Dan McKee is a Star
 

Dan McKee has a nearly full page article and photo about him and his Zinn Baltimore News in today's NY Times. Dan, you're a star today. I was so impressed it inspired me to post, which happens about as often as one finds a Zinn baseball card.

nice to see you around, Barry!
:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/sp...e-iphone-share NYTimes: A Jewish Player’s 1914 Baseball Card Triggers a $125,000 Dispute

Here is the article:

Sports Monday
Jewish Player’s Card From 1914 Provokes a $125,000 Dispute


By BEN BERKON
<figure class="article-image image horizontal" style="max-width: 1024px"> https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...ARD1-jumbo.jpg

<figcaption> Dan McKee’s rare baseball card of Guy Zinn, who was the first player to bat at Fenway Park. He was also Jewish, which made the card of interest to Jeff Aeder, who started the online Jewish Baseball Museum in March.
Andrew Mangum for The New York Times
</figcaption> </figure>
More than a hundred years after Guy Zinn last appeared in a major-league game, his baseball card is causing a commotion.
The fuss has nothing to do with Zinn’s skill. His playing career yielded some distinctions — including his being one of 11 players to steal home twice in a game and appearing as the first batter in Fenway Park. But most of his statistics over five major-league seasons, including a .269 career batting average, suggest that he was a very ordinary athlete.
The trait that set Zinn apart, and made his baseball card unusually valuable, was his ethnicity. Zinn was Jewish, which all but guaranteed him a following for generations. A fan subculture has long coalesced around Jewish ballplayers, so much so that their cards have a special category on eBay.
Jeff Aeder, a Chicago real estate developer, is one of the most prominent figures in that subculture, and a 1914 Zinn card owned by a Maryland man has become, as other collectors describe it, Aeder’s holy grail. It is believed to be the only card of its type still in existence.
Aeder offered $125,000 for the card in 2014 and nearly claimed it. But the deal went sour at the last minute. Aeder balked because, he said, he received a poor appraisal of the card’s condition. The owner, Dan McKee of Baltimore County, refused to renegotiate.
<figure class="article-image image horizontal" style="max-width: 1024px"> https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...ARD2-jumbo.jpg

<figcaption> Mr. McKee with his sports memorabilia collection in Freeland, Md., last month.
Andrew Mangum for The New York Times
</figcaption> </figure>
“I blocked his email,” said McKee, who bought the card for $2,500 in 1995 at a show in Fort Washington, Pa. “I don’t do business like that. If you make a deal, you make a deal.”
“If Zinn was not a Jewish player, this card is probably worth $10,000,” Aeder said. “If you talk to any dealer or collector, they’ll say McKee’s idea of value is the most overblown, crazy valuation of all time.”
So why was Aeder willing, at one point, to pay $125,000? “It really is something that if you have the means and the obsession, then someone pays a lot more than it’s worth,” he said.
Aeder and McKee, both 54, remain in a bitter standoff that highlights how passions that sprout in childhood can drive the sports memorabilia market.
“Zinn was not a significant player. The card, and the brouhaha surrounding it, is more interesting than the man,” said John Thorn, the official historian for Major League Baseball. “If anything, it illustrates something so interesting about the hobby, the inquisitiveness about the fan. There is this transfer of power by owning this thing.”
<figure class="article-image image horizontal" style="max-width: 1024px"> https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...ARD3-jumbo.jpg

