Through The Mail – A How To Guide

I have gotten a few emails and comments on how to do through the mail autograph requests. So I thought I would skip my Definitive Collection post today and write about my methods for obtaining through the mail autographs. The first and most critical step is to have a plan.

By having a plan I mean what are you trying to achieve? Do you have a favorite team and you want to get as many current and former players to sign as you can? Maybe you have a favorite league. Here are a few suggestions as to what your plan should include:

• Favorite teams
• Favorite sport
• Favorite era
• Favorite set that you’d like to get an autograph of each player in the set.
• Favorite year specific team

Those are just a few ideas. The idea is that you are chasing a goal. For me it’s players that I enjoy or enjoyed watching or heroes that my dad spoke of that I never had the chance to see play. The second step is setting up.

As far as the setup goes, you need one legal envelope size 10, and one smaller security envelope size 6, two stamps (nothing more than first class stamps), something for the player to sign, and an index card to write your letter on. For the items to have signed, I use custom made cards made by the autograph card store (see link on the sidebar). As far as mailing to foreign countries, you must get a stamp from the country you are sending to so that the player can send it back. For example I send out a lot of hockey requests to Canada, so I made friends with some Canadian residents and they helped me get some stamps. For Puerto Rico, you can use US stamps.

Next you need to write the letter. My only tip here is to keep it brief, something along the line of:

“Dear Athlete,

I have followed your career since . . . . I am a huge fan . . . . . I know you are very busy, but it would mean a lot to me if you could sign the enclosed card. Please sign it to . . . . Thanks in advance and good luck with the upcoming/current season.

Your Fan,

Joe Collector”

It is very important that you write this out by hand. Typed letters are so less personal, it means a lot to the athlete to get hand written requests. It shows that you took the time to write them.

Now you are wondering where to get addresses. I use 3 sites, movieeye.com, sportscardforum.com, and Alex Hipalito’s Snail Mail site. If you can get the addresses at one of those sites, it’s just not meant to be. Still the most effective way to get players to sign is to send it to the team address which can be found on every team’s website under contact us. Of course you could wait until Tuesdays when I post my successes and get all the info there.  Then place the letter on top of the card you want signed, on top of the return self addressed stamped envelope, place it in the legal envelope and you are good to go.

Two final things to remember is to pace yourself (I only send out two requests a day) and keep a logbook of when cards were sent out and when they came back. If you get a 50% return that is great. Don’t get discouraged, I’ve had cards take years to come back. I hope this post helped, and if you have any further questions, leave a comment and I will get back to you.