I’m not gonna lie. When I saw the initial list for autograph guests at this year’s Sportfest I was not all that excited. However, the list is beginning to gain steam in a major way and it is turning out to be one of the better autograph gatherings of the year.

I’m really intrigued that Sunday will be headlined by at least six of the World’s most famous professional wrestlers of all time. Plus, these superstars are very affordable.

Anytime you get these colorful characters in one room at the same time it can be special.

Like I said, the list continues to get bigger and better, but for now this is where it stands:

SportsFest '07- Autograph Guests

Superstar Autograph Lineup

Friday June 8, 2007
Customer Appreciation Day!
All Autographs $10!

Monte Irvin -“Hall of Famer” 5-8 p.m.


Al “Scoop” Oliver -“7 Time All-Star”4-7 p.m.


Bill Lee -“Spaceman”4-7 p.m.


Raymond Berry -“Hall of Famer”5-7 p.m.


Bill Madlock -“4-Time N.L. Batting Champ”5-8 p.m.


Johnny Podres -“1955 WS MVP”4-7 p.m.


Bob Feller -“Hall of Famer” 5-8 p.m.


Stan Bahnsen -“The Bahnsen Burner” 4-7 p.m.

Saturday June 9, 2007

Joe Montana -“3-Time Super Bowl MVP” 12-1:30 p.m.
Flats -$149
Minis/Footballs - $169
Helmets/Jerseys/Numbers - $189
Inscription - $89

Kareem Abdul Jabbar – “NBA’s All-Time Leader Scorer” 1-2:30 p.m.
Any Item - $99

Bob Gibson – “Hall of Famer” 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Flats/Balls - $69
Bats/Jerseys/Numbers - $99
Inscriptions - $25

Sal Bando – “3 Time World Series Champion”
$25 Any Item

Ted Simmons – “8-Time All-Star”
$35 Any Item

Tim Brown - one of only 4 players in NFL history with 1,000 catches and “Future Hall of Famer” 1-2:30 p.m.
Flats -$69
Minis/Footballs - $79
Helmets/Jerseys/Numbers - $89
Inscription - $25

Tyrus Thomas – “Chicago Bulls Young Superstar” 12 – 1:30 p.m.
Appearance subject to Bulls Playoff Schedule
Flats - $45
All other items - $55

Reggie Bush – “2005 Heisman Trophy Winner”
Flats - $99
Minis - $119
Footballs - $139
Helmet/Jersey/Numbers - $169
Inscription - $69

Dale Murphy 2-3:30 p.m.
Flats/Balls - $49
Bats/Jerseys/Numbers - $69

Greg Olsen - “Bears 1st Round Draft Pick” 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Flats -$39
Minis/Footballs - $49
Helmets/Jerseys/Numbers - $59


Sunday June 10, 2007

Johnny Bench – “Hall of Famer” 1-2:30 p.m.
Flats/Balls - $79
Bats/Jerseys/Numbers - $149

Fergie Jenkins – “Hall of Famer”11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Any Item - $29

Gale Sayers – “The Kansas Comet”12:30 – 2 p.m.
Flats - $49
Mini/Footballs - $59
Helmets/Jerseys/Numbers - $79
Inscription - $25

Luis Aparicio – “Hall of Famer” 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Flats/Balls - $39
Bats/Jerseys/Numbers - $49
Inscription - $15

George Kell – “Hall of Famer” 1-2:30 p.m.
Any Item - $35

Steve Largent -“Hall of Famer” 12-1:30 p.m.
Flats/Minis -$49
Footballs/Helmets/Jerseys/Numbers - $69



Sunday WrestleFest at SportsFest


Mick Foley – “3-Time WWF Champion” 1-2:30 p.m.
a.k.a. – “Cactus Jack”, “Dude Love” & “Mankind”
Any Item - $39

George “The Animal” Steele – “Wrestling Legend” (HOF 2005) 1-2:30 p.m.
Any Item - $20

