Miscellaneous baseball cards

ernie11

I am not a baseball card collector, however, I collect baseball autographs by writing to the players. A lot of times, I am unsuccessful in getting an autograph - in reply, the player has not sent an autograph but some sort of photo or card. I don't know what to call these - they're not made by Topps, etc., sometimes they are from the team the player is on, or some other association. Question is - are these collectible in any way? I am posting a few examples.

Goot

You wrote to Mickey Mantle?

mreuter

I didn't know he was still signing.

MooseDog

Anything that has a popular player's image on it can be considered collectible. However the value is not going to be high because these items tend to be mass produced. The items that you posted pictures of probably don't have much value.

Items such as the McGwire and Palmeiro would be described as "postcard with facsimile signature".

Sometimes you get lucky, even if you don't get an autograph. The Montreal Canadiens NHL team, back in the 1960s and 1970s used to intercept their players mail and instead send beautiful color postcard photos of the players that you wrote to. These are very collectible as they are gorgeous and extremely well done. In baseball in the 1970s and 1980s the Yankees, Phillies and Royals sent out photos and postcards with preprinted signatures using a process that "sort of" made the signature look real - which you now often see in antique stores as "real" autographed pics.

I think you can still get Mantle's autograph c/o Greg Marino at a Federal Penitentary somewhere...

MeteoriteGuy

Where do you right to for two retired and one dead athletic?

Mark

digicat

Back in 1989, I wrote to Gregg Jefferies and Mark McGwire. The A's sent back a postcard just like the one you have, and the Mets sent back a nice looking glossy postcard of Jefferies.

ernie11

I should've explained that these acquisitions were not recent. I have no special pipeline to Mick...

As for the preprinted autographs, I have many of those from teams. I enjoy getting the photos/cards, but they're generally worthless.

ernie11

I believe it was around '89 that I wrote to Mac, too.