A five minute post addendum: autographed memorabilia

As I was looking through the autographed stuff I posted yesterday and comparing those to my collection of pictures of my brother and I with the signers we met at shows, I realized I was missing something.  It took some digging but I finally located it:

I don't remember exactly what year it was when we went to see Brooks Robinson at the old Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor, but I do remember him being a super nice guy.  You know, one of those autograph guests that actually smiles, says "hi", maybe talks for a minute as he's signing, and even gives you time for a quick photo.  The fact that Robinson was an amazing Hall of Famer and Gold Glover at his position was just a bonus.

Anyway, I tried to sleuth out what I had Brooks sign for me based on a photo of me at his table waiting for him to sign.  I thought it may have been one of the Hall of Fame programs/yearbooks I had, one of which contains the Fergie Jenkins and Bob Feller signatures you saw yesterday.  Nope.  Finally I realized it was a page from a nice Orioles-centric book my mom got me one year:

Yes, I spilled a bit of paint on the spine in an incident with an open can and a ladder a few months ago.  No, I don't wanna talk about it.

I was big into the team in my junior high and high school years, mainly because of Cal, and my mom is an amazing person who paid attention to my interests, so she really killed it with this.  And the cherry on top is a beautiful signature from the Human Vacuum Cleaner on a page that stars a great glossy photo of the master at his craft.

So of course I'm glad I finally remembered I was missing him in my collection and was able to track this book down!

This gives me two "five minute" posts in two days, and to those I can add a third over on TMM this evening as I show off my latest purchase, my 113th 1/1.  Check it out!

My five minute post: baseball autographed memorabilia

A couple weeks ago Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop experimented with something to help him get back into blogging after a bad month or more that included unexpectedly losing his mom:  writing a post in five minutes.  A blogger with my favorite URL--"betterthanbeckett.blogspot.com"--who also just impressively completed his awesome First Night Game at Wrigley autograph collection, Daniel came up with a fun and useful idea, especially for folks like me that enjoy the scanning, checklisting, and sometimes draft preparation of blog-writing but sometimes dread the actual writing part.  In my case I think I just demand too much of myself.

Anyway, I'm fortunate to be able to try such a post under better circumstances, and I happened to have an idea already in the pipeline that would work well:  my collection of baseball autographed memorabilia.  I posted on it here years ago, but many of my old posts have dead links to images, plus I like to have everything I scan cataloged in Google albums at this point.  So I took the opportunity to take some improved photos.  That was especially useful when it came to my baseballs signed by multiple players.  Now you can see every signature!

It's been a long time since I added to this collection since the shows I go to rarely have quality signers, if any, and some of their prices have gotten ridiculous.  That makes me appreciate what I do have even more, though I'll continue adding to it as I can.  You can always view this album under the "My personal collections" section to your right.

While this will probably put me over five minutes (as if I haven't run over yet--but at least this has gotten me writing!), I'll do a quick recap of how I acquired each item:

• In-person at a show:  
• Bob Feller hat, 8x10, HOF program, and ROMLB
• Fergie Jenkins HOF program
• Willie Stargell 8x10
• Matt Anderson/Gabe Kapler bat (combined signing)
• Willie Stargell/Fergie Jenkins/Warren Spahn/Gaylord Perry ROMLB (separate signings)
• Detroit Tigers baseball signed by Al Kaline, A.J. Sager, Rick Leach, Gabe Kapler, Matt Anderson, Willie Horton, Don Wert, "Paws", and Mickey Lolich (separate signings)
• Purchased:
• Bill Freehan 8x10
• Rich Hill ROMLB
• Traded to me:
• Barry Larkin 8x10 (Play at the Plate)
• Scott Rolen ROMLB (from a 1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess redemption)
• Gift:
• Bill Freehan photo  (my mom's former boss)
• Kirk Gibson helmet  (Christmas present from my brother)
• Sandy Koufax/Tommy Lasorda/Walt Alston ROMLB  (from my uncle via a friend of his who was a Spring Training bullpen catcher back in the day)

Thanks, Daniel, for the motivation to get posting a bit more (and helping me realize that there's plenty of value in brevity).  Good luck as you get back into the habit--it's great to have you back!