Category Archives: auto chasers

Looking Into My In Person Autograph Collection

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I love autographs, and I have said on numerous occasions that autographs are what brought me to card collecting. My dad collects autographs, my brother collects autographs, and I STILL collect autographs of all of my favorite players and celebrities. Cards are my preferred way of growing my collection, but I never turn down a new opportunity.

This weekend in Chicago, I saw a chance to add to my collection when two of my favorite Vikings sign at the Sun Times Show there. Although I have condemned card shows as a place you shouldnt go to buy cards, autographs are a different story. Lucky for me Percy Harvin and Jared Allen dont charge that much (yet) for their signatures, and I am having a few people secure me a signature of them to display next to my Adrian Peterson stuff.
Here are my thoughts on it. In baseball, the signed official league ball is the preferred piece of memorabilia to have signed. Its universal, there is a standard, and players know where to sign. I have many baseballs that have signatures of all my favorite players, mainly because they are easy to display and fun to appreciate. In football, there isnt something like that. A standard football is too big, and a jersey can be extremely expensive and hard to prep for display. Therefore, the football mini helmet has become the preferred signing vehicle, even starting to gain favor with a lot of the players per a discussion I had with Beanie Wells during a signing here in LA.
Based on that fact, and my own personal affinity for the football mini helmet, I decided that it was going to be my piece of choice for this signing. I also thought it was a good idea to pay for the inscription, and Ill get to that in a second. Since my Adrian Peterson mini helmet is signed in silver, I asked my helpful acquaintances to do the same. I figured they would all look nice side by side on my shelf.
On a side note, I have two signed mini authentic NFL footballs. One by Percy Harvin and one by Stafford and Moreno. The mini footballs are a perfect size to display, but very few people make displays for them. I had a hell of a time finding a display, but settled on a custom one from eBay. Yes, it turned out great, but these minis could be the new OMLBs like in baseball. Take note Ultra Pro.
Moving on to the inscription part of the auto, this is where people usually use every creative bone in their body, or they pick something standard like HOF or whatever. Me, I love having personalized autos because my goal is not to sell them. Even though I could have gotten Harvin to sign “ROY 2009” and Allen to sign “Mullet Militia,” I wanted something more personal to display on my shelf. I decided on “To Adam” because I rarely have the chance to get something like that. I can always buy other stuff that has the inscriptions that I was just explaining, and that is why I want something that is more just for me.
I guess you can consider me the set collector equivalent of the Autograph hobby. The reason is that I dont collect the autos to sell, but rather to keep. Making money on an auto isnt my goal, its more the fun of adding to the collection. This is similar to some of those collectors out there who try to complete set after set because its fun for the sense of accomplishment, not to make money on their completed product. Despite that my taste in cards is completely different, I have adopted a similar MO for autos. So much so that I even have a hierarchy of what I like signed.
Baseball – 1. OMLB, signed in blue ball point ink 2. Bat that is used by the player, not just some bat 3. Mini batting helmet 4. jersey signed on the back number 5. 8×10 photo
Football – 1. official mini helmet 2. authentic NFL football 3. photo 4. jersey signed on the back number 5. mini NFL authentic football with white panel
If I can get any of these things personalized, I will. When I got the chance to meet Beanie Wells, I had him sign the football “To Adam” just like above. People at the shop he was signing said I was nuts to do it that way, but I continued to tell them that I was a collector not a seller.
Even if I dont get the chance to meet the player themselves, I am very happy doing things the way I do it, and that is all that matters. If you are a collector just like me, I would definitely find your niche as well. Find something that makes you happy in a similar way and then go for it. There is nothing cooler than a man cave filled wall to wall with autographs. It never ceases to amaze me what people are capable of.

Autographs and Hunters – Drawing the Line

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When it comes to the opportunities to get autographs, I get shaky and anxious. I cant tell you about the feeling, but I have the idea that most of you have experienced it. There really isnt anything like the chance to meet your favorite player, and you better believe that I live for it when the chance comes around.

Luckily for me, I have had the chance to meet every single one of my favorite players, with the exception of Adrian Peterson. As a kid, I got to meet Kirby Puckett on the field of the Metrodome during batting practice. I got to meet Kevin Garnett at a Target signing during his first year in the league. I got to meet Joe Mauer twice, and you already know the story behind that one. My apartment is full of signed memorabilia from all of these players as well as Adrian Peterson, despite the fact we have never met. I have said before that being involved in the sports card hobby is my way of feeding my hunger for player autographs, and still I feel jittery when I get the chance to meet anyone famous, let alone the players I follow.

