Old News- Toleteros Gibson

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Why, exactly was this old thread posted on? I don't understand the point of re-hashing old threads. Then again, maybe every fake Wagner on ebay from now on could be posted on in one old thread, over and over again instead of starting a new one. I take it back. I'm sold on the thread re-hashing concept.

I rarely post on these threads discussing the Toleteros Gibson card because there is always so much misinformation and questionable motives that it drives me absolutely crazy.

But here are a few points:

1. Let's clarify the numbers right now. When I originally discovered the card, 2 or 3 years ago, I found 5 of them. Josh just posted that he found 4 or 5. Let's say 5. That makes 10. I think there are another 2 or 3 in collections in Puerto Rico. I said from the very beginning, that I would speculate the population of 1950-51 Toleteros Josh Gibson cards is anywhere from 12 to 15. Other board members can attest to the fact that I said these even when the five I found were the only ones known.

2. Sometimes I get the feeling that people believe those of us who have gone to Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc. are getting cards like this from $.50 each and then selling them for thousands of dollars. I don't know what Josh paid, but I know I paid a large amount of money for the original find of Toleteros cards. I may be wrong, but I am quite confident that Josh did not buy his Gibsons and other Puerto Rican cards for pennies on the dollar. That being the case, when large amounts of money go out, large amounts of money need to come in for a business to keep from going bankrupt. The only way for large amounts of money to come in is for some of the items that were bought to be sold, hopefully for more money than what originally went out. Leland's has been selling the Gibsons because that's why they bought them: to sell them! Why is it surprising to people that Leland's has another Gibson? It's not a new one. Anyone could have seen it themselves at last year's National. Unfortunately, the process of Leland's selling their Gibsons has made it appear that there are many more than there actually are. This doesn't change the actual number of Josh Gibson cards. It only means the general perception is inaccurate.

3. Some of these Gibsons are the same cards changing hands numerous times which makes it appear like a new one is coming out each time the same card changes hands again. Here's an example: REA will have a Gibson in their upcoming auction. What? ANOTHER Gibson!!! There must be hundreds of them, right? Well, that's actually one of the original five I found. Here is the history:

A. A collector in Puerto Rico put the set together in the early 1950's as a kid.
B. I bought the set (including Gibson) 50 years later.
C. I sold the Gibson to a collector.
D. That collector sold it to another collector.
E. That collector sold it to Hal.
F. Hal consigned it REA who will sell it in the next auction.

4. Frank Ward, are those prices from the price guide? A few years ago those prices would have been about right, but the market has changed dramatically since then. Put me in line right behind Paul for the Mendez and Hill. Actually, I take that back. Put me right in front of him!

5. Regarding the SCD price guide, it is close to becoming obsolete regarding Cuban, Puerto Rican, and other foreign issues. I did not offer any input for the 2006 book because Lemke arbitrarily changed many of the prices in the 2005 book to the point where they no longer were helpful, even as a "guide" to pricing. I had updated prices for many issues (some were absurdly overpriced, many were underpriced) for the 2004 book based on the actual market to reflect prices that they'd actually been selling for. But many prices for Cuban cards in the 2006 book haven't changed since 2002 or 2003. I also noticed that there are now some checklists that include cards that were literally never produced, but there they are in the price guide with a price next to them. Not sure how they explain that. For rare issues inaccurate pricing is particularly misleading and harmful to the hobby. Frank Ward is one of the more knowledgeable collectors and has handled many different Cuban issues. The cards he put prices by are some of the toughest in the hobby so there are not public sales records of most of them, so how could he be expected to know the "market" value, other than the price guide? And when the price guide is obsolete, it becomes useless. If experienced collectors can't find accurate information, how are novice collectors supposed to? If only there were some kind of....I don't know....guide of some kind. Perhaps one with.....prices or something like that. Yes, some kind of guide of prices. That would be great.

-Ryan

edited title to be more specific

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

You can only appreciate the irony in the above post by realizing that I meant to post it in the Josh Gibson thread. I must have gotten logged out before I posted and when I logged back in it must not have gone back to the thread I was posting in.

I actually chuckled when I saw it posted as a new thread.

