TTM success thread
 

I've had some solid success lately and wanted to share. Of course, I bought the Spahn, Herman and Gehringer, but the others have been TTM.

Dawson and Sandberg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0114.jpg

Sandberg card and Shawon Dunston
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0115.jpg

Bobby Doerr, Fergie Jenkins, Billy Herman, Ryan Dempster, Warren Spahn
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0116.jpg

My favorite, Charley Gehringer
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0117.jpg

Very Nice!!!

Any chance I could get some info on Sandberg and Dawson? For some odd reason, I don't currently have either of them in my collection....I'd love to take a stab at some TTM again, haven't done that since I was a kid..

Don't know if you've used http://www.sportscardforum.com/ttm.php, but they have a remarkable database of addresses there, so I just used the ones that have been successful for others from that site.

The other key to HOFers from what I've seen is including a "donation". I think I sent Dawson $30 to his foundation. I sent Ryno $20.

Also, I send a nice handwritten note. No clue if that helps or not, but most folks seem to read it, as everyone has provided inscriptions or whatever when I've asked.

Dawson is easy, in a way. As long as you include the cash/check for his foundation, he'll sign anything. Ryno was more a shot in the dark as I understand he can be spotty TTM. I've also heard he's amazing about signing in person.

The best part for me has been reminiscing while writing the notes to the players and coming home to see those packages in the mail.

Nice pickups! SCF has a great data base for addresses.I've been doing TTMs
for about a year.I've gotten about 350 so far.I go for retired players.Some of the bigger names are Bunning(no fee) Kaline($10),P.Niekro($10).I always send
a letter with some questions.I've gotten some really great answers!If my internet evers gets fixed at home,I'll post some pictures.

Congratulations on your success! I recently got back a Paul O'Neill 3x5 TTM and was literally jumping up and down in excitement. One of my favorite Yankees of the late 90's early 2000's and I got it for one of the projects I am working on.

It's always nice when you are able to cross off a player from your project want list without paying more than the price of two stamps, two envelopes, a letter, and an index card!

At some point I'm definitely going to have to move over to cards (baseball or index) for autographs, instead of ROMLBs. Gets spendy!

I know what you mean, something about a baseball though that makes me happy

See, I'm thinking I have to move from index to baseball cards because most of the younger players refuse to sign them-- orders from agents and MLB. Dumb. Index cards mat and frame so beautifully with a picture.

i get my list on sportscollectors.net, and i usually aim for the high % success guys also. euro hockey players are tough, when they're done they usually go back to europe.

latest successes are roenick, andreychuk, yashin, zhitnik, and will the thrill. i stick to cards i still have as a kid to send in.

Mainly Cubs
 

Hey Cubsfan-budman
What do you think of these? :cool:

I hadn't done any TTM's for the past couple of years, but seeing this thread made me fire off a couple about two weeks ago. I already got back HOFers Wade Boggs (2 signed rookie cards, included $5 each for his charity) and Al Kaline (card for $5 also), along with a couple of others.

It's nice to get back in the TTM game - it sure makes the mailman's visit more interesting!

Ken - when you have a bunch of signed baseballs just sitting in a bucket, you might have too many :)

I love coming home from work and seeing those fat envelopes sitting in the mailbox!

Have duplicates of Sandberg, Lee Smith, Buck O'Neil, bunches of balls from Spring training, and Cubs fantasy camp. On a first name basis with Jenkins and Smith. And Hundley. Many of the balls in the barrel have names I have forgotten. LOL

Andre Dawson has the signature of a gentleman. I need to send him something to sign. Very impressive.

I've only done three TTMs but have a 100% success rate so far:

Carl Erskine
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ne/ttmcarl.jpg

Russ Kemmerer
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ne/ttmruss.jpg

And Steve Garvey, who signed two of his RC for me (Carl and Russ were just replies to letters).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ine/Garvey.jpg

1967 Dexter Press
 

For the past several years I have bought these "cards" in small groups and sent them off ttm for autos. I am up to 115 different and have a few dupes that I wold trade for others that I need. Here is a half dozen or so that I have gotten back in the last couple of months:

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps627d12a7.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...psfc1c0713.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...psed8edebb.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps8be17ba7.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps28b2e52e.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps3c6373a5.jpg

Very cool stuff, thanks for sharing!

I have a few out right now that I have my fingers crossed for: Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Mark Grace.

I have Josh Hamilton out as well, but apparently he signs everything in December, after the season, so I don't imagine I'll have that one back until next year.