Despite my innocent “im not ever going to sell any of this” attitude about it, autograph hounds like myself fall into two categories. The first category consists of people like me who will hold onto whatever they get forever. The second category is full of people who do whatever they can to get the most autographs possible to sell rather than to keep. Type 2 hounds are also the reason that people like Neil Armstrong and JD Salinger never sign anymore, and certain practices have led to record prices in auctions due to lack of supply.

Where do you draw the line, however? I know that if I see a famous person, Im going to ask for a signature if I have something for them to sign. Does that kind tenacity lump me in with the guys who wait outside of hotels for athletes with backpacks filled with baseballs? I havent ever done something like that before, but I have tried to fight through crowds to get the signature of a few bands that I loved growing up.

Considering how many lines I have waited in to meet someone, four hours at a time, six hours, I think maybe even eight hours once, I consider myself to be borderline. The thing that I think separates me is that 95% of my autographs have been from sanctioned signings, and most of the others are from TTM and other times.

Where do you draw the line? Im not a guy that will fight through throngs of screaming kids to shove a card into the face of a player at a game, but I will go out of my way to attend places where I know athletes and actors to be. I guess its a grayer area than once expected.

Retrospective: Changing My Labels

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You know, its weird, after talking with a few people yesterday, Im not sure I have the same view about my labels that I once did. I still consider myself to be a card collector, but only secondary to the true reason I love this hobby: autographs. I usually tell people that I am an autograph collector turned card collector, but I still believe that the autograph collector label still applies.

When I first started collecting back in the late 80s, early 90s, I chose specific players and tried to get every single card they had. Kirby Puckett, Tom Glavine, Shane Mack, all those guys. When my dad got to play golf with Wade Wilson ( a former Vikings QB) for a Diabetes fundraiser, I started to collect Wade Wilson cards. However, I didn’t really go after the autographs until my dad showed me his collection. My dad was a TTM freak when he was growing up, writing to every President and Congressman he could think of, athletes, music artists, everyone. He had Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Eisenhower, sometimes with personal letters to him. He had Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, too many to count. At that point collecting the cardboard was secondary. I wanted the autographs.

Within the next five years, due to many opportunities put on by the teams, I had met just about every Twin from the 1991 team, many of the current Vikings, and obtained many autographs the way my dad got them. We went to golf tournaments, signings, card shows, even my uncles in other cities would help us grow our collection. When Music became more important to me, so did getting music autographs. I wasn’t as successful, but I got some from my favorite bands at the time. In fact, even though both my brother and I are past college, our rooms at home are still plastered with framed pieces. My younger sister even has Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, and others. Its crazy.

Now, after entering my 6th year back in the actual card hobby, I still care about autographs more than anything. My shelf creaks with my displays of everything I have. In Minneapolis, I have much more, from Stone Cold Steve Austin all the way through to Kevin Garnett. To me, if you took away every single base card putout in the industry every year, leaving only the autographs, I wouldn’t change a thing about much of my collecting. I have accumulated some fun cards here and there, but 90% of my collection is full of signatures. Does that mean that I don’t love collecting cards of my favorite players that arent autos? No, not at all, its just not as much of a focus. For me, having a signed ball of each of the players on the Minnesota Twins retired numbers curtain is much more important to me than any team set or base set that I could spend years collecting.

A TTM Experiment

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Most of the time, when you have a TTM auto to get, its of a guy who is retired, generally unknown, or not a superstar. Rookies can also work well, as many of them have not generated a WIDE national audience, even if they are a top pick. The reason for this is that TTM autos have become a huge enough part of the hobby that most big superstars dont sign anymore. With the rookies, its up in the air still, especially before the season.

Based on this fact, I decided it was worth a try to get some TTMs out to some RCs from a recent pack I pulled. I also want to get Percy Harvin and Phil Loadholt, the two Vikings DPs on a card, so they are going out two. All in all there are four. Two are top valued picks, and two are lower levels.
I will keep you guys updated if I get the cards back, hopefully I have some successes to report. The four are Harvin, Loadhold, Moreno and Laurinitis, the last two pulled from my one pack of draft I bought today while getting supplies. Here are my other TTMs from this past year:
– Kareem Abdul Jabar – 1/1 sent and rec’d
– Jared Allen 1/1 sent and rec’d
– Joe Mauer – 0/1 sent, no success
– Joe Montana – 0/2 sent, ghost signed
– Shooter Hunt – 1/1 sent and rec’d (Thanks Bad Wax!)
So, as you can see, my Kareem was definitely a huge success, but the other big names came back empty as expected. The two lesser guys, Allen and Hunt were successes, we will see on the other four.
I know Mike at Bad Wax has had amazing success with his TTMs, but he also sends many more than I do. Maybe I will need to get some tips from him.