May 22, 2013 - Package from Finland

Sweet, another end-of-season package coming back from a fellow grapher!

Hockey

Finnish players c/o Trade
Harri P. - Jyvaskyla, Finland

One of the best parts of this hobby is interaction with collectors around the world. I have traded for a few years with Harri, one of a trio of great SM-Liiga graphers in Finland.  Harri was able to snag a bunch of Finnish NHL draftees in person at JYP games in Jyvaskyla. Teuvo Teravainen is the highest pick out of the lot, drafted 18th overall by the Hawks last summer. However, most notable in this group of scans are two additions to my Rookie Index Card collection: Lennart Petrell and Lars Eller. With the acquisition of Lars Eller, I am now down to 19 players remaining to complete the 2009-10 set.  Kiitos Harri!

Rookie Index Cards: Lars Eller 2009-10 RIC

Lennart Petrell 2011-12 RIC

Cards: Markus Ketterer

Custom NHL Draft Cards: Teuvo Teravainen 2012, 18th Overall	Ville Pokka 2012, 34th Overall
Joonas Korpisalo 2012, 62nd Overall	Esa Lindell 2012, 74th Overall
Niklas Tikkinen 2012, 148th Overall	Petteri Lindbohm 2012, 176th Overall

May 20, 2013 - Mailday Monday

I wasn't expecting to get anything back this week, but one big envelope came in!

Hockey

OHL players c/o Trade
Mark O. - London, ON.

I've been trading with Mark for a few seasons: he helps me out with OHL players in person in London, while I help him with WHL players in Seattle/Everett. We both collect the Heroes & Prospects sets, and today's return consisted of a number of H&P autographs plus a bunch of custom cards from my NHL Draft sets.  Thanks again Mark for all the great work this season! I hope we can do this again next time!

Cards: J.P. Anderson	Cody Ceci
Kerby Rychel	Gemel Smith

Custom NHL Draft Cards: Radek Faksa 2012, 13th Overall	Dylan Blujus 2012, 40th Overall
Ben Johnson 2012, 90th Overall	Brady Vail 2012, 94th Overall
Gemel Smith 2012, 104th Overall	Jake Dotchin 2012, 161st Overall
Joseph Blandisi 2012, 162th Overall	Nick Ebert 2012, 211st Overall
Reid Boucher 2011, 99th Overall

May 18, 2013 - FC Dallas (MLS)

Hotel - Seattle, Washington

I didn't have a whole lot for FC Dallas. They had visited Seattle late last season, and I had gotten the majority of my cards signed for them before that game. Despite this I still eagerly headed downtown before Saturday's match against FCD to work on my custom 4x6s. Only two other local graphers joined me, and the players exited at a manageable pace for the most part. I missed a group of guys when Kenny Cooper signed. I wanted to make sure I got Kenny on a couple of Portland Timbers 8x10s that I've had for a couple seasons. One of them depicts the starting lineup from the Timbers' first ever home game in 2011, previously signed by Eric Brunner, Jorge Perlaza, Adin Brown, and Jack Jewsbury.  Another highlight was the acquisition of both FCD goalkeepers on a custom 4x6 (Goaltending Department), another custom 4x6 project I designed for this season showing the starting and second-string goalies for each MLS team.  I didn't recognize Raul Fernandez at first, and had him sign an index card. Head coach Schellas Hyndman walked out of the hotel, chatting with rookie Walker Zimmerman. I needed Walker on my MLS Draft custom 4x6, so I went after him first. He had nice things to say about the photo, and signed it very neatly. The MLS draftees are always exceptionally cool about autographs, something that definitely can't be said on a consistent basis for the major four sports.  Coach Hyndman was also cool, signing a custom 4x6 for me and an MLS All-Star program for one of the other graphers.  David Ferreira was one of the last out, and was in a considerable hurry. Last season, he signed pages of cards. This time around, he still signed but didn't hit everything shown. I only had one item for him, but the other graphers were a bit surprised at the limit.

David Ferreira signing; note the stylish manpurse.

Overall, not a bad hour of autographing.  On a side note, I wasn't able to get to Starfire the following day for the NWSL matchup between the Seattle Reign and Sky Blue FC. I was surprised to hear from fellow collector Ritch that a few of the Sky Blue ladies were a bit tricky to get on arrival to the stadium. Christine Rampone was an 0/3, Kelley O'Hara 1/2, and Jillian Loyden 2/3. Rampone later signed 2 of 3 on the way from the clubhouse to the stadium for warmups, but apparently she wasn't too thrilled about it.  I haven't made it out to an NWSL game so far this year and probably won't until next month, but I do expect to have some pretty good success given the easy autograph access at Starfire.

