Signed Cards Through the Mail
Through the mail (TTM) signed cards are a tried and true pastime of many collecters, myself and my wife included. I can remember days of address books being circulated around with many old time (usually Baseball) players, and trying to find suitable cards for them to sign. There are huge online communities and sub-communities dedicated to keeping this practice alive. Now, even in the day of chrome-tastic cards, people have developed techniques, like rubbing an eraser on the face of the card, or creating a "signing window," in order to get their cards properly signed.
I will say that there is something psychologically awesome about getting mail. I genuinely look forward to getting the mail everyday, and it's really nice to get some cool stuff back. It's especially nice if your mailbox isn't always chock full of advertisements and bills. That can be a buzzkill.
So my wife and I love soccer, and especially the US National Team. It turns out that many of the USA players play in the US, and it's really easy to find club addresses to send cards to. We wrote individual letters (not hard using MS Word) and made some custom, personal cards to send out. These were nothing fancy, just a slightly edited inkjet printer on normal paper, cut and wrapped and taped around one of those cardboard "dummy" cards that are inserted into packs. You know, you card collecters, the ones you use to protect cards when shipping and have a ton of laying around. We sent those out with SASE's. It was a total cost of about a dollar per card out. Incredible.
We made some pictures and sent them out. Wouldn't you know, our return rate was astronomically good. We got stuff back from prominent US National team players. We got stuff back from international stars playing in the US. We got cards back from Olympic legends, golfing legends, and sports heroes. We got a lot of personalized things back, and really appreciated the thoughtfulness and time spent by a lot of these fantastic people. It was great getting the mail, and they would always come back spread out. Some came back years after the fact, some came back in a few weeks. The SASE's were bulk and so we never knew who they were returning from. But it was always great. My one regret was that maybe we should've used higher quality printing ink and paper so that it didn't smear. But then again, we will never EVER sell any of our personal custom cards, and that adds a little to fun of it all.
I will say that there is something psychologically awesome about getting mail. I genuinely look forward to getting the mail everyday, and it's really nice to get some cool stuff back. It's especially nice if your mailbox isn't always chock full of advertisements and bills. That can be a buzzkill.
So my wife and I love soccer, and especially the US National Team. It turns out that many of the USA players play in the US, and it's really easy to find club addresses to send cards to. We wrote individual letters (not hard using MS Word) and made some custom, personal cards to send out. These were nothing fancy, just a slightly edited inkjet printer on normal paper, cut and wrapped and taped around one of those cardboard "dummy" cards that are inserted into packs. You know, you card collecters, the ones you use to protect cards when shipping and have a ton of laying around. We sent those out with SASE's. It was a total cost of about a dollar per card out. Incredible.
We made some pictures and sent them out. Wouldn't you know, our return rate was astronomically good. We got stuff back from prominent US National team players. We got stuff back from international stars playing in the US. We got cards back from Olympic legends, golfing legends, and sports heroes. We got a lot of personalized things back, and really appreciated the thoughtfulness and time spent by a lot of these fantastic people. It was great getting the mail, and they would always come back spread out. Some came back years after the fact, some came back in a few weeks. The SASE's were bulk and so we never knew who they were returning from. But it was always great. My one regret was that maybe we should've used higher quality printing ink and paper so that it didn't smear. But then again, we will never EVER sell any of our personal custom cards, and that adds a little to fun of it all.
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