Posted By:
warshawlaw(Obscure SNL reference for those of you lucky enough to have watched in the 1970's).
I am not suggesting that Terry took apart a Goodwin album. What I am saying is that if we had a market where the leaves were worth considerably more individually than the album as a whole, I do not believe that he would keep the item intact out of some sense of service, because he is a dealer in business to make money on the purchase and resale of these items.
See, the difference is that you and I love these items while a dealer cannot love them without going broke. Speaking as one who used to be a dealer, if you want to sell these items profitably, you have to treat them as commodities, not as something more. I could not handle it (I fell in love way too often with the things I purchased for inventory), so I stopped dealing.
Now, the vulgarians who shred bats and so forth to make those silly cards are very different than someone who sells leaves from a rare publication. Those sliver cards don't resemble the original at all. They might as well stick a chunk of plywood on there for all the resemblance it has to a bat. I do like the autographed cut cards, though. Nice way to get a Ruth, Cobb, etc. in a format that displays well (I've always thought checks, documents, etc., looked a little tacky).