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Permalink Reply by Mike P on March 11, 2014 at 4:54pm

My thoughts exactly.  I'll see what I can do, hopefully the dirt works.

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on March 19, 2014 at 11:59am

I managed to touch up the baseball.  I felt like Michelangelo, but in the end I think it came out all right.  There was a couple of spots that existed before I got the ball, and I managed to touch up those as well.  A tiny dab of dirt gently over the spots made it blend in real nice with the ball and matched perfectly.

 A huge thanks to Ryan Maxwell for sending me some Lena Blackburne mud to do this. 

At first it came out a little too dark, so I gently removed with a moist fiber clothe and dried gently until it looked even with the rest of the ball.

Here are some scans, let me know what you guys think!  

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Maxwell on March 19, 2014 at 12:02pm

Great job, I can't tell at all where the white spots were! Glad to help in some way, you all are so good at helping me and those like me seeking opinions. 

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Johnson on May 12, 2014 at 4:00pm

Looks great

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on May 13, 2014 at 10:36pm

Thanks Tyler, I appreciate it!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 19, 2014 at 2:42pm

Perfect. Nice job.

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on March 19, 2014 at 4:09pm

Thanks Ryan and Zip.  I'm glad it looks good, finally.

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Permalink Reply by David S on March 19, 2014 at 4:29pm

nice!

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on March 19, 2014 at 5:29pm

thanks David!

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Johnson on May 12, 2014 at 3:51pm

This is crazy.. SO I have sent 3 separate groups of items to JSA for authentication.  On all of them I filled out the piece of paper and mailed it in with the balls.

On my Mickey Mantle photo, I asked for them to put the sticker on the back of the photo.  They messed up and put it on the LOA; I can live with that.

Later I sent in a Mickey Mantle baseball and wrote in HUGE LETTERS ON THE FORM to "put the sticker on the LOA and not the baseball.  So then I get a baseball back with a hologram sticker on the baseball AND I get an LOA with a hologram sticker on it. Now the two stickers had two different numbers on them.  The sticker on the LOA matched the LOA number.  The sticker on the ball just had a different number on it.  I called and the lady acted like it was no big deal and said the LOA number and the hologram on the LOA were in the system and to go off of those.. NEEDLESS TO SAY I WAS PISSED. this was two times in a row, my whole reason to go to such lengths was to keep them dam stickers off of the baseball. so now I had a sticker on the ball that meant nothing.  Her response was for me to send the ball back so they could remove it..

I proceeded on to take that thing off myself.  I always wanted to know what happens.  Let me tell you, there is no reusing one of those things. I thought they would break up in 8 to 10 pieces, wow was I totally off.  I bet that thing ended up in more than 100 pieces; it was the biggest pain in the ass ever to get off. 

Now the third time I took two balls to get certed in person. I told the guy to give me two LOA's with stickers on the LOA's.  I come back he has one ball with the sticker on it and the other one without a sticker. Its been a month now and I still do not have my LOA's. I have called at least once a week, and get the same story each time.

Im losing my patience.  We pay way to much money for this service, at least they could do would be to get the instructions correct.

Thats my rant for the day. Anyway I would like to know the inside secret to removing the holograms.  I am looking at a ball right now that has a JSA or PSA LOA with the sticker on the LOA; it also has a GAI hologram on the ball.  If I get it I want to remove the GAI sticker. Any ideas or just another hour of pulling little pieces of sticker off again?

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Johnson on May 12, 2014 at 3:57pm

Mike P

When did you mail that in to Yogi?  I contacted his staff and museum a few weeks ago and they told me he was done signing for good?

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Permalink Reply by Mike P on May 13, 2014 at 10:34pm

Hey Tyler, sorry to hear you had a similar experience that I did; it really is a pain when you trust your items in the hands of others and they mess up it up.

For the sticker, would you mind posting a picture of the sticker on your ball?  I don't want to recommend a method that I used if the ball looks like it could get damaged.  The big issue is if your baseball is dirty or toned like mine is; when you remove the sticker, the adhesive lifts up the surface dirt and you get that ellipsoid white spot that you need to buff out with the Lena Blackburne mud.  I'm not sure how much of a difference it made, but I had the sticker on for a good 5-6 months before I removed it.  I didn't know of a method/was uncomfortable trying to remove the sticker as I feared the worst.   

To be honest, I know it's a pain and shipping/handling fees can add up, but I would just send your baseball back to JSA and have them remove it like they said they would.  In that case, if the item gets damaged, they are the ones at fault (they were specifically told by you to keep the stickers off the ball to begin with; so that's their "strike one").

With regard to Yogi Berra, I mailed him this past August; it came back pretty quick.  He is 89 years old now so I am not surprised he stopped signing.  However, I'm going to be honest with you- I think it is best you only get an item signed by him in person.  For one, his signature is sloppy due to his age (as you can see with my baseball), and two, he must not really handle the items well.  It doesn't look as bad now since I touched it up and I had Johnny Bench sign under him; but when I got the ball back from Yogi, it looked like the ball got scraped roughly against the ball cube I sent it in.  The whole sweet spot was a mess.    

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