October 22, 2023, Chantilly Show Graphing Recap

What a weekend.  My good friend, Jesse, and I met up with another close friend, Ryan this weekend.  The three of us, along with Ryan's nephew Blayke, checked out the Chantilly show on Sunday.  I wanted to finish of the 1982 Topps Baltimore Orioles Future Stars card that I had already gotten signed TTM by Jeff Schneider and Bob Bonner.  That left Cal to get taken care of, which I finally aas able to do. 

Cal commented on the card in that I got Schneider and Bonner, which was cool.  He shook my and Jesse's hands.  He's always friendly, and I was happy to pay the fee to see Cal again.

I paid Bill's premium fee to get the "Rick Face" card signed, finally.  It took some digging in some Orioles boxes to find the card, but I located it and got it added to the autograph album. 

Bill was super friendly and happily posed for the picture.  He commented on my Oklahoma Cielo Azul hat.  I just checked, ND I wore the same hat last year and I recall that Bill commented on it then, too. 

The Sunday autograph lineup wasn't terribly impressive for me, but I saw that Steve Carlton was going to be there.  I decided that I'd pay his fee and get him on a card to add to my album.  He signs TTM for a fee, but I wanted to meet him.

Carlton was nice.  He was pretty soft-spoken and it was hard to hear him at points. Jesse and I were nervous when we were lining up for this picture.  Carlton told us to calm down, line the shot up properly and thanked us for coming.  It was really nice of him to not push us along and ensure that we got a good photo.

Jair Jurrjens was signing in the Forward Area, so I got two cards of his signed for his fee.  I got a 2010 Topps Chrome and a 2011 Topps signed.  Jurrjens has an awesome signature.

Jurrjens was really nice.  I'm glad that I read the lineup thoroughly and saw that he would be there.

I was on a pretty tight budget, but i was still able to find some cool stuff.  I worked on my 1955 Bowman set just a bit and also found some cool vintage cards to send TTM.  We'll see if I can get them in.

Thanks Ryan, Blayke and Jesse for the great time and thanks Jesse for keeping our ride ti and from Ryan's house interesting and the photo ops.

Another TTM Success From Steve Carlton

I'm slowly knocking off the Hall of Famers who charge fees for TTM autos for my 1987 set.  Carlton charges $35/card, so it was a little high, but I wanted to cross this card off of my set needs.

Carlton (b. 1944) played in the majors from 1965 to 1988 for the Cardinals, Phillies, Giants, White Sox, Indians and Twins.  He had a 329-244 record, 4,136 strike outs and a 3.22 ERA.  He won 20 or more games six times in his career.  He won the Cy Young Award four times (1972, 1977, 1980 and 1982).  His best MVP finish was 5th (3 times).  He won the World Series with the Cardinals in 1967 and the Phillies in 1980.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1994 when he was names on 95.6% of the ballot (first ballot).

I mailed to Carlton on April 25 and got the card back on June 11, for a 47-day TAT.  I paid a fee of $35/card.

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.

Hall of Fame TTM Success -- Steve Carlton

I came home from work today and the first thing my son told me was "You've got a surprise Daddy, you got something in the mail!"  He made me close my eyes as I came in the house, when I opened them, there was one of my mailers on my desk.  Inside my mailer was a ball that I had sent off on November 28, 2011 to Hall of Famer Steve Carlton.

I was beginning to worry about my ball, as I had sent it along with a check.  The check was cashed on December 8, 2011, so I guess Carlton was holding the stuff and signing all of his requests at once.  No big deal, as I now have my 63rd Hall of Famer and my 45th TTM success!

Carlton signs baseballs for a fee of $35.00 made payable to 'The Grace Fund,' which is Carlton's charity.  So, the autograph fee goes to a worthy cause! 

Steve Carlton (b. 1944) pitched in the majors from 1965 to 1988 for the Cardinals, Phillies, Giants, White Sox, Indians and Twins.  He has a career record of 329-244, 4,136 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.22.  He won the Cy Young Award four times (1972, 1977, 1980 and 1982) and won the World Series in 1967 and 1980.  He was traded by the Indians to the eventual World Champion Twins in 1987 but was left off of their playoff roster.

Carlton was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1994 (his first ballot) when he was named on 95.6% of the ballots cast.