<figcaption> The Zinn card was part of one of three sets that appeared as an insert in The Baltimore News. Each card provided a full season schedule on its back.
Andrew Mangum for The New York Times
</figcaption> </figure>
McKee, a software engineer who now works part time, became a collector when he was 7 and ultimately concentrated on unique cards and sets. McKee periodically posts some of his cards on auction websites — mostly out of curiosity, he said. He tends to list his items at exorbitant prices because, he said, he loathes parting with any card.
“I got stuff up in my eBay store that is actually part of my collection,” McKee said in a telephone interview. “And every now and then, somebody hits the ‘buy it now’ button and I’ll scream.”
He did sell an 1894 Baltimore Orioles set — which was produced by the Alpha Photo Engraving Company — for six figures in 2006. McKee said the transaction had helped pay for his current home, but he declined to specify the sales price or the worth of his overall collection, which he called “too valuable to admit to.”
McKee displays much of his memorabilia in open cabinets and a World War II map case that he received from his Army National Guard unit. The more valuable items, however, are kept in safes.
“I keep a 9-millimeter in each one,” he said, then added dryly, “but I’d rather not use it if I don’t have to.”
<figure class="article-image image horizontal" style="max-width: 1024px"> https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...ARD4-jumbo.jpg

<figcaption> Zinn, playing with the New York Highlanders, sliding back to first base against Boston at Hilltop Park in New York City in 1912. His career yielded some distinctions, but he was an ordinary player over all.
George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)
</figcaption> </figure>
Aeder also started collecting as a boy, while growing up in a family that, he has said, included Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax in its Yom Kippur prayers to honor his choice not to play in Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on the holiday.
When Aeder was in his 30s, he said, he decided to sell his entire collection at a card show. That plan did not work out.
“Instead of selling, I wound up spending every penny on me buying new cards,” he said.
After completing the sets from his childhood, he turned to collecting the cards of Jewish baseball players.
“Many collectors are happy just to get one card of each player,” said Martin Abramowitz of Newton, Mass., whose collection ended up with Aeder after Abramowitz sold it to someone else to help pay for his daughter’s wedding. “Jeff is determined to get every card of every Jewish player.”
Aeder sees curating such artifacts as an extension of the philanthropy that prompted Chicago Magazine to pick him and his wife, Jennifer Levine, as its “Chicagoans of the Year” in 2013. Among other things, the couple founded the Wolcott School for children with learning disabilities and Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed, a kosher restaurant that donates all of its profits to charity.
In March, Aeder introduced the online Jewish Baseball Museum. “My idea was to celebrate both the rich history of Jews in America and how baseball was an opportunity to fit in,” he said. “And today, now that they fit in, it’s an opportunity for them to feel more Jewish.”
McKee said he had no idea that Zinn was Jewish when he bought his card more than 20 years ago. McKee valued it for another reason. It was part of one of three sets that appeared as an insert in The Baltimore News and that provided a full season schedule on the back of each card.
A 1914 version of these so-called schedule-backs included the first card ever made of Zinn, who was then in his fourth season and playing for the Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League.
Unlike the more popular cards of that era, which were produced by the American Tobacco Company, the schedule-backs were made from relatively thin material — like that of a playing card, but without the slick coating — and they were mostly discarded at the close of a season. As a result, few exist today. McKee said he had discovered 50 cards from the three schedule-back sets; some of them turned up as markers in old books.
Aeder first spotted the Zinn card in 2014 on McKee’s eBay store, where it was originally listed in 2010 as one of McKee’s “show and tell” items — for $250,000.
“He wrote me and offered me $10,000,” McKee said. “He rubbed me wrong, right off the bat.”
At Aeder’s behest, McKee said, he took a vacation day from his job to drive four hours to New Jersey to have the card authenticated — or “slabbed” — at the Sportscard Guaranty Company.
“I wasn’t even going to try to get a number,” McKee said. But the company also rated the card, giving it a one out of 10.
“It’s a beautiful-looking card,” McKee said. “But it’s technical grade — because of the blue all the way to the edge, it has some chipping, it has a crease, it has some paper loss on the back — they’re never going to give it more than a one or a 1.5.”
The final grade disturbed Aeder. “The pictures he had sent did not look like it was a one,” Aeder said.
McKee said Aeder had suddenly begun overstating the importance of the card’s condition. Aeder did ask about it in their first email exchange, McKee said, “and I answered: ‘The only one known. That’s the only condition you need to know.’”
At an impasse, McKee and Aeder parted ways. They say they have not been in contact since.
“I’m coming to terms with the fact that I may never own the Zinn card,” Aeder said. “Well, at least, I know I will never buy it from Dan McKee.”
But both he and McKee hold out hope that another Zinn schedule-back card could still turn up somewhere.
“I have hopes that there’s plenty more of those out there,” McKee said. “That I’m going to find.”

