Cpt. Caveman's TTM Autographs : Cpt. Caveman's TTM Autographs #71

Welcome back for another weekly TTM success post. I hope everyone had a great graphing week. I'm always searching the web looking for autographs, addresses, news, tips and pretty much anything autograph related. I run across a lot of discussions on the topic of sharing addresses. Now if you're reading this you probably know how I feel about the subject. Im always happy to help an actual fan or collector. Years ago when I first started collecting I was getting my autographs at the occasional In Person graphing opportunities I had as a kid. We had a great shopping mall that would bring in celebs or astronauts to sign autographs and then later in life I started purchasing them at conventions or going to book signings. Then I discovered TTM collecting. This enabled me to attempt to get the autographs of people from all around the world that I'd never have the opportunity to meet and try In person. At first I wasted alot of stamps and time. Then one day I stumbled across others online willing to help me by sharing some knowledge and addresses that pointed me in the right direction. That's why I started this blog to share our autographs and help other collectors that are as passionate about this amazing hobby as we are. Unfortunately a lot out there in TTM land think that the sharing of addresses is hurting the hobby. They (the ones against sharing yet are constantly using addresses other have shared lol) believe that when the address is shared it will get abused or over used and flooded with requests that will cause the address to no longer work or in extreme cases causing the celebs to stop signing all together. Now to an extent this can be true and it does happen but not because of us fans and true collectors even though there's alot more of us now sending fan mail then there was ten or twenty years ago. It can happen when people abuse the address by sending large numbers of items multiple times for the purpose of selling the autographs. Some dealers send using five or more different names and return addresses to increase inventory and Iv even ran across dealers who write using fake charities as a front for obtaining autographs. It's this kind of abuse that turns some off sharing and can cause addresses to stop working. That's the reason I can't always share an address ( usually because IV been asked not to share) but I mostly share unless its a time sensitive Via Venue or a unpublished home address that someone's asked me not to share. Sometimes people put alot of time and effort into a hard to get signer and don't share because of all the hard work they put into the success and I totally understand that. Even with out people sharing it just takes a little research and you can find addresses for about anyone it just takes a little time and effort and for this reason I see no harm in sharing. In most case's the addresses are already out there and on some sites that get way more views than my blog. It's the sharing of information and ideas between collectors that's helped me grow my amazing collection and I'm thankful for those who do share and I'll continue to share for as long as I possibly can and as long as people don't abuse the addresses I share. Now on to this weeks successes. Monday brought a great return when Winter finally received a signed picture from legendary musician Rod Stewart. This was our third attempt in three years so she's super happy that this one actually returned and It took just under five months for hers to return. Tuesday brought two more great returns. First after one year and three months I finally received my return from Rod Stewart back. I guess he's finally catching up with his fan mail because Iv seen several returns from him this week. I'd given up on mine and Winter rewrote him and hers returned Monday so it was very cool that we both received ours back this week. To finish off the day we received both pictures back signed from the amazing Patrick Stewart. I'm a super huge fan of his and I'm overjoyed to finally add this outstanding actor to our collection. "Dune" is one of my favorite books and films and of course you know how I feel about"Star Trek" so today as they say was a good day and it took just over a month for this great Via Venue reply from the UK. Wednesday brought an amazing return from horror legend Doug Bradley who signed both pictures we sent and it took just over six months for this super cool Via Venue success. To finish off the week Saturday brought one last return. After just over a month we received both pictures back signed by Christine Elise. That's it for this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend and a good Thanksgiving and I'll be back next Saturday with more TTM autographs and tested addresses.