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| No envelopes scream, “PLEASE, OPEN ME!” like the mailings from PCH. Learn from them. |
I enjoyed a recent online conversation with a collector I encountered on the always-amazing www.sportscollectors.net.
Someone wanted to expand his success by focusing on Christian baseball players and Bible verse autographs.
I think it’s great any time a collector adopts a special project or a specialty. I’ve seen too many hobbyists give up entirely after wanting one of EVERYTHING.
The one tip I neglected?
End, don’t start, with the letter.
Make your presence known with the envelope.
Why can’t a Christian collector jot a Bible verse on the back of his envelope?
Or, if you’re trying to build a collection of Cardinals autographs, consider adding “Redbirds Fan” beneath your return address. For the artistically-challenged, splurge for some return address labels with pictures.
Colorful stickers. Rubber stamps. There’s so many extra chances to stand out.
The window clerk at our local post office listened to my wife’s question about decorating Christmas envelopes, providing that the address can be clearly seen and the appropriate postage checked and cancelled. Is it okay?
“Hey…decorate away!” he said.
Someone might help a current or former player sort the mail. Do all the envelopes look alike?
Make the effort. Let it show on the envelope. Let the athlete know how much you want a reply.
I remember you doing a similar post a couple years ago about how one of the Braves pitchers would give preference to requests with artwork, and fishing story written on the envelope.
Due to that post I started doing what I call the artelope project.My thing is writing teams for business cards, and pocket schedules. Since I’ve started doing artwork on almost all my requests to teams. There have been a few that I’ve tried to get a card from for years that finally sent a card. There has even been a few that sent some amazing returns full of stuff I didn’t even request.
I’ve started getting more, and more intense with some of the artwork on these. The one thing my post office told me that your wife needs to know. I got told that you shouldn’t put any numbers on the front other than the ones in the address. Besides that he told me the exact same thing. Decorate away!
Thanks for doing these types of posts as it’s helped my collection move ahead much faster than it would have.
I always print my envelopes with a picture of the player next to the address. I especially try to find pictures that I think there’s a chance the player hasn’t seen before.