Autographs Through the Mail (TTM) Success Rate

With the calendar turning to 2012, I start my sixth year of collecting autographs through the mail (TTM). Below are my statistics since I started sending cards out (sent out / received signed):

Baseball (since 2007)

904 / 502 = 55% success rate

Football (since 2008)

93 / 63 = 68%

Hockey (since 2007)

92 / 65 = 71 %

Others (since 2008)

16 / 7 = 44%

One reason for the baseball numbers being less successful is my attempt to get every living Minnesota Twins player to sign a baseball card for me.

There are 643 living players and I have 380 with roughly 320 of those coming through my mail effort. Unfortunately, I have 111 requests out that have not and may never return. I have no addresses for the 148 others, but I will keep looking as addresses seem to appear when I least expect them.

My goal for 2012 is to continue to add to my Twins collection. I doubt I will be sending out as many cards to players on other teams as I have in the past due to a low success rate.

I hope to get signed cards at Twinsfest from newest Twins Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit, Jamey Carroll, and Jason Marquis. If not, I will try them via the mail. I hear Doumit, Carroll, and Marquis are decent signers through the mail. Hopefully they will continue to be so during their time with the Twins.

I also hope to make more progress on getting a signed card from every playoff roster member of the Twins 1991 World Series team. I have signed cards of every member of the 1987 World Series team, so it can be done. I currently have 19 of the 25 players of the 91 team.

Here’s hoping for more success this year.