Dusty Rhodes “The American Dream” – “2-Time AWA World Tag-Team Champion” 12-1:30 p.m.
Any Item - $29

“King Kong” Bundy – “AWA World Heavyweight Champion” 12-1:30 p.m.
Any Item - $20

Nick Bockwinkel – “6-Time AWA World Champion (HOF 2007)” 1-2:30 p.m.
Any Item - $20

Bobby Heenan - “The Brain” 1-2:30 p.m.
Any Item - $20

I apologize to those of you who may think I talk about the Green Bay Packers too much, but over the weekend my hero ripped his team pretty good at a golf tournament in Mississippi.

Brett Favre is very unhappy that the Packers didn’t make a stronger push at Randy Moss. Then there were more reports that Favre demanded to be traded.

I understand Brett’s frustrations. I really do. I have no clue what GM Ted Thompson is up to, unless he is totally rebuilding the team, but come on Brett…


Don’t go out like this. Possibly the best quarterback in league history and demanding a trade after what may be his last season?

The Packers are not going to trade Favre. Although, it would have been nice for them to go after another weapon for the old gunslinger. Oh well.


In case you missed it (I know Steve Bloedow wrote about this today in his blog). But Heritage Auction Galleries was covered by many major media outlets today for its $1 million bounty that they will pony up to the bearer of Barry Bonds’ 756th home run ball.

If I remember correctly I think I wrote in my blog last week that I thought the ball would sell for a million. Honestly, now that auction director Chris Ivy has guaranteed the person who catches the ball $1 million, it will probably sell for more than my initial estimate.

I love all the excitement that will surround that one little baseball. Who caught it,? What does that person do for a living,? Where will the person sell it????

It will be very interesting!

My mom and uncle are big antique collectors. (Mom collects antique Santas and sheet music. My uncle collects guns and WWII memorabilia and tools). Maybe that’s why I’m such a memorabilia nut.
Starting in the late 1980s, my mom, dad, uncle and me used to drive 60 miles or more to rummage through the various antique shops, malls and shows of Northeast Wisconsin. Sometimes we would even drive a few hours to Milwaukee, although listening to my parent’s music choices sometimes made it unbearable to be in a car with them for more than an hour.

One Saturday night (we always went on a Saturday) dad pulled into the parking lot of Bosse’s, a cigar shop in downtown Green Bay. But like most cigar shops, Bosse’s sold magazines. They sold any magazine you could think of.  

I first started collecting baseball cards in 1987 and lived in a very small town. The only sports card publication I ever found in my hometown of Marinette was a big baseball card price guide that Beckett put out annually.

That day at the cigar shop I stumbled upon a huge newspaper-looking publication that talked about baseball cards and all sorts of other sports memorabilia. Except this was no newspaper. It was probably over 300 pages and three sections. It was Sports Collectors Digest.

I will never forget that day. All the way home I had my head buried into my newfound paper treasure, which smelt like a sweet old stogy.

I was hooked. I was a subscriber of the magazine all the way through college. I was only in middle school when I bought my first copy. Kids probably thought I was a bit odd when the only magazine I would read in study hall was SCD. Maybe that’s why I never got many chicks in high school… More on that later.

Anyway, the reason I bring this topic up is because today I made a post on the forum at gameuseduniverse.com.
Keep in mind, my post had nothing to do with SCD or any other magazine for that matter, but I had my signature at the bottom, which mentions our magazine.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes after I made my post that Howard Wolf (one of the boards regular participants) began firing questions at me.

Click here to see what was said.

I have no problem with criticism of me or the place I work for.

I just would like to stick up for my all-time favorite magazine, which I now work for.

