Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardSimon
Jim, what I should have said is that there are so many individual black eyes getting publicity in the hobby that another one just adds to the negative public perception, especially when it happens to the industry "giant".
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That's fair enough, but there are far too many good guys in this hobby to tar them all with the same brush.
I agree that continuing negative stories make the hobby look bad to any outsiders (if they bother to read news stories about baseball cards anyway.) But these outsiders don't feed and don't fund our hobby anyway. We "insiders" do. And we can continue to help clean it up by funneling our consignments and our money to the guys we know are clean.
Mastro being unable to, and/or refusing to pay their bills, should leave no mark on the other guys who operate cleanly.
I'll also add that I'm not naive about what has gone on, and still goes on, at many major auction houses. Cards are "sold" and then up for auction again far too often to be a coincidence. The volume of high grade material available is striking. I've collected, on and off for close to 30 years. How is it that there is more "mint" material available than there was 30 years ago. Not just a little more, but much more. Big finds account for some, but who is kidding whom? (Barry, did I get that who/whom thing right?)
I collect both Sports and Non-Sports. Looking at shows and auctions would lead me to one startling conclusion. For the last 100 years or more, people who collected routinely took better care of their baseball cards than they did their Non-Sports cards. Those damn kids were preserving their T206's carefully, while trashing their T59's! They were protecting their 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards at the same time they were destroying their Indian Gum and SkyBirds!
Obviously, like in every other phase of life, fraud and deception follows the money. It hit the Baseball Card hobby years ago while we weren't paying attention. It only grazed Non-Sports. It hit the autograph industry hard, while missing other collectible hobbies.
While I appreciate the help of the media and law enforcement, only collectors can clean it up.