+1

Thanks guys.

Agreed on good to see Barry

Good lord, if someone offered me $125K for a card which I paid 1/50th of that for, I would sell that card so fast in a heartbeat. After all, I can keep the scan and the pictures and the memories. But that money can pay for a couple years of college or other fun ventures.

Rich

Thanks for sharing Barry!
 

Barry,

Thanks for sharing. It was a fun read. Love the Federal's pennant as well.

Patrick

Enjoyed reading the article. Great to see a post from Barry. I hope all is well.

I guess I'm missing the alleged "dispute". Seller wants more than the prospective buyer is offering and the story seems to end there.

+1
I didn't see how this is a story. This is a very common "dispute" in any hobby.

No disrespect intended to the featured parties, but my first reaction was confusion as to what counts as journalism these days.

I"m having a similar dispute with a few car dealerships and realtors.

Welcome back Barry, and just in time for Festivus!

hope you are well great article octavio

If this was worthy of an article, there are ebay sellers worthy of an entire book. :D

I guess the hook of the story, to the extent there is one, is that there is a subculture of baseball card collectors who focus on Jewish players. Even obscure ones. I am sure this is news (and maybe quite interesting) to people outside the hobby.

I'm still trying to figure out how it is a $125,000 dispute. At worst, $115,000.

Thanks, Barry.

For what it's worth, I think I played a small role in the Zinn saga by advising Dan of the goldmine he has on his hands.

Quite a few years ago, I ran a classified ad in the Baltimore Sun seeking the Zinn card. Dan responded to my ad, advised he owned the card, and inquired as to the nature of my interest. I told Dan that I collect Jewish ballplayers. Dan said that he would only sell the card for 'crazy money.' I told him I have no crazy money. Ever since, we've enjoyed chats at card shows over the years.

I suspect that the Times article may well provoke serious offers.

They should split the difference and do the deal. If another one surfaces tomorrow the could have been seller takes a huge hit.

Hey Dan, throw your George Gibson candy cards up on ebay, see if you get a BIN. :D

Hope all is well man.

Marty.

No offense but this seems like a really asinine comment. The guy looked at a scan and said he would pay $125k. Then he saw the same card in the SGC 10 holder and backed out of the deal. What difference are you even talking about? The article doesn't even list the guys counter-offer after he backed out of the deal.

If I agreed to buy a raw card from you for $500, then when you got it back from SGC I said actually, I'll only pay $300, would you be fine with splitting that difference? You'd probably tell me to take a hike for backing out of a deal.

A deal made for a raw card is just as valid as a deal made for a graded card. Deals like that happen every day with just front and back scans.

Whoa! There's been a Barry sighting. Sprinkle a few more Seinfeld comments around and maybe we can get him to surface again. ;)

Hi Barry. Hope all is good.

Rob M

All is well Rob. Trust you are well too.

must agree with Rob
 

think Barry is posting to a secret network in the interim. My best Barry should you open this thread again. I hear it's mighty cold there in Brooklyn and I'm not talking about the election.....

It's freezing Henry, that's why they call it winter. Thanks for your good wishes.

Dan:

Congratulations on burnishing your legend in the hobby!

And I LOVE the last line in the newspaper article! :D

Kevin

P.S. Hi, Barry!

What's happening Barry! Good too hear from you! I would think the value of the Zinn card would go up after the article and if another one magically showed up, the value would be way more than what it was before the article.