Here is the e-mail I sent Howard this morning. By the way, he may have came off a little forceful in his message board post, but he was very cordial in an e-mail to me:

Howard,

I too remember when SCD was 300-plus pages and when I couldn’t wait to get it in order to buy tons of different items.
Now that the Internet has taken over, SCD is no longer the place for many of these items. Why would someone pay hundreds of dollars for a full-page ad when they can list their items on eBay for a fraction of what an ad would cost?

That’s not to say our publication isn’t a key part for some sellers.
Auction houses love putting ads in SCD because our database is so huge and we still do have a very high circulation number.

Also, believe it or not, there are still collectors who don’t use the Internet. Our publication is the only way they can purchase collectibles.

We are very actively trying to get new advertisers, but it is not easy.

That said, you can’t say much about our price. We charge less than 50 cents per issue. If you find just one key item a year (and that is being very conservative) it is worth your subscription fee, IMO.

Also, I guarantee you will find some of our articles very interesting. We just had a nice Cap Anson feature, cigar box feature (which I wrote) and there ARE some controversial pieces in our magazine. Joe Phillips just wrote a great article about fraudulent gloves hitting the market.

Your input is always welcome.
chris

I truly mean that. Everyone’s input is always welcome. Plus, I really feel that we are making a huge effort to improve our website and are going to fill it with very interesting content. We can’t do it alone however. The more our readers participate in things like this blog, the better it will be.

I was just thinking about the period in my life when I graded cards for SCD Authentic… ahhh, the good ol’ days. Actually, it was one of the most boring jobs I ever had:) Sure, I got to check out some of the best cards in the hobby, Hank Aaron rookies, Mickey Mantle rookies – I even got to grade Larry Fritsch’s Honus Wagner T206 and Freddie Lindstrom 1932 US Caramel cards.

But I am more of a people person and it makes me cringe to think that I once spent more than eight hours a day in a small, dark room looking at cards.

That said, I remember some of the phone calls we used to get and I would like to share some of the biggest misconceptions in the card-grading world.

-    Grading companies do not switch cards.

o    I don’t care if it’s SCDA, PSA, GAI or even CSA, the large grading companies do not switch cards… it makes no sense. Why would a multi-million dollar company like PSA put its business in jeopardy to steal a few grand? Not happening.

-    The serial numbers on graded-card labels don’t mean anything significant.

o    I remember the rumors that the first number on a PSA label meant you had a certain grader looking at your cards. No. 5 meant you had the more lenient grader and No. 7 meant you were in trouble and would get no higher than 7s. Give me a break. It makes for a great Oliver Stone movie plot, but really holds no bearing in trading-card reality. There is no significance to the serial number. None.

-    People accuse grading card companies of damaging their cards.

o    I am not going to say that it doesn’t happen, but I will say it is highly unlikely. At SCDA, I can only remember one instance when a card was damaged. We immediately called the customer to explain what happened and I believe gave the man an amount in cash that he was happy with.

o    I would like to think that the other grading companies would handle it in the same manor as we did, but there is no way I will ever know for sure.

-    People used to call us and ask how they knew the package would get there safe. Many people simply would not send packages through the mail.

o    I can totally understand this. If the postal service lost a package, it would basically mean they lost someone’s childhood and/or passion. That said, I will throw in the fact that I have personally shipped thousands of packages in my life and the USPS has never lost one. Not even one.

-    Lastly, people used to call SCDA all the time and tell us they had a T206 Honus Wagner card and that they wanted to get it graded.

o    Ok… there is a chance that the card is real. Probably a one-out-of-a-million chance.

o    That said, if the back of the card tells you that a Honus Wagner T206 card is worth thousands of dollars, then it has no chance.

Good day, I’m off to Dallas for the Heritage auction.

It’s intriguing to me that there are a select number of athletes, celebrities and historical figures who just plain don’t sign autographs. Of course, there are always a few examples from this fraternity, but when they actually show up you are going to pay through the nose.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the following sports personalities are known as infamous non-signers: Dr. Mike Marshall, Al Davis (I couldn't even find a past auction result to provide a link for Davis), Bill Russell (he used to be a non-signer until the late 90s), Sandy Koufax (used to be also, until he signed a deal last year with UDA).

