Quote:
Originally Posted by the 'stache
Not meaning to be argumentative here, Gary, but when was the last time a work of art had the impact that Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier did upon not only baseball, but America itself? After 9/11 happened, did you see thousands of New Yorkers huddled around a Van Gogh at the Met? Nope, the only Met that was lifting people's spirits was Mike Piazza when he hit the game winning home run on 9/21 at Shea. Baseball, not some Degas painting of a bunch of ballerinas, helped heal this country. The history of baseball, and the history of this nation, are intertwined. Baseball cards are valued, and will always be valued, because they help us celebrate the history of our country. To dismiss baseball cards as "only pieces of cardboard", and say they are not the fabric of society is puzzling. I would say that baseball cards are in fact more a part of the fabric of society than a piece of art is.
You mentioned old coins. What intrinsic value do they have? Show me a 1920 nickel, and I'll tell you it's worth 5 cents because there's an active government backing the value of that coin. It's only worth more in certain circles because people have determined old coins have more value. What about coins from ancient civilizations? Again, they have value, and are collectible, because somebody is willing to pay more money to acquire it. If I melted those coins down, what would they be worth? Nothing, unless the coins were gold or silver. Then, they would have value as a commodity anywhere in the world. But nobody would care that that gold or silver came from an old coin.
Art? I can get a canvas, and throw a bunch of paint at it, and try to sell it on Ebay, I won't get a single bid. But, if I were to take that exact same piece of "art", throw it on Ebay with the title "Jackson Pollock masterpiece", you'd get the snobs of the art world tripping over themselves to acquire it. Why? Because people have placed value on paintings from the masters. Van Gogh died penniless. Nobody cared about his paintings while he was alive. It was only later when people identified the tortured genius in his work that they also deemed it had value. Nobody cares about where Van Gogh studied art. If you ask the average person bidding on a painting by Jan Van Eyck, or Rembrandt, or Monet, they're not going to have a clue under which master they might have studied.
Anything can have value. The Star Wars figures I played with as a child are highly collectible. Original, mint on card copies of the "twelve back" figures sell for thousands of dollars.
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Bill, it is good to read about your love of cardboard and baseball. Please don't get me wrong. I love collecting baseball cards also. I collected when I was a kid, and I had a lot of fun buying packs at the local drugstore in town or before a Little League game. I exchanged cards with my friends in school, and I really enjoyed it. I still have many of my cards from back then, and although they are worthless in value, there is still a lot sentimental value there. I enjoy collecting today to somewhat relive those times during my childhood, and also to obtain some of the cards I could never dream of obtaining when I was a kid. In addition, it's very enjoyable learning the history of the different baseball cards, and it's a different type of experience in collecting the cards in of itself than when I was a kid.
Moreover, I could never collect art. Most of it's bulky, and I can't understand 99% of it. I much prefer to hang pictures of my family on the walls of our house than any painting or print of a noteworthy painting. However, I still believe that art is a different level of collectible than baseball cards.
So, I will reply to your argument this way. If you could only save one of these, your ten favorite or what you consider most important baseball cards ever, or this one painting of George Washington painted in 1796 by Gilbert Stuart (the Lansdowne portrait), which I’ve attached, and currently hanging in the Smithsonian Museum, which would you choose? A description of this painting is here (
Link), and in brief the painting shows Washington refusing a third term as President. Note that there are copies of it painted by the same artist, but this would be the original. You could save only one, and the other would be incinerated and lost forever. Which would you choose?