TTM Score From Seattle!

I think 2018 has been the year I have attempted the most TTM attempts. While most of my are sent to celebrities, I don't care too much about having athlete ones that aren't authenticated, I have found sending head coach ones fun however. They don't have quite the fan base as the players and they don't make cards of them anymore. Something I actually miss in this hobby.

But, with a most card sets sitting at 100 cards, it's hard to fit in legends, rookies, veterans in such a small list. What every happened to Pro Set type base card products? They had rookies, veterans, legends, coaches, stadiums, special game subsets and even referees. Those days are long gone and I don't expect them ever to return.

So instead, I will continue to hit up popular head coaches for autographs and hope for some success.

A three month wait success I can now say I have is that of Seahawks head coach and executive vice president Pete Carrol who has been around the NFL for some time. Pete returned my index card request in exchange for this great photo and especially signed in the Seahawk neon color. I checked with  my buddy Autograph Blog, check out his work HERE, on it's authenticity and it checked out. Very cool score for my collection.

Pete was a guy I remember coaching in the 90's. However, his first go-around in the NFL as a Head Coach wasn't so hot. He went 6-10 with the Jets  and lasted one season, and three seasons with the Patriots that went 27-21 with.

He went back to college in 2000 where he would dominate with USC winning two titles before taking the job in 2010 with Seattle where he has led them to multiple Super Bowls, winning one, and led them to the playoffs six times.

Thanks Pete for the autograph and taking your time out for me. I wish you the best this season overall, just not against my Giants.

The Price Was Wrong

From time to time, I will check in with my buddy Autograph Blog for new addresses and leads on guys I want TTM autographs of.

One of those guys owned one of the greatest sitcoms of the 90's, we can agree to disagree, but it was Drew Carey from the Drew Carey show. He also helped lead the team of comics on Whose Line Is It Anyway , a show I used to reenact with my high school math teacher after school. Now he is the lead man for The Price Is Right after taking over for Bob Barker. Still seems like such an odd role for him to be in and I still haven't quite adjusted my eyes to not seeing Bob on there, but glad to see Drew was able to continue his career somewhere.

So I sent a request out to Drew after hearing great success rates for him and was excited a week later when an envelope from The Price Is Right arrived with  my autograph. Except it wasn't signed. Sigh.

Inside was this picture with a preprinted signature.

 

 

This seems to be my luck this year with TTM. I either don't get ones that should be returned with success that others had or I don't get an item signed. I haven't give up completely yet and haven't on Drew yet either. I am keeping a running list of guys I want to sign things for me and haven't yet. I will re-send to all of them again knowing others have had success hoping I will a second time.

 

So Drew, be ready, I will be sending another out to you in the next few months this time with a new approach. Next time I am hoping The Price Is Right.

Thanks Coach!

It has been roughly five years since I attempted to send out any NFL TTM requests. I haven't had a lot of luck when it comes to the NFL or any sport. But, the NFL especially.

I must have sent out 25 requests with at least 8 of those going to the NY Giants and I never heard a single word back. Not even a return of my card or a quick just denial. Nothing. It wasn't like I was sending to the big super stars, I was sending it to rookies, second year guys and some under rated guys just to see if I could get a NY Giants or rookie auto return. But, no. No returns. I had pretty much given up on the idea of even trying the NFL again and sticking directly to non sport TTM requests as those have been my most successful.

Until I had a thought. What about a coach request? I had never tried that before.

What better time to snag an autograph then now! Giants hired a new head coach and the offseason has just begun.

Pat Shurmur comes to the Giants with a 10-23 record as a head coach. Not great, but his record looks bad because of his time spent being head coach of the Browns. At least he was able to win some games there with four one year and five the next.

Shurmur is mostly known for his offensive genius and hopefully it shines through for this team. The offense looked so bad the last three years that they really need someone to fix it. Especially with the talent they have on the roster right now. It's possibly the most talent I have ever seen on a Giants offensive team.

So I asked my buddy Autograph Blog if he had an address for the coach and as I expected, he did. So I sent out the request along with one for Saquon Barkley-that ate up four stamps but was hoping the gamble would pay off-and two months later, a manila envelope from team headquarters arrived.

I expected to open it up to see the usual fan pack that I have gotten before with player requests, but to my surprise this beauty inscribed to me arrived,

 

How cool is that?!

Thanks Coach Shurmur for the return and best of luck to you this season! This is my first coach return for a TTM overall and my second coaching autograph overall. I have a signed piece of Tom Coughlin from Steiner Sports I posted on here awhile back. Too bad I hadn't thought of sending out a coach request for McAdoo even though what he brought to the team was utterly painful.

I know my request to Barkley is a long stretch but hoping I can beat the odds even though I doubt it. At least I was able to get one of the coach. One I hope that will be a Super Bowl winning one soon.

To Infinity And BEYOND!

I have always been a huge fan of Tim Allen's whether it was Home Improvement, Last Man Standing or a few of his movies including Wild Hogs, so adding his TTM autograph was a need for my collection since I haven't ever seen him sign for a card company.

So a couple of years ago, I sent these terrible copies I made for him to sign. You can barely see the autographs on them and I was extremely disappointed in the way they turned out.

So when Autograph Blog re-posted an address to send to Tim, I jumped on it again. I did my usually index card mailing and within a few weeks I got something back. The problem, it was a facsimile signed photo. Never even got the index card back.

So that added some salt to my wound, but I didn't give up and sent him a request again. This time I sent a couple of better looking photos including the cover off from my Toy Story 2 DVD. Being the great guy he is, Tim took the time and signed both and sent them back.

 

These look much better than the last time I sent him stuff to sign.

I hope to get these framed and hang them in the man cave. I do however find it odd that his signature on his facsimile photo is so far off from his hand signed versions. But, one would take a guess that he gets tons of mail and signs a shorter version just to get something signed for the fans. Which is great and appreciated.

How many times have you attempted to get the "just right" signature from a TTM signer?