Stats

FC DALLAS (17)
Jair Benitez 1/1 4x6 photo
Fabian Castillo 2/2 4x6 photo, card
Kenny Cooper 2/2 8x10 photos
Raul Fernandez 3/3 blank index, 4x6 photos
David Ferreira 1/1 4x6 photo
Jackson 2/2 index, 4x6 photo
Zach Loyd 1/1 4x6 photo
Chris Seitz 2/2 4x6 photos
JeVaughn Watson 1/1 blank index
Walker Zimmerman 1/1 4x6 photo
Schellas Hyndman (head coach) 1/1 4x6 photo

Scans

Dallas - Custom 4x6 Photos

Raul Fernandez & Chris Seitz	Jair Benitez
Fabian Castillo	Raul Fernandez
David Ferreira	Jackson
Zach Loyd	Chris Seitz
Walker Zimmerman	Schellas Hyndman (head coach)

Dallas - 8x10 Photos

 Kenny Cooper

2011 Portland Timbers First Match (added Kenny Cooper)

Dallas - Cards

Fabian Castillo

Dallas - Index Cards

Raul Fernandez	Jackson
JeVaughn Watson

May 13, 2013: Mailday Monday

Today's visit to the mailbox yielded three hockey TTM returns along with a trade. Also, my most heartfelt condolences go out to the city of Toronto, whose hockey fans just witnessed a collapse of the most epic magnitude. I was hoping Toronto could advance just to lift up the spirits of some of the Leafs fans in my office.  Meanwhile, my Sharks are in action tomorrow at Los Angeles for Game 1 of the second round. Beat LA!

Hockey

Ian Cole and Barry Melrose c/o Trade
Jason P. - St. Louis, MO

How interesting that I got a Leafs autograph in the mail today! I made a trade with Jason from St. Louis, sending him a few of my Portland Winterhawks extras for a couple of key items for my collection. I didn't have an NHL card signed by Barry Melrose, and now I do.  The only other one I have is an old ProCards issue from when he coached the Adirondack Red Wings, also received in a trade.  Ian Cole had been surprisingly tricky for me to get; he is nice in person but I didn't have much luck with him through the mail. I traded Jason for a blank Ian Cole signed index card, and the placement of the autograph on the card was just about perfect for me to print the Rookie Index design over.  I am now down to 28 remaining for the 2010-11 RIC set.  Thanks for the trade, Jason!

 Ian Cole

Barry Melrose

Greg Pateryn c/o Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL)
1/1 RIC, 58 days

The University of Michigan Wolverine alumnus signed a Rookie Index Card for me in just under two months.

 	Greg Pateryn


Harri Pesonen c/o Albany Devils (AHL)
1/1 RIC, about 2 months


I'm not actually sure exactly when I sent this one out, but it was at least two months ago. The former JYP Jyväskylä forward signed this rookie index card nicely.

Harri Pesonen

Brennan Yadlowski c/o University of Alberta (CIS)
2/2 RIC, custom index, 29 days

The former Everett Silvertip just wrapped up his first season of Canadian college hockey with the University of Alberta, and signed a card for my Everett Silvertips team set project!  Oftentimes the ones I end up having to chase down TTM are the overagers from each season. Everett puts out their card set so late in the year that it's tough to make decent progress on it in person until the following season.

Brennan Yadlowski

Mail from last week (May 6, 2013)

I have a P.O. Box near my office that I use to receive autographs through the mail. I check this box once per week (usually every other week during the hockey offseason). I'll be checking it tomorrow, but just to get things started, here's what I got last Monday (May 6).

Hockey

Ryan Garbutt c/o Dallas Stars (practice facility)
2/2 RIC, custom index, 398 days

It's always uplifting to see a long-lost request make its way back to my mailbox! I had sent to Ryan c/o the Dallas Stars' practice facility in Frisco, Texas near the end of the 2011-12 season. Ryan signed both my Rookie Index Card and the AHL custom index I was making that season for teams I was seeing in person (I had gotten the Texas Stars to sign at the Seattle airport that season on their Abbotsford roadtrip, but missed Garbutt).

Ryan Garbutt

Ryan Garbutt

Peter Mueller c/o Florida Panthers (NHL)
2/2 RIC, custom index, 51 days

Peter was always such a gracious signer in the WHL. I got him to sign several times here, and when the Phoenix Coyotes and Tampa Bay Lightning played an exhibition game in Everett in 2009, many local fans were looking forward to seeing him. Alas, he was a healthy scratch that game. He spent a whole period signing autographs for fans in the concourse, which goes to show how cool he is. I have started trying to get 2012-13 OPC Retro cards signed, since they have lots of whitespace and look amazing signed. This is the first one of those back; I sent a blue Sharpie along with my request. Peter also inked two Everett Silvertips team set cards from 2005-06 and 2006-07. At the time I wasn't collecting these sets signed, but am trying to backfill those years now. Pretty solid success overall!

Peter Mueller	Peter Mueller
Peter Mueller

Soccer

Danny Koevermans c/o Toronto FC (MLS)
1/1 custom 4x6 photo, 22 days

A Dutch striker who played in the Eredivisie with several clubs (Sparta Rotterdam, AZ Alkmaar, and PSV Eindhoven), Koevermans joined TFC in 2011. He signed my custom 4x6 photo in black ballpoint. When I was up in Canada last month to graph the Toronto Marlies and Abbotsford Heat in the Fraser Valley, I made sure to prep a large amount of autograph requests to send out from within Canada. I highly recommend this tactic if you plan on going across the border; it'll result in some savings on international postage.

Danny Koevermans

Blake Smith c/o Montreal Impact (MLS)
1/1 custom 4x6 photo, 22 days

This was another request sent from Abbotsford, BC last month. I am trying to get the entire first round of the MLS to sign custom 4x6s, and this was a somewhat inauspicious start to that effort. I had accidentally selected a photo of Brad Stuver that came up in a Google Image search for Blake Smith, and I didn't vet the photo closely enough. Blake was nice enough to sign, but included a short three-word note pointing out the goof. I'll probably re-send a corrected version to him with "Oops, my bad!" on the same note.

Blake Smith

Oops....