Signature Sundays - Brooks Robinson

It's Robinsons weekend here at Shoebox Legends I guess, with a sweet vintage Jackie yesterday and a nice Brooks autograph today!

This one's from the 2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes release, a set I really enjoy due to the fact that the design is inspired by those early '90s Upper Deck Heroes baseball inserts (Ryan, Aaron, Williams, et al) that I clamored for as a kid.

Each of the twenty players on the autograph checklist in Upper Deck's 2005 release has five different cards, four in that classic vertically-oriented Heroes design (seen here), and one landscape-oriented painted card like this one.  All of the autographed cards in this release are hard-signed too, no stickers here.  These legendary athletes held the cards in hand while signing.

I used to search these particular autographs out much more vigorously than I do these days, but if I see the right opportunity I'm always up for adding one to my collection.  This is my first Brooks Robinson autograph from the release, and my 17th Emerald Autograph (#'d /99) overall.  It's unlikely that I'll ever complete this set given the amount of money I'd have to throw at the remaining 80+ cards, so I just enjoy and appreciate what comes my way.

Here's a look at the back, pretty standard fare indicating that the cards were sent to Brooks, autographed by him, then returned to Upper Deck.  You don't buy these cards for the backs, though.

Always liked Brooks' big, loopy signature, and this is a fantastic, clean example. 

Brooks was actually featured once in a Signature Sundays post here on the blog many years ago now.  I think I may prefer that Gypsy Queen auto over the Heroes one I featured today, but this one's no slouch either.  My instinct is to sell one since I've been in purge mode, but for now I think I'll keep both.  Having two Brooks Robinson autographs is a nice problem to have after all.

Thanks as always for stopping by.  I've got plenty of other great autographs stockpiled here at Shoebox Legends World Headquarters, so expect more Signature Sundays posts over the summer here!