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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Signed 1989 Perez-Steele Celebration Set
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Posted by jaygross
Comments: 1

Long time SCN member Kaneen recently posted on our message board that he completed the Perez-Steele "Celebration" Set.

Background on the set

The boxed presentation set was released in 1989 to "celebrate" the 50th anniversary of the Baseball Hall of Fame. 3 of the included players passed away during the set's production (Bill Terry, Judy Johnson, Lefty Gomez), so only 41 of the 44 numbered HOF cards were possible to be signed. Those 41 possible signed cards are all pictured in the posts below, as well as the check list card signed by the artist, Dick Perez.

The design of these postcards was inspired by the 1887 W.S. Kimball & Co. Champions (N184) set. Measuring 3-1/2" by 5-1/2", the postcards present profile paintings of the inductees on the top two-thirds of the card fronts with smaller action paintings below them.

"By that time, we had already produced the Hall of Fame art postcards and we had started the Great Moments [postcards]," explained Perez. "And, of course, with the Hall of Fame art postcards, the majority of the inductees had died. With Great Moments, we had started creating postcards of a little over half of the past Hall of Famers and a few of the current Hall of Famers; and what we found out was that collectors were really interested in getting these signed. So we started shifting our emphasis to living Hall of Famers. With the Celebration set, we decided to create a set totally devoted to living Hall of Famers."

I would assume this set has certainly appreciated recently in value. I found that a few older auctions for the signed set:

Robert Edwards Auctions in 2016 sold for $1,440

Heritage Auctions (40 cards, without the Campanella) in 2019 sold for $1,320

Here are the pictures

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Looking back at one of my favorite successes - Terry Allen
Monday, January 4, 2021
Posted by jaygross
Comments: 1

I really enjoy hearing stories from collectors finding elusive items whey have been wanting. Especially if they are big fans of the players that they are collecting. So I thought I would share one of my own.

Terry Allen was a running back for 5 teams and played from 1991-2001. He wasn't the biggest guy, but he was a hard runner and averaged 4.0 yards per carry for his career. He made the Pro Bowl in 1996 with 1,300+ yards and a league leading 21 rushing TDs. He did also lead my Patriots in rushing in 1999.

Besides being a fan of his, I really wanted to get his autograph for my 1993 Pro Line Portraits set (I am now 1 card away). I LOVE the pictures in this set, as the cards show guys in their interests outside of football (Terry is playing pool in his card). There were autographed versions of the cards inserted into packs for 27 of the 44 players in the set, but Terry was not one of those guys.

I had tried writing to him with every team he was on after 1995 and at every address I could find, never getting a response.

In 2003 I got a lead that he was trying a new path after the NFL and the below note is what I got back in 10 days:

terry allen

I am not sure what Terry is up to these days. Hopefully he is doing well and something that makes him happy. I saw he went back to Clemson to get his degree and that was doing a coaching internship with the Cardinals in 2018.

He has been a decent signer over the years (50%+ success rate), but not in the past 1+ year.

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SCN 2020 Year in Review
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Posted by jaygross
Comments: 4

I would like to thank all of the wonderful folks who are part of the SportsCollectors.Net community, and especially to those who contribute to the site (be it tracking TTM requests, posting on the message boards, taking part in chats, uploading photos, offering private signings, making trades/deals, etc.). You are the reason I created this site and continue to enjoy this fun hobby so much.

2020 was a different and crazy year for the world on so many levels with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting everyone. For so many of us it has meant pretty significant changes to our lives. I've done my best to have SportsCollectors.net as a place for us to enjoy our fun hobby (autograph collecting) and hopefully be a pleasant distraction from all these things.

In March we celebrated the 20th anniversary of when I opened up this site for members to sign up and join the community. The site and the hobby were VERY different back then! Sharing info on who signed was REALLY hard back then, so I invented+coded the Request Tracking database. It still amazes me that something I have created is still used by so many folks and bringing them enjoyment. And it's even more amazing that there are still a lot of active members who have been with us since 2000.

Numbers tell a story

Former NBA big man Rasheed Wallace used to say "Ball Don't Lie". Well neither do the statistics about the combined contributions of this community. I am continually amazed by the value SCN as a collector's resource.

SCN stats

We've added big enhancements

	Server Upgrades HTTPS on SCN We made some pretty big upgrades to infrastructure that runs the site. We moved the site on to much faster hardware. Traffic on SCN is now sent via SSL encryption. Our home page is now https://www.sportscollectors.net.
	Trading Dashboard, Leaderboard, and Trade Manager Enhancements This feature release introduced: New Trading Dashboard New Trading Leaderboard Pretty significant enhancements to our Trade Manager
	Leaving Bulk Feedback This feature release introduced: You can select the checkbox for up to 20 trades and leave them all feedback at once. You can see the type of transaction. along with details for private signings. You can see if the other trader has left you feedback on the transaction.
	Signing Fee List and Icons We added some nice info for members: Signing Fee and Signing Note icons where we show player records Signing Fees Pages for each sport Categories for Notes and Fees
	Track Fees with Requests & Successes You can see the new Fee column throughout the site that displays individual request details. The red box in the screen below shows the Fee Column on the page that lists all of your Requests
	Last Success and Success Rate on Search My Request page We added 2 optional columns to the Request Tracking function: Last Success - date of last recorded success (in yellow box) Success Rate - ratio success compared to total requests (in green box)
	Archived Private Messages We introduced the ability to archive old Private Messages, so they won't clutter your inbox and you don't have to delete them.

Many of our heroes have passed away

It has been gut wrenching to check the Passed Away section on our Message Board throughout this year. I counted 456 people in our database have been marked as passed away in 2020, including the 31 Hall of Famers below:

BASEBALL:

BASKETBALL:

FOOTBALL:

HOCKEY:

My personal collection

I am not just the person who runs SCN, I am also a collector (like most of you folks). I wrote the most letters this year that I have written since 2003 (before my kids were around). My success rate is at 62%, quite a bit lower than previous years. I have gotten a bunch of successes I am pretty psyched about.

I used to be fairly obsessed with getting multi-signed cards, but I had a nice pile of cards that I had started and never finished... until this year.... (click on thumbnail for larger view)

I made some nice progress with my obsession for trying to complete tri-cards from 1980 Topps basketball:

I am still on the hunt for the following 3 signed cards to finish my sets:

1993 Pro Line Portraits Wilber Marshall

1989-90 Hopps Sylvester Gray

1978-79 Topps Pete Maravich

1993 Pro Line Portraits Wilber Marshall

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