors.net. For $14 a year you get access to thousands of home addresses to players, both current and retired, in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and "miscellaneous" (golfers, celebrities, etc.). There are chat rooms, message boards, etc. so collectors can see who is signing, who charges, who won't sign, who's sigs are fake, etc. The fakes suck...I sent an 8x10 to Terry Bradshaw, got it back signed, and was excited as hell. I posted my success on the site and was told by a veteran collector that Terry hasn't signed a ttm (thru the mail) autograph since being inducted into the HOF...his brother signes his mail! I forgot to look that up on the site. Of course, I don't know if any of mine are real or "ghost signed" but who is gonna fake a sig of a minor league player that gets maybe one piece of fan mail a month? Being new I quickly learned that if you send a letter to Ken Griffey, Jr., Roger Clemens, or that prick-bastard Barry Bonds, you ain't gonna see any return mail.

In 2006 Topps came out with a set that was a little over 300 cards long called the Topps 2006 '52 Rookies. The set consists of 2006 rookies but the cards are based on the 1952 Topps cards, Mickey Mantle's rookie year. I am up to over 275 of the cards signed. The players I have left are tough signers like Prince Fielder (got his dad, Cecil a while back) and Geovany Soto. These guys aren't necessarily huge names they just don't sign ttm. This is where sportscollectors.net comes in handy. I find a fellow collector that lives in Detroit or Chicago and the bartering begins. Usually I will offer OMLB's (official major league baseballs) in return for the 'graph. I paid two balls to a guy in Seattle for my Kenji Johjima auto, a notoriously tough signer.

This Dustin Pedroia I got before he became a big star...his success percentage is down nowadays. The Joel Zumaya I got from a guy that was down at Spring Training, he is a tough sig to get and from what I hear, kind of an asshole.

These are from the Topps 2004 All Time Fan Favorites set. This set is 150 cards long. I have about half of them signed. I wont ever finish it as I ain't gonna pay hundreds for Mays or Aaron. This set has some sentimental meaning. I wrote to Buck O'neil and talked about my son going to his first ever MLB game while visiting Cinci. My son had a game bat given to him after the game. Mr. O'neil wrote a nice letter back along with signing the card above. He died a couple months later.
I have hundreds of autographs that I have obtained ttm and in person. I have tried to concentrate on baseball but have some great football and basketball players as well, most of them being on 8x10's. These cards here are generic hockey cards from theautographcard.com. These are all signed by the 1980 Olympic Hockey team. Many of them also signed the 3x5 index card I had included. There are 2 players that are near impossible to get...I read a story about a guy who had a 16x20 print of that game in 1980 right after the U.S.A. won and all the players were charging the ice. This guy had each player sign that poster next to their pic. He knew the last 2 players were toughies so he sent a "permission" slip to them first, telling them of his project and that he'd like to send the poster for them to sign. He got permission and sent it to the first guy...never saw it again. Started over and did the same for the second guy. Again, got permission, sent it away, and never saw it agian. Luckily mine are just cheap cards so I'll try anyway.
There are all kinds of projects I'd like to take on as far as collecting goes. A couple years ago I decided to collect sigs from all the pitchers that threw a homerun pitch to Hammerin' Hank. Many of the pitchers are dead and many have disappeard as far as getting an address. I have about 30 of them so far...never will be done but fun anyway.
Of all my autographs, one of my favorites from a man that never played a major league game. See, I started getting a little sick of players thinkin' their shit don't stink and that everyone is out to make a buck off their signature...I'd gone to a Bees game and had 3 cards (all the same card which is an no-no but they were for a fellow collector in Florida) to get signed by this guy. He says, "Man, I ain't signin' all dem...you jus' gone sell em!" Yeah, douchebag...I'm gonna make money off of this dunce who's spent the last 5 years in the minors and is going on 36 years old... I'm sure all of a sudden your gonna get huge and make me some money. "Well, moron, why did you want his sig?" you may ask...again, not for me but a fellow collector, and not cuz' it's worth anything but to complete a set. Anyway, back to my favorite... I sent a letter to Joe DiGangi. This guy was what baseball is all about. He wrote me a long letter, sent me pics of him with some of the greats of the game (Babe Ruth), sent me some military pics (Navy guy like my gramps), and basically told me how much he loved baseball. Never made much money but did something he loved and hung out with some of the biggest characters in the sport. One of my favorite auto's.
Getting this written up has made me wanna start collecting again. I took the last year off and let my scn subscription run out last October. Now ain't a good time to start sending to current players...I've had my greatest success sending to Spring Training. I will renew my scn subscription soon and get ready for next season. One thing that surprises me how long it takes to get returns. I sent a letter to Chipper Jones when I was new to the hobby back in 2002...I got a signed card 3 years later! Great hobby for kids. You can even send emails directly to the team web site and get fan packs sent to you. Usually a couple decals, pocket schedules, and pencils but occasionally you get cool stuff like bobbleheads. I even got a little pack of dirt from Fenway! Any questions on the art of ttm collecting just let me know and I'll help you out.