Just a quick update, I got back Billy Williams, Bob Uecker, Red Schoendienst and Wade Boggs.

Unfortunately, also had my first failure, as Ernie Banks sent mine back to me RTS!

Was really looking forward to that one!

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0142.jpg

I sent two photos out to chris chambliss, hopefully he'll sign them.

He is usually pretty good but takes a couple of months....

Really suprised at that from Ernie. Of course I was at Cubs camp but he signed a ball, a card, a photo, and a book for me. We even called my wife and he talked with her for about 5 minutes. Was quite an experience.

Is there a list somewhere with the players that have TTM fees and what they are?

my suggestion is to hit up www.sportscardforum.com

they have a free TTM database. this is what i use.

there's also a pretty cool list on their main autograph forums of players that charge a fee and what the charge is...its not perfectly up-to-date, but generally pretty good.

there are other sites that have this info as well, but afaik, they all charge some fee. this one is community-grown and free. doesn't have 100% of the players that you want, but usually the community can fill in the blanks if you ask.

This site has a small fee but more than worth it.

http://www.sportscollectors.net

Thanks for the link there, having some trouble finding this page you are talking about with the fee list.

thank you sir!

just sent out a bunning and kaline, asked for inscriptions, will update later

I received a Bunning back this past summer for both me and my two boys :)

Nice, his success rate is through the roof. I have a ball from him already, but I want one with the inscription for my Perfect Game Collection. Hopefully he fufills my request!

Just got Terry Bradshaw back on a jersey.

Sent a TTM to Bunning asking for a PG inscription.

Boo ya

http://db.tt/5l06LhOj

Bunning will generally sign for $10. I just sent him 4 cards and $40 and he signed all four nicely.

Not following, he signed my ball for free

He will occassionally sign for free, but if you include $10 you always get it back. So if its something you definitly want back I would include $10.

Good to know thanks

Storage
 

I have been doing TTM on and off for a few years - thinking about organizing in binders (the more common folks) - anyone store in ultra pro sheets? Any concern the auto would rub off over time? I wonder if a penny sleeve before putting them in the sheet would help?

all opinions welcome

I store in binders with Ultra Pro Sheets. I haven't had any rub off that didn't come back already faded.

I also use ultra pro sheets in binders.Haven't had any problems yet.

This is football, but you might want to see what came back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohec1...ature=youtu.be

That takes some guts to send out jerseys like that with the possibility of throwing $100+ down the drain. That's the definition of High Risk, High Reward.

Even after seeing the signature, it's funny that he doesn't even know who it is until he unfolds the jersey.

If you saw the signature, you wouldn't be able to tell either.

Got a baseball back on Saturday signed by Josh Hamilton! Merry Christmas to me :)

Mr. Chambliss signed both my photos and sent them back. I wish he would have wrote a letter back because I had asked acouple questions. Also included a photo of my chambliss collection, but nothing But I'm happy either way.

A Few Recent ttm SI Successes
 

CHARLEY JOHNSON

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...hnsonSI001.jpg

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...CJphoto001.jpg

ANDY ETCHEBARREN

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...arrenSI001.jpg

Got this today for my 3000 hit collection. Mr. Biggs was nice enough to add his hit total like I asked. He did however send me a different ball than what I sent him. Odd.

Wow if I got a ball from Mr. Biggs I would not care if he sent me one different than the one I sent.:D Wasn't he the guy from Sex In The City. Or was he the one from The Chicken Shack?

Just wanted to throw out some info for anyone who collects TTMs.

You may want to check out this website. thebenchtrading.com

No membership/account needed and even if you want to join...its free.

On the top of the website in the yellow bar is the "forum" prompt. If you click on that it will take you to all the forums on the site. Scroll down and you will see an autograph section with 4 forums. Under the Addresses forum are threads and threads with a sticky that may have an address you're looking for. You can also use the "search" function to search previous threads for a certain athlete.

For Net54 members who send cards in the mail for TTMs and don't want the card to get damaged, here is a neat trick I have used in the past. Instead of sending a card "bare" in an envelope, I took a top loader and inserted a piece of sheet metal into the toploader. Next I took a razor and cut out a "window" on one side where I wanted the autographer to sign the card. Then I put a piece of masking tape above/below the window with a message like "Please autograph below/above". The autographer never had to remove the card from the toploader & I never had to worry about my card getting damaged in the mail. ;)

My first TTM was Andre Dawson. I had heard that he also collected cards, so when I sent him a card to autograph, I also enclosed an extra card for him to keep for himself. A short letter wishing him luck getting into the HOF and a small donation to the children's charity that he sponsored and 4 days later I received my autographed card back from him & he wrote me a hand-written letter thanking me. He also said that he would be happy to autograph anything else I wanted autographed for free. This left such an impression on me that I thought I would share the story.


