GoWarrior's Success Thread

[Philly Fan 5064]

Love these 8x10 returns

[BigRedMachine]

Nice Lee, I sent a card a while back so hopefully mine will show up soon.

[GoWarrior]

Love these 8x10 returns

Thanks! Me too. haha.

Nice Lee, I sent a card a while back so hopefully mine will show up soon.

Thanks, very happy with them. He's pretty reliable, though seemed to take a while with mine. Hope you see yours soon.

A couple nice returns today. Going through stuff at my parent's house I came across a bunch of my old baseball cards. It's been over a decade since I've sent any cards out but I figured what the hell... I might as well get some ink on them! And since I got back into TTM about a year ago I've only been sending 8x10s... so here's my first card in a VERY long while.

Jimmy Key
Played for the O's in the late 90s when they had a couple decent years. I'm an O's fan so chose this card to send him. Good signer but he only signs one so I only sent one.


Lou Brissie
Highly scouted by the legendary Connie Mack, Brissie got drafted during WWII and got his leg almost blown off in battle. After multiple surgeries Brissie refused to quit and Mack was thrilled to welcome him to play on the Philadelphia A's. Brissie also played for the Cleveland Indians. A fantastic book was written a few years back about Brissie's courageous and unlikely story. After I read the book recently I had to send to him. He's 88 years old.

Sent him an 8x10 and the jacket cover from the book, as well as a check for $5. He signed both, included a note, and even sent back my check. Hell of a guy!

Bob Feller said "Lou Brissie would have been a Hall of Fame pitcher if it hadn't been for World War II."

8x10 with legendary Hall of Famer Connie Mack


book jacket cover


index card


Sorry for writing so much, I just get really excited about this stuff!

[GoWarrior]

Bob Lilly
Sent two 5x7s along with a $5 donation. Told him to keep one of the photos if he wanted but he signed both! Very cool success from this Hall Of Famer. In 1999 The Sporting News ranked him number 10 on its list of the 100 greatest players of all time.

[GoWarrior]

Carl Banks
Huge Giants fan so very happy to get this one back from the two-time Super Bowl champ.

[GoWarrior]

Been away for a while but had a couple things show up in the mailbox this week.

Terry Steinbach
Took almost four months. He asks for $2 per card which goes to the Terry Steinbach Scholarship Fund for college scholarships. It's a good cause so I sent $8 total. Probably should have asked for an 89 WSC inscription, but oh well. Came out nicely. (Wouldn't mind getting McGwire and Canseco too!)





Harry Carson
I bought a used copy of Carson's book on ebay for $5.34 with shipping included. All the description said was "good condition." As long as I'm able to read the words, that's good enough for me. The thing shows up in my mailbox this week in beautiful mint condition and authentically signed on the title page! It's inscribed to someone else but for $5 as an unexpected surprise... I'll take it!

[REDANDGOLDPRIDE]

nice find.

bought Jerry Rice's autobiog the exact same way for about the same price and it showed up and it was autographed. it was inscribed to the guy i bought it from and read his ebay and he's a huge 9ers fan. gotta assume it's legit.

[GoWarrior]

Have a bunch of TTMs out there but the mail box has been empty for a while. Had a terrific IP weekend though so I'll report on that.

Cal Ripken, Jr.
Sorry for the long writeup - skip it if you want - but this was THE big one for me. Ripken was the big autograph guest at a local card show. I rarely pay for autographs like this and often times you get herded through like cattle with a quick handshake and a crappy photo but he is my #1 favorite ballplayer of all time so I had to go. I had gotten him at the ballpark twice when I was a kid but I wanted to get something pretty awesome that I could frame as the centerpiece of my collection.

It wasn't cheap, but I had a 20x24 photo printed of him and paid for his autograph + inscription. Ripken has always been a great signer in person and that was certainly the case at the show. He had 4 or 5 Ripken Baseball staff with him running the operation. They were all extremely nice and helpful... going down the line helping people prep their markers, discussing where people wanted their items signed, and just being friendly and welcoming in general. When they saw me in line with my photo one of them came up to me and said "That's a beautiful picture. Beware though, Cal usually knows what game every photo is from and will tell you about it. Otherwise he'll try to analyze the photo and figure it out." Now I'm getting REALLY excited. Cal is taking his time with each person. After you got your autograph they would have you stand close by. After every 5 or 6 autographs Cal would get up from behind the table, go over to the waiting group who just got their autographs, and do individual photos with each of them standing up. Then he would go back to the table and sign another 5 or 6, get up to do the photos again, and so on. It was a very cool way to do it and you get a really nice photo instead of trying to lean over a table (I hate the way those photos usually come out).

So I get up to the table and lay the photo in front of Cal and sure enough he takes a look at it and says to me "Ok, Pudge Rodriguez is set up on the outside of the plate, and the umpire is waiting for it to come outside too. Looks like I had to reach out for this one but I got a piece of it. You can see the shadows on the ground, looks like an afternoon game. That always makes it more challenging to see the ball when you're trying to hit it." This is the coolest experience ever! After we talked a little more about the photo he doesn't just quickly scribble on it... he asks what marker I want him to use and where I want him to sign it. I had paid for an inscription so he asked what I wanted him to write. I asked him what he thought was his most career-defining highlight but he said it was too hard to decide on the spot, so I went with 2632 Consecutive Games Played.

It was an insanely cool and personal experience with my favorite athlete. It's nice to know that a guy like that goes above and beyond to make the experience a memorable one instead of just signing his name and moving on. And I've got an amazing photo with him as a keepsake.

Also, JSA was there authenticating on-site. They ran a special, $6 for a basic certification for any item signed at the show. I have never really trusted JSA as I've seen many questionable items that they've passed but I figured it couldn't hurt to have it 3rd party authenticated and for only $6 I had them slap a sticker on it and give me a corresponding COA. Plus it goes into their online registry with the serial number.

Cal signing my photo


The finished product (lots of glare on it, sorry it's big and glossy)


Jim Lonborg
There were a bunch of other ballplayers signing at the show... Steve Carlton, Harold Baines, John Smoltz, Joe Theisman but after paying a pretty penny for Ripken none of them were really in the budget. Lonborg was free though with your paid admission to the show so I bought an 8x10 for $5 to have him sign. In addition to being a pretty good pitcher and winning the 1967 Cy Young, he is also notorious for giving up Mickey Mantle's final career homerun (#536).


Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka
Coincidentally pro wrestling legend Jimmy Snuka was doing a book signing at a mall ten minutes away from the card show so I popped over there. They wanted $40 for a signed copy of the book which was way too much for me, especially since it's getting poor reviews for being too short and not telling enough interesting stories. So I paid the Superfly $10 to sign an 8x10 I brought and take a photo with me. He used his own gold sharpie which didn't come out too spectacular. Still pretty cool though.


All together it was a terrific and fun day.

[Welker83]

Very cool day.

[Riggs]

awesome stuff. wish i had big time ball players coming to my city/state. That Ripken looks amazing along with the Lonborg. Very nice additions.