-Ryan

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Posted By: fkw

I was going on the values in the SCD guide, the 1910-20s Cuban HOFer cards are out of my league, I will never own a card of many of those older Negro League HOFers. I would be happy to own a single example from some of those sets. Just wanted to clear it up.

I was just trying to say that I can see why these cards bring big $$. Anyone can find a card of Cobb, Ruth, or even Anson, etc. but a vintage Charleston or Gibson is a different story.

I once wanted to own a card of every HOFer, but unless I win the lottery it wont happen.

But I love to see them


Frank Ward

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Posted By: John J. Grillo

I realize it is not the exact same thing as owning a Toleteros, but I thought Larry Fritsch had a set of Negro League players that he was distributing in the early 1990's. You could pick up a set of these for a few bucks I would imagine.

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Posted By: Paul

Ryan, no cutting in line.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Fritsch did do a Negro League set. It's not too bad. I own one with about 20 of the cards signed by the various players.

Jay

WOW upsidedown is MOM. Mom upsidedown is what dad wants to see.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Recent events on this card make pricing impossible. As more and more appear, the price will go down. Last year we only knew of 1 or 2...now 10. Are there others here in the US? Are there other people in PR holding on to a few? Are there others graded [BVG, GAI]?

Only time will tell.

Frank

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Frank,

I take it you didn't read my post?

-Ryan

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Ryan, I read your post quite carefully. Nothing in there to disprove that:

There are others here in the US.
There are others in PR.
Another grading company has already slabbed a few of these.

As I said, only time will tell how many of these will crawl out of the woodwork.


Frank

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Frank,

I guess I don't understand who the "we" in "Last year we only knew of 1 or 2...now 10" is.

At no point was there ever 1 or 2 known. Do you dispute my estimate of 12 to 15?

Could there be more? Well, like every card that exists there COULD be more. There COULD be 20 Just So Burketts about to be discovered or a find of 100 e107 sets. Those things COULD happen. As you said, only time will tell.

Look at the Baltimore News Ruth and T210 Jackson. I guess they must not be very rare if REA has them in every auction. In fact, there will be 2 T210 Jacksons up for auction at the same time!

The best comparison to the Gibson is the T206 Ty Cobb with Ty Cobb back. A group were discovered and auctioned individually, then another group was found later. I think the total population of known examples is around 13? Maybe someone who knows the details can post more accurately. From what I remember there 5 cards in the first find? Regardless, that seems like a decent comparison to how the Gibsons have been found. There aren't millions of Gibsons coming out of the woodwork.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

that I neither participate in nor closely track very high dollar cards, but that being said, if the card is such a must have, why is it about to change hands for the fourth time since you discovered it 2-3 years ago?

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Posted By: Wesley

Regardless if the population is ten or ten thousand, the fact that it was issued several years after Gibson's death, I personally have little interest in the Toleteros card. While there may be a handful of people driving the prices up, many collectors see it more as a foreign tribute card. That combined with uncertain population, leads me to believe that the card will become more affordable as time goes on.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Why are the reasons for each collector selling or consigning it relevant? Are you asking if there has been any new information that would affect the legitimacy of the card or issue date as in the case of the Reccius Wagner? Because that is not the case. The year is accurate. It is now and always has been Josh Gibson pictured on the card. No one ever claimed there were 1 or 2 examples known.

I can tell you this much, the guy I sold it to sold it for a bunch more than he paid. The next guy also sold it for more than he paid. I can't speak for Hal, but my guess is that he consigned it to REA because it became a dupe for him once he bought the SGC 88 from Leland's.

It seems some collectors doth protest too much about this card. It's hard for me to understand why someone would bother posting that they're not interested in a card when it's being discussed. I'm not interested in owning E107s, so wouldn't it be a little odd if I posted in threads about E107s and said "These aren't my cup of tea. Others may be interested, but not me. I don't want to collect them."? Yet there are routinely posts that say almost exactly that when there is a thread about this card.