I thought it was cool that Dan (hi Dan) picked it up at a card show back in 1995. I don't think the E commerce was too popular back then, and you had to actually had to do more work to buy cards. Nothing beats the fun of negotiating and playing rock, paper, scissors to determine the price.

Barry - it is good to see you post. Great article that I read in the actual paper over lunch. Hope all is well with you both. Can a NYC Dinner thread be far behind?

Great article but I am very curious how this caught the attention of the Gray Lady. Another win for putting the spotlight on the hobby.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Good to hear you are doing well Barry and thanks for posting about Dan's article.

Looks like the value of this card just fell off a cliff.

http://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/spot...idered-jewish/

I'll take "Unintended Consequences" for $125k, Alex.

Grapes soured at all there?

"Meanwhile, I contacted the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, which maintains a file of player biographical information filled out either by the ballplayers or family members. Under “ancestry,” Mrs. E.W. Talley had written “German-Jew” on Guy Zinn’s profile page. Jean Talley was Zinn’s daughter. The form was filled out after Zinn’s death in 1949."

Zinn's daughter wrote he was Jewish on the record for the HOF? That is pretty solid evidence.

His death certificate [http://thedeadballera.com/DeathCerti...nn.Guy.DC.pdf] lists his father as Noah Zinn.

Odds are his father was Jewish ahd his kids considered themselves Jewish, if that is what she wrote.

His grave isn't of use; he's buried in a non-denominational graveyard in WV.

The rest is speculation.

I guess if Dan had sold the card for $10,000 Zinn would have been Jewish...

Sour grapes? No, just received an interesting news artilcle in my in box today. High stakes collecting is all about economics so I find this stuff interesting. Seems like you have a dog in the fight somewhere. I certainly don't.

+1

I'm inclined to agree with Adam on this. But, note factual confusion. Adam assumes Zinn's father to be Jewish and that Zinn considered himself Jewish based upon daughter's statement to HOF. But, Bob Wechsler's article states that both Zinn parents were Christians. If so, then I assume Zinn would have needed to go through some formal conversion process to become Jewish.

Can anyone provide me Bob's e-mail address so that I might follow up?

Mark

Was Zinn circumcised? :cool:

Oy vey......what a mess......

What do you think a PSA/DNA graded Zinn foreskin would go for?:D

Of Yes, I'm sincerely hoping he got 10% off the top

Maybe Guy Zinn's daughter was named Elaine...?:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGIgnscRz6Q

Steve,
I don't think Adam's "sour grapes" remark was directed at you. If I read him right, he's commenting on the fact that the article on Zinn not being Jewish appears on the Jewish Baseball Website. This website, according to the New York Times article, was created by Mr. Aeder, the prospective buyer of the card.
--Tim

Thanks. I surmised that there was probably more going on here that I knew about.

Whoa! That's just a minor clarification. Things just got (more) interesting.

Rob M

Agree 100%.

I guess the logic is, if I can't have a card I need from my collection to be complete, I'll make it so I don't need the card anymore. And BOOM! Collection complete. :)

Awfully hard to argue with that logic--+1!

All the best,

Larry

The plot thickens . . . .

Same here--Barry, we missed you!

Best wishes,

Larry

Not you, Steve, the buyer who took Zinn off his web site after he backed out of the deal on the card, my point being that since he couldn't get the card he decided to toss Zinn off the list, which reeks of sour grapes.

Interesting that the buyer made his money in real estate; that may explain his conduct. When I handle commercial transactions for clients buyers usually try to reduce the price after the deal is signed by denigrating the condition of the property during the due diligence period. Some go so far as to make the deal at whatever price they can fully aware that they will renegotiate after inspections and cancel if they cannot get a sufficient price reduction. It appears this buyer tried to do the same thing with the card.

Zinn's daughter filled out his HOF form in 1949 and listed him as "Jewish". That's rock solid to me. She would have no reason to lie, and she IMO being directly related to him and having I assume lived with him for probably the first 18-20 years of her life might know something about him.

This is 100% sour grapes.