Jantz

He was Mr. Bigg.... and damn autocorrect on my phone

You can also you sportscardforum.com

http://www.sportscardforum.com/ttm.php?do=list&sp=2

I'm guessing he's signs a bunch and then him or maybe a family member mails it back.

Yea I figured, just sucks because I got a China ball back. But I can't complain about the hit inscription, which without it, wouldn't make me happy.

I am working on a 3000 hit club collection with the hit inscription, so this free addition made me happy.

Got this in the mail today, Dave Winfield added his Career Hits Inscription for my 3000 Hit Collection

very cool! nice looking sig.

Yea I'm just happy I can pick some parts of the collection TTM instead of on ebay

Got these back in the last few weeks.

Does anyone have info on how to get Chet Lemon? I understand he may be a little league coach in Florida but I cannot seem to find a TTM address or how much to send or if it should be cash/money order/who to make it out to.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Steve...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...,1549944.story

I had great success with Arnie Herber back in 1972 -- he died in 1969. Perhaps he still has living relatives that might accomodate someone? :D

How do send balls out for TTM?
 

What would you suggest for sending a ball out for TTM? Padded envelope? I recently mailed Bart Starr a mini helmet with a priority box inside my original box, it seemed to work ok.

I put a ball in a plastic ziplock, pen, letter of request, sase with 5 stamps on it which is a 4x5 padded envelope in a 8.5x11 padded envelope with 6 stamps on it. Works like a charm as I have gotten some nice balls back.

Thanks Issac!

Surprised no one has brought up www.startiger.com. You do have to pay but the success I've had from it is worth it. I've received thousands of letters back from guys, mostly the vintage guys and have never had to pay for them.

Are the addresses that much different than what is on Sports Cards Forum?

I have used Harvey Meiselman's address books and subscribe to Startiger for addresses. Harvey's books are pretty solid and very well organized. He also sends out e-mails of any changes in addresses, signing habits and deaths throughout the year. I also like Startiger. I haven't really explored too much beyond these 2, but I would recommend either one for TTM. If you are doing TTM's then Harvey's books are worth the investment. I use Startiger as a way to keep track of signing habits and fees also.

my 2 cents
 

I've used startiger for several years and have found lots of different addresses (sheer volume and players with one address on SCF and another on startiger)than those on SCF. That being said, my success has been better with startiger.

signed up for a month of startiger to test it out.. will update which i like more

i hope it works out, but i can't abide the name "startiger".

I dont know how the other sites work, but I've had great success with startiger and I like how it keeps records of all of your successes. Even if you cancel your membership and pick it back up a yr later, they're still there.

sportscardforums has the same feature, fyi. it has a "TTM Manager" that you can use to track your successes/pending/failures.

and its free :)

I'll check it out. Could be better..

I've been using Sportscardforum for about 3 months now and I have had approx. 100 sucesses and 3 failures so far. Pretty good ratio in my opinion for free.
Drew

Got Mr. Robin Young to sign a ball for me and as requested, he added his career hits inscription. Add another to my 3000 hits collection

A couple more Exhibits arrived today

Isaac, are you including donations for guys like Winfield and Yount? And are you sending c/o their respective teams or another address? I was under the impression both guys were tough to get TTM but those definitely look legit so I'm curious as to your secret. I need Winfield on a gold HOF plaque and if I can get him TTM as opposed to a show, well...goes without saying I guess. :D

Sent you a PM, but Winfield was $20 and Yount was free using SCF TTM addresses.

How much did Larsen charge for that?

I sent him $10

Isaac,
That's a great looking Yount ball! It doesn't get much better for TTM.

Yea, he is doing TTM again for all that wants one, no fee and it came back in 10 days!!!

Let me clarify, as I don't want people to get disappointed. Mr. Yount is not doing TTM again. And he has never done TTM on a consistent basis. The majority of people will get their item back unsigned along with a pre-print HOF postcard. He will sign a few every once in a while. It is a crap shot. I don't want people to think that he has turned into Wade Boggs....

Shot me a PM, if you have any questions.