There have been many discussions about this card and people are clearly divided on it. I can see and understand both sides. My whole point is that it would be nice if people formed opinions based on readily available facts, rather than wildly misinformed speculations like when it was first suggested it was actually Gibson's son. For many, that might have caused them to have additional doubts that perhaps remain to this day. Perhaps some of those who don't like the card have it in the back of their mind that maybe, even though it was never even a possibility, maybe it's not even Gibson on the card. Who knows? Same thing with the population jumping from 1 or 2 to 10. That's just not true.

It's not a card for everyone and those who don't like it shouldn't feel obligated to explain why you don't like it. If someone said it was a "must have" for everyone, perhaps it would make more sense to explain why it's not for you.

Did someone last year say that there are only 1 or 2 examples and that it's a "must have" card?

-Ryan

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

I agree with Ryan's point about the inaccuracy of the values price guides put on some of these really rare cards. I've always felt that for cards of that nature, and the Toleteros Gibson with 12-15 or so known examples certainly falls into that category, it is useless and misleading for a guide to attempt to put a value on the card. Instead, what they should do is limit their information about value to reporting known transactions (price, condition and date of transaction) and let the reader form his/her own opinion. I realize that the guides will say they in fact to this when arriving at their values, but given the values they put on some of these cards, I have my doubts how diligent they are in compiling this information. I'd love to see a guide that limits its content to say, the pre-WWII period, provides a checklist of the various cards/issues and lists reported sales of the cards within, say, the last five years. To make the task more practical, if a card is defined as a common, then the value listed could be for commons as a group and could be an auction average for each of the past five years in each of the condition categories. If a card in an issue had no reported transactions during the 5-year period, then the value for the card would be left out. Needless to say, the effort to compile such a guide would be momumental, but if someone was ever to do it, now that would be a guide with worth having!

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Posted By: Chad

I think part of the perception of why there might be a lot more of these cards waiting to be discovered is because there might be this idea that baseball fans in Latin American countries didn't value cards the way we do. That's fair enough--this is a strange hobby and it's undertandable to think other people don't obsess over it the way we do. Unfortunately for those of us who love and collect these cards, it just isn't true. Collectors in Cuba and Puerto Rico and Venezuela know what they have and love their cards just as much as we do. Also, they have internet connections and know the value of a dollar. Piles of these cards aren't going to just turn up. It ain't gong to happen. I would advise you to get 'em when you see 'em, but you'd only be getting in my way. So just keeping waiting for that giant stash!

--Chad

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Thank you Corey, I have been arguing this point forever. For many prewar (WWII) sets there are simply not enough transactions, especially in the high grades, to generate accurate prices, yet the price guides continue to report them. I had a standing offer to buy any Zenut HOFer at the book price for each condition. Wanna guess how many people offered them to me? The price guide publishers don't like to see checkerboard-type listings where many cards in many grades have no prices so they extrapolate (make up) prices to fill in the blanks. I decided not to do that with my boxing guide and I've gotten a fair amount of crap from some collectors who want a "complete" guide, even if it is baseless. If I had my druthers, I would eliminate high grade pricing altogether in many sets and just include a note that a high grade card has to be considered a rarity worth many times the price of a lower grade card.

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Posted By: leon

To try to stay on topic my guess is that there will be more Toleteros Gibson's show up in the years to come. Computers and the internet have made information available, in lightning quick speed, that used to take years, if not decades, to disseminate. For the record, in many instances, Bob Lemke in the SCD, has NOT put values but HAS referenced sales, in order to provide a true market analysis. (T207 Red Cross's etc...) Maybe SCD will work something out with the few new companies doing real time valuations, based on sales publicly and privately, to help the Big Book SCD to be even more accurate. regards

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Posted By: Mark

Ryan (and Josh) - thanks for your posts clarifying the number of Gibsons you found.

Ryan, as I read Frank's first post above, he's asking if your estimate of 12-15 Gibons takes into account any Gibsons graded by GAI or BVG. I understand GAI to have graded several Toleteros Gibsons. GAI of course does not have a pop report. Do you know which of the Gibsons you described above were graded by GAI, if any? Thanks.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Not sure as to why there is so much sensitivity about the population and the popularity of this item. If someone questions the importance of this item and regards it as a tribute card on a par with the 1960 Fleer set [although rarer] why can't he post that opinion? Similarly, why is it so wrