Today I received a package from the MLB Players Alumni Association of six baseballs I bought. All the baseballs have the MLB hologram on it and are signed in blue ink on the sweetspot.
Anthony Gose
Anthony Ranaudo
Rafael DePaula
Maikel Franco
JD Martinez
Joey Gallo (Futures ball under the logo).
They all look great as far as the autographs go. The Futures logo stamp is not solid and I requested to trade it for a better one. We will see how it goes but even if I cannot trade it, I am pleased with the autographs and the authentication is as solid as you can get.
Category: Bought
An Original Twin
Every month on the first of the month I check Brian F’s website (abcunlimited.com) to see what new cards he added from the previous month. Usually I do not see a card I need but this month was different. Brian had a small signing with original Twins Ralph Lumenti and got a couple of his 1961 Topps cards signed. I saw this and immediately sent an email to Brian and bought one. The autograph is in ink and is not the best but it is what it is and he is nearly 80 years old so I am not complaining. I am excited to add this to my Twins collection as I did not have one of his until now. Ralph was the last living member I needed from the 1961 Topps Twins set.
Holy HOFers Batman!
Today’s mail brought an envelope with five Hall of Fame postcards in it from Tom O (orr23mj on SCN). Tom was running a Christmas special of five postcards for $100. He happened to have five listed that I did not have and could not pass up the opportunity so I picked up the following:
Dennis Eckersley
Bob Gibson
Juan Marichal
Bill Mazeroski
Don Sutton
I really did not collect these postcards but had quite a few and these will fill the holes nicely.
An Early Morning Get Up
Today is Black Friday. Lots of places have early bird specials to entice people to come in to shop. I vowed years ago to never do the early Friday shopping and held strong until today. My buddy Joel told me about Barnes & Noble having a Black Friday special where they were selling a bunch of signed books and I was interested in a few. I picked out the ones I wanted last night and set my alarm for 5:15am so I could arrive there at 6am when the doors opened. I got there about five minutes before 6 and the place was dark and locked up and not a soul in the parking lot. I checked out the sign on the door and it said they opened at 8am. Man, my first time doing Black Friday and I screwed it up! I drove home and decided to lay down and if I got up at a decent time to go back I would go. I could not fall back asleep so I was able to get up and this time the kids both wanted to go so we all headed back to Barnes & Noble and arrived just after they opened the doors. I picked up the following signed books:
2 Hillary Clinton
2 George Bush
Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy (EL James)
Vampire Lestat (Anne Rice)
Yes Please (First Edition- Amy Poehler)
The Very Fairy Princess Sparkles in the Snow (Julie Andrews)
I called Joel on the way out of there and told him what I got and he said he bought five of the Bush books and said that I should get more. Amy and I went out shopping about a half hour after I got home and I decided to go back and ended up picking up three more Bush books and one more Hillary Clinton book. My intention is to keep a Bush and Clinton and eventually sell the rest… maybe when Clinton announces she will run for office.
When I got home I got an envelope I sent to Matt W (invctrl on SCN) and in it was a Kyle Gibson 2013 Topps Update card. I mailed one to Kyle during the season but he did not sign it for me so I went another route. Matt sent it to me for free although I did send him some money for a latte. Thanks Matt!