When Card Collectors Get Bored
(and don’t want sigs on stickers)
There’s an art form out there in the card collecting world. An art form rarely seen by the common wax cracker, but one well known in the more avid community. Out there in the wax world is a sort of card collecting species indigenous to the smaller sect of autograph hounds. This rarity in the genome is the Designus Cardus Customus, otherwise known in layman tongue as the Custom Card Designer (or in underground slang, "that custom guy"). I am one of them.
The first time I pulled a certified autograph, I didn’t care that it was on a sticker that was then applied to the card. I was excited that I got an autograph at all. Then, like many of you, I got to thinking. The player that signed this sticker never even touched this card. It may sound strange, but it seems to devalue the card a little bit. That’s almost like saying "hey, I’ve got Joe Mauer’s autograph on a Joe Mauer jersey" when in fact you just took an index card with his signature on it that you bought off of eBay and slapped on a $50 replica jersey that Joe’s never even seen before. Compare that to the signature on the number on a $250 authentic game used jersey with a certificate of authentication. Which one would you value more?
I do have plenty of autographs now since I’ve returned to the hobby, on all of my favorite sigs are on card (or at least sans sticker). Some of those autographs, though, didn’t come out of a pack, nor did they come from eBay, nor did they come from a trade or anything else like that. They came TTM. Wait. What? TTM? Touch tone microwave? Two times melon? That sort of abbreviated lingo confused me on my return to the hobby. And, boy, is there plenty of it. TTM, for those as uneducated as I was, means "through the mail." That’s right, kids. I actually SENT cards that I pulled straight to the players, and they sent those same cards back signed RIGHT ON THE CARDS! Holy crap! What a concept!
It was this concept that had me thinking. Hey, it’s really cool that they signed cards that I actually pulled. What if they signed something I made? How cool would that be? And that’s when I came up with the idea of GameDay Graphers.
GameDay Graphers is a series of cards dedicated to a given player and something significant as it relates to that player in 2009. Let’s say that Delmon Young for some reason has to pitch for an inning and strikes out the side. I would create a card for that day, and I would use it to try to get an autograph from him TTM or IP (in person).
In my surge of creative excitement, I decided to test out a design and assembly. I chose Pat Neshek because he’s one of my favorite pitchers and because he’s notorious for being an excellent grapher. It took some time coming up with the design, and it took even longer perfecting the assembly. I finally got to a finished product that pleased me. I took the chance and sent it off to him. I even gave him his own card. Only a few days later, this is what I got back…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
That has to be the coolest thing ever! Not only that, but he inscribed the damn thing with "1/2" without me even asking for it! That’s what got me officially hooked.
With TwinsFest now around the corner, being hooked on designing my own custom graphers has kept me busy in the last couple of days. I’ve decided to begin designs on as many current roster Twins as I can to stay ahead of the game in case any one of them does something personally significant in 2009. This is what I have so far…
Oh, I can’t wait to fill that book up with TTM and IP custom graphs! I’m not sure if I can think of a cooler item to add to my collection.
Perhaps if I made Memorabilia cards…. STAY TUNED!
HAPPY 2009!
