Quote:
Originally Posted by Bored5000
Mike Thomsen?
I am a member of the National Indy 500 Collectors Club.  I love seeing what is out there as far as Indy 500 history is concerned. I thought your article a couple issues back on the three page letter you received from John Paul Jr. was fabulous. When I was a kid growing up in the late 1980s, I wrote to lots of stick and ball players as well as NASCAR drivers via their team shops. I received lot of autographs in response, but I never received a three-page letter like you received from John Paul Jr. That is extremely cool.
From what I remember, I was unable to write to any Indy car drivers, either active or retired, because I did not have addresses for any of them. Winston Cup Scene used to run a huge listing of the NASCAR shop addresses several times a year, so that was how I had those addresses.
I had actually previously read about your collection in the Indianapolis Star, Autoweek and the Toledo Blade while doing some Google searches. I just did not realize who you were when you first started posting here. I think what prompted me to do a Google search was seeing a Ray Harroun autograph sell on eBay. I know there is added appeal in Harroun being the first 500 winner., but it surprised me somewhat how much his autograph goes for, considering that he lived into the 1960s and returned to the 500 as an old man. |
Hello, yes that is me. I am so pleased you enjoy the articles.
I enjoy doing them, I am hoping to branch out into longer blogs/articles, podcasts, similar to what Kin has done and the gentleman from Prewarsports who I am not aware of his actual name.
As far as Ray Harroun goes, there really is very little of his stuff on the market, I have only come across 15 to 20 in 30 years of collecting.
One potential reason is that he really wasn't as big of a deal until they made him the centerpiece of a lot of the celebrations in 1961, so from then on he signed more until his health declined and he passed away, but while he was there in 1951 at the Borg-Warner party, he really wasn't "feted" until 1961 when he started signing more.