My Third Sportscaster Card Autograph

On Friday night I went to a cross country race.  At the last minute I went online to confirm the race times.  That turned out to be a great thing to do.  I found out that the race added an Olympic gold medalist to the Mix.  Bob Schul was going to be there selling/signing his book "In The Long Run".

I'm not an autograph collector, but I do try to support track and field athletes and I don't mind the $10 fee compared to many other athletes who charge triple-digit amounts.

I'm also not a fan of the autograph process at big shows where many players don't even talk to the person who is buying the signature.  This was quite different.  When I went to the tent to see Schul there were about five people there.  When it was my turn he gladly talked to me about the Olympic race, the US Olympic Trials and many other topics.

If you get a chance to see him, he's a great ambassador for track and field.  He's still involved in coaching too.

I guess that I will need to post about the other two autographs that I have.  Hint - both are also Olympic gold medalists.

I Read This on Collector's Universe Message Boards About Sportscaster Foreign Cards

A discussion thread on Collector's Universe was discussing whether to get Sportscaster cards PSA graded.  I was surprised at the cost being $18, which is way too much for all but a few of the stars and high numbered cards.   Stars and high numbers from some of the foreign sets would also be worth grading.  

Then people posted on the availability of Sportscaster cards from some of the different foreign sets.  A few people ordered them from most available to least available.  Here is a link to the thread - Collectors Universe Discussion on Sportscaster Cards

Since the thread might disappear at some point, here are some of the highlights.

I've heard all along that the Dutch cards are the most rare.  That was echoed by the comments.  The Belgian set was listed as being the next most difficult to find.  These were both considered to be much more rare than any other sets.  

It seems as though the German and Italian sets are the next most difficult.

There weren't many comments about the Swedish and French sets.   They fall somewhere in the middle.

I was surprised to see comments that the Finnish set was easier to find than the United Kingdom set as well as the North American set printed in Japan.  I'm not even sure if I have more cards in my North American sets from Japan or Italy.

These comments don't surprise me based on what I've seen on ebay and at card shows.  I will be looking for these cards at the National soon.

My Sportscaster Goal for the National Convention

I'm only going to the National on Saturday this year.  I've got lots of other fun running events keeping me busy when I head out to New Jersey.

I don't have goals to complete the entire set yet since I've yet to completely sort my mountains of Sportscaster cards.  As a result, I will go with some other challenging goals.

1.  Find a card from each of the countries that I don't have.  I think I've gotten only four or five different so that leaves a few more.  I prefer that the cards come from track and field or the major US sports, but any card will do if I don't have that country of origin.

2.  Find out more about the unopened decks from someone.  Why?  I'm guessing that these can easily be resealed.  Maybe I can learn how to determine if a pack is legit because I'd like to own a few more unopened packs and maybe someday all of them.