I think most people would agree that if you were to send one item to be signed and received five signed items back, it could be considered a pretty successful TTM attempt. Well, that is exactly what happened here:
Do you notice anything slightly off with this card? Go ahead and take a closer look, I'll wait. Done? Okay, hopefully you noticed how wonderfully miscut this card is, which is the main reason I chose to send it. I do have one other card from this set that is actually wonkier than this one, unfortunately it's of a fellow who doesn't sign through the mail.
Now for the extras:
How cool are these? The answer to that one is....pretty darn. These are actually business cards. Each one has the regular business card type front and as you can see, each back has one of these nifty scenes. At first I thought the signatures were pre printed, but after seeing that each one is slightly different and the fact that you can see some of the gold pen soaking through to the front tells me their not pre printed. I don't know if these are given out to everyone that writes him or if he just really liked my letter. I prefer to believe the latter as I have been trying to personalize them as much as I can. Either way they are very neat.
A few notes on the career of Don Kojis: Drafted in the 2nd round of the 1961 NBA draft by the Chicago Packers, played for 6 teams over 12 seasons, was a two time all-star (1968 and 1969), played for the gold medal winning U.S. team at the 1963 Pan American games. And even though Team USA finished fourth in the 1963 FIBA World Championship, Mr. Kojis was one of the five players (and the only American) named to the All-Tournament Team.
As always a big thank you goes out to Mr. Kojis for going above and beyond what I had hoped for.
Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.
What a great guy.. I've heard of him before. But didn't know much. The business cards are a great collectable
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention how good of a player he was in college as well. I also probably should have mentioned that I sent him a follow-up letter thanking him for the 4 additional autographs.
DeleteJust went back and looked at the results from the 63 Pan Am games. He was the leading scorer
DeleteI saw a site that mentioned that too, but I also read on another one that Jerry Shipp was the leading scorer for the U.S. in the Pan Am Games. Either way it's impressive though, considering Willis Reed was also on that team.
DeleteWow - what nifty, surprise oddballs! The gold pen is an especially sharp touch.
ReplyDeleteYes they are pretty nifty and they were very surprising. The gold ink really stands out from the black and white images.
DeleteI like the name-dropping he does in the captions of his business cards. It's like an old-school highlight reel. "Yeah, that's me posterizing Kareem and dropping points on Wilt."
ReplyDeleteIf I had done those things to those players, I think I would want to remind people too.
DeleteDon is definitely a great guy. I believe that photo of him dunking over Kareem might have been the play in question I asked him about on my podcast. Unless he managed to posterize The Captain twice in his career.
ReplyDeleteIn case you're interested, here is our conversation. I stumbled upon your awesome webpage while doing research on Don's career:
https://lamarmatic.com/2018/08/24/the-handle-podcast-don-kojis-alley-oop-08-24-18/
Cheers!
That must've been pretty neat to interview him. I just finished listening to the episode, which was quite enjoyable, you can now consider me to officially be a fan of your program.
DeleteNow I just need to go back and listen to your archives :)