Now THIS Is An Autograph Collection!

One of the best things with blogging is the connections I have made with Cub fans and collectors for all around the country.  Last week I made another one of those connections and it led me to an amazing autograph collection.

I got an email from Mark, who had come across my site.  Turns out that like me, he is a big fan of the 1969 Cubs.  And also like me, he grew up on the SW side of Chicago.

Now when I said that he was a fan of the '69 Cubs, that may be a bit of an understatement.  It would be more appropriate to say that he is a FAN of the '69 Cubs.

I have autographed baseballs from ten of the members of that team.  Mark started with a similar goal, to have an autographed Topps card of each member of the '69 team, 41 players in all.  But then he decided to expand his project.

His goal went from a signed Topps card of each of the players to ALL the Topps cards of all the players, SIGNED.  That means that he not only was going to have a 1970 Topps card with Ted Abernathy's autograph, but Abernathy's 1957, 1959, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973.  That's thirteen years worth of autographs just for Ted Abernathy.

Now figure 40 more players.

That, my friends, is an ambitious collecting goal.

And now the scary part: He's just about got the project wrapped up!  In fact, he's got doubles and triples for many of the years.  Take a look at the Ted Abernathy collection:

Amazing, isn't it!

Mark has put together a nice website to document his collection which he calls Let's Play Two.  You have to check it out.