Steven H makes a good point, but not really one I agree with.
Should we promote art appreciation by selling 1/2 inch squares of Rembrandts and Picassos?
I was unimpressed by impressionist painting until I saw a few nice ones up close in a museum. Still unimpressed with Picasso.
And at the rate they're going, what will be left to appreciate and preserve?
I have seen items of this type that were ok. The Smithsonian air and space has restored a few cloth covered planes. Some that were done in the 70's and 80's were partly or maybe entirely financed by selling framed photos with squares of the original cloth covering. But the restorations were badly needed, much of the original covering had rotted or was otherwise damaged. And the replacement was exact, recreating even the exact twist of the individual threads in the cloth.
What they did was hardly vandalism for profit.
What to me is telling is that the company that does the most of this is Panini, an Italian company. None of their European offerings include game used anything. The non-sports don't have anything similar either.
So it's ok to cut up American history stuff but not theirs.
Maybe it's cultural. A guy I met who is probably the biggest collector of cycling jerseys said that hardly anyone there cared at all about any of the raceworn or used equipment.
For example, he bought the flag that was waved to start every Tour de France from the early 1900's to WWII - It was something like $15K and the seller thought he was crazy.
While I'd love to have a piece of game used or worn equipment from one of the games great players, I'd want the whole thing. Not a few tiny squares stuck to a card. (And since some of them are fake, I can hope that's the case with these.)
Heck, my Fenway park seat has uneven cuts on the boards of the back. Enough that I could trim them even and make at least a few hundred if not a couple thousand "memorabilia cards" I've owned it since the mid 80's and have considered removing the extra for getting autographs, or something like that. I just can't bring myself to take the saw to it. Doing that would even make it display better, and might increase the value - I still can't do it.
Steve B
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