Historical figures who won’t sign at all anymore is the famous moonwalker Neil Armstrong and author of Catcher and the Rye, J.D. Salinger.

Paul McCartney isn’t a “non-signer,” but is a “barely-ever signer,” so is Bruce Springsteen. McCartney actually had a book signing last year and The Boss will sign if you are extremely lucky.

I thought you would find it interesting to check out past auction results of the few autograph examples from these personalities. Click on their names and you will be redirected a result.

Scammers are in full force and they are hitting up people’s memorabilia, toys and anything else of value. About two years ago my friend’s grandmother, who lives in Green Bay, a junk man come to her home.

She let him in, and to my friend’s dismay, bought all of her antique sports collectibles. She probably had a few thousand dollars worth of programs, yearbooks and autographs from the Packers’ championship teams of the 1960s.
She wouldn’t tell my friend how much she sold the items for, probably because she knew she got ripped off.

Now I know it ultimately was her choice, but she was totally taken advantage of and she was way too trusting… Most elderly people are.
Another story of a scammer taking advantage of elderly people happened to my friend’s mother this past weekend.

She is in her 60s and beginning to forget things etc, so she is becoming an easy target.
My friend always told her not to sell any of his childhood toys. She vowed she never would.
Then, over the weekend she had a rummage sale and advertised it in her local newspaper. A man who must have seen the ad came to her home a day early and asked if she had anything else for sale. She said she had some furniture and invited the man inside.

According to my friend, she said the man showed a lot of interest in his childhood toys. She told him that the toys weren’t for sale.

My buddy arrived to his mom’s house the next day and some of his favorite toys were missing. The man who came in the house stole the toys!

My buddy was so upset over the fact that part of his childhood was stolen, and I don’t blame him.
Now to the unfortunate story of hobby pioneer Lionel Carter. Listen to this interview. Very sad that there are horrible people there doing this to innocent people.

It’s always a good thing when our beloved hobby gets national media attention. Today on ESPN.com, and I would assume other media outlets as well, the 1951 Mickey Mantle Bowman SGC 96 rookie card that sold in Mastro’s recent auction was featured in a story.
The price of $160K was the most ever for a Mint example of Mantle’s true rookie card.
I am not going lie; I was very baffled when I saw the final price. Granted it was graded by SGC, and not PSA, but PSA has graded 9 1951 Bowman Mantles with a grade of a Mint 9, so it’s not like cards similar to this one don’t exist.

Also, the ones that have previously sold went for only about a third as this one did.
Was this because the card was once owned by hobby veteran Lionel Carter? Was it just a better example than all the previously-sold 9s? I have no clue.

That raises an important question. Does it make a big difference if a notable person once owned a particular item? I remember when SCD Authentic graded cards from Larry Fritsch’s collection, and they did rather well, but three times the normal price? That is very surprising.
I wonder if it will end up in a PSA Gem 10 holder some day.

*****************
Now on to the NFL Draft. If you read my post last Friday you could probably sense the excitement I felt from the Packers’ potential on really improving the team. Instead, they made no significant trades and drafted a bunch of players I never heard of.

I am not one to doubt a General Manager of a pro football team, but I will admit that Ted Thompson’s strategy is very baffling at times.

There are people in Wisconsin that are calling for his head right now. I will wait and see how this all plays out before I go looking for him.

*****************
I will be headed to Dallas this Friday and I am very excited to tell everyone that I will be covering Heritage’s live auction. I will be writing a story covering the event for the pages of Sports Collectors Digest and also will be taking some video and doing some audio interviews with the hobby’s key players.

I am going to most likely be talking to Heritage’s auction director Chris Ivy and Heritage’s jersey authenticator and hobby pioneer Lou Lampson.

Should be very interesting content to say the least.