Another TTM Success From Bill Mazeroski

Here is another card signed by Hall of Famer, Bill Mazeroski.  I had found the card in my boxes from Conrad and figured I'd send it out to be signed.  The card turned out nice.  It's a 1971 Topps that was in decent enough shape.  Those cards are hard to keep in mint condition due to the black borders.

I mailed to Mazeroski on June 1 and got the card back on June 10, for a 9-day TAT. I paid his $10.00 fee.

Another TTM Success From Bill Mazeroski

While going through a box of cards that I picked up from a show in Virginia last year, I found an assortment of Upper Deck cards from a set for the Ken Burns Baseball documentary.  The cards are all like the one above, printed in a blue tint, and have some nice photography.  I saw this Bill Mazeroski and wanted to get it signed and into my autograph album.  I had a couple other cards of his put aside for my next TTM attempt with him, and picked one from the bunch to include with the Burns card.

I liked this 2017 Panini Diamond Kings card, and wanted to get one of these into my autograph album.  I included the card, along with Mazeroski's fee for both cards and sent them along.

Both cards turned out great.  I really love the Ken Burns set, and have a couple other cards from there that I want to get signed and into the album.

I mailed to Mazeroski on January 6 and got the cards back on January 23, for a 17-day TAT.  I paid his fee of $10.00/card.

TTM Success - Bill Mazeroski

Bill Mazeroski has been signing TTM consistently for a good bit now that he has moved from wherever he was previously.  I had seen a bunch of people get him back, so I decided to try my hand at it, as well.  Then, I got a RTS.  The same address everyone else was using, and my envelope came back with the dreaded yellow sticker.  Dang.  I tossed the cards in a box I have been filling up that, once full, will be yard sale fodder.  

One of my buddies got him back a while later and confirmed that same address for me, so I dug these two cards back out of the box (took forever to find them, of course), and I sent them off again.  This time around, I was successful and have two really great cards that I can add to the album.

The card at the top is a 2019 Topps 150 Years of Baseball insert, and turned out amazing.  The above 2001 Topps Golden Moments card is also great, and I am glad I was able to get it signed.  I missed out on getting the Bobby Thompson card signed, but I did get Hank Aaron.  This is a pretty cool subset and I may come off of some money to add a few more of these to my collection.

Mazeroski (b. 1936) is now 85 years old and one of the oldest living Hall of Famers.  He played 17 years in the majors (from 1956 to 1972), all for the Pirates.  He had 2,016 hits, 138 home runs and a .260 batting average.  He was a 10-time All Star (1958 to 1960, 1962 to 1964 and 196, with double honors in 1959, 1960 and 1962).  His best MVP finish was 8th in 1958.  He was also an 8-time Gold Glove Award winner.  He won the World Series in 1960 and 1971; his home run in the 7th game of the 1960 World Series is the moment shown on both of the cards I sent.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001 via the Veterans Committee.

I mailed to Mazeroski on March 27 and got the cards back on April 12, for a 16-day TAT.  I paid a fee of $10.00/card.

June 21, 2014 Raleigh Card Show Part 3 - 1959 Topps Pickups

The bulk of what I picked up at the show today was a great deal of set needs for my 1959 Topps set.  Check out this awesome Yogi Berra I got for $30.

In all, I got 19 cards for my 1959 set.  Most of them were in great shape.  This Robin Roberts, for $3, was the roughest of the bunch.

I got this Eddie Mathews for a steal at $15.  Not too bad, I think.

This Whitey Ford was probably the best looking of the bunch.  I got this one in a bulk deal, so I don't know what the individual cost of it was.  Much better than the $35 price tag, I assure you.

This Enos Slaughter isn't rough, but it sure is off center.  I had a Larry Doby that was just as bad and I ended up upgrading it.  I may do the same with this one, we'll see.

Hey, look, another Mazeroski.  He seems like he was a common pickup today.

I got a whole bunch of these group cards.  I already had quite a few of them, and I feel like I knocked out most of the remaining ones.

This Ashburn/Mays card might be the second roughest card in the bunch, but I got it dirt cheap and I'm ok with that.

This Podres/Labine/Drysdale was the last card I picked up before I headed for the door.  I had $4 left in my wallet and figured I might as well see what I can get for it.  I saw this card for $6 and offered the guy $4 and he took the offer.

I looked at a few of the team checklists today, but this was the only one I grabbed.  The back is unmarked and the card looks really cool.

The next two cards are more of the group cards, but the coloring on each really make them pop.  This Fox/Aparicio is a nice one of two Hall of Famers that I oftentimes forget about.

Stengel shows up in a few Topps regular issue sets quite a bit.  This one of him discussing baseball with the legendary Don Larsen is pretty cool.

Here we are with another old manager.  Billy Martin isn't in the Hall of Fame like the two guys I talked about in my previous post, but getting this card was really nice.  Especially since his early cards carry a little bit of a premium.  I honestly believe it is because of the name recognition in that he was the Yankees manager for a time (several times).

Finally, the sole semi-star RC that I picked up.  Johnny Callison was quite the second baseman in his day.  I had heard Brian Roberts (pre-injury) compared to him in the past.  I really like these RCs in 1959.

So, there you go, those are all of my set needs pickups from the card show.  My next post will be about my few vintage PC pickups.

June 21, 2014 Raleigh Card Show Part 2 - 1969 Topps Set Pickups

As promised, here is my next installment (Part 2, if you will), of what I got today at the Raleigh card show.  I got such good deals on vintage set needs.  I added 7 1969s to my set, including 5 Hall of Famers, a checklist and a RC.

I made a rare double up purchase by picking up this Roberto Clemente that I already had in the set. The guy made me such a good deal on it, I couldn't pass it up.

New Hall of Famer, Joe Torre is included in the lot of cards that I got.  The 1969s I got were cheap for the most part, most around $1 a piece, but the below Rod Carew was much higher than that.

Hooray for high numbers because this Carew carried a premium.  Oh well, I would have bought it at some point, anyway, so why not now.  This was one of the last purchases I made before I tapped out and went home, but I'm glad I got the card.

Can't forget Bill Mazeroski, even though most do forget he is a Hall of Famer.  This is a really nice card of the former Pirate.  This was just about at the end of his Topps run as he had cards in 1970, 1971 and 1972 after this one.

Finally, a Hall of Fame manager, Leo Durocher.  Kind of funny seeing the Torre from above, a newly minted Hall of Fame manager and this card of thelegendary Leo Durocher.  Kind of interesting seeing them close to each other.  Kind of like a lineage or something.

Stay tuned for my next installment, set to be written in a few minutes, my 1959 Topps pickups.

Awesome Mail Day Part 3 - Sportlots Pickups

Not only did I find two of my returned mailers in my mailbox on Saturday, I also found a bubble mailer from my Sportlots order.  I wanted to knock some set needs out and realized that I hadn't ordered from them in over a year.

 First off, I figured I'd knock a couple '59 Topps out.  I'm not officially pursuing this set, yet, but I saw that the seller I was buying from had these two cards that I knew I needed, so I added them at the last minute.

 I'm not sure why, but I'm liking the mint green of this Eddie Yost card.  I prefer the more vivid colors in this set (especially the red ones), but this color is actually pretty nice.  I think, aesthetically, 1959 might be one of the best looking sets.  I'm also a fan of 1954's look, too.  You all also know my affinity for the 1955 release.

 I knocked several 1970s off of my list, the most prominent was this Don Sutton.  We go from the awesome look of the 1959 set to the rather blase 1970 set.  I don't mind the gray, but it's kind of blah.  I've warmed up to it since I have been putting it together though.

 I picked up several 1971s as well and this group had a good many Hall of Famers.  First was this Jim 'Catfish' Hunter.  A really sharp looking card (which, incidentally, I already had, oops).

 I replaced the Mazeroski that I already had in the set.  That one was very rough looking and this one is much sharper.  The Pirates uniform really looks good with the black border of this set.

Finally, one of the bigger cards I got was this Reggie Jackson.  Wow, what an awesome uniform.  I got this card for $8.00.  Not bad, I've seen it go as high as $20.  This one is far from mint, but it fits right into the set.

In addition to these cards, I also knocked 3 cards off of my friend's 1963 Fleer want list.  Always good to be able to chip away at what he needs as well.

If you guys haven't tried Sportlots yet, I highly recommend.  They are awesome if you need a few more odd cards to complete a set.

May 13-15 Raleigh, NC Card Show - First of Many Awesome Pickups

So, I had been sitting on my 2008 Topps Stadium Club Triumverate (triple relic/auto) Albert Pujols for a good while now. It had gotten a lot of looks in my display case, but no one wanted to jump on the price. I didn't want to sell it at a yard sale price, so I have been sitting on it... until today. I guy came by my booth and was eyeing the Pujols; we talked for a bit, then he went off to some other tables. I was pretty bored, so I got up and checked a table out that had some autographed baseballs and lo and behold, it was the guy who was looking at my Pujols. He had a couple baseballs that I liked, so we ended up working out a trade...... I traded the Pujols and a couple other autos for the above Mazeroski ball and another ball that will be posted later...

I really liked this Mazeroski ball (my 26th Hall of Famer) because it is seriously OLD. It is a Charles Feeney NL ball with very faded stitching. I think it is really cool. It's actually a Spalding ball, which, if anyone has been paying attention, Rawlings has been making the official baseballs for a while now. I looked up Charles (Chub) Feeney, and he was the president of the NL from 1969-1986, so the ball is from at least prior to 1986. Not bad. I like how some of the old baseballs look. This and the other ball I got were JSA authenticated, so I looked them up when I got home and they were legit. So, I'm really excited for sure. I hope you all like this one as well. When you see the other ball I got with this, you'll know I and the other guy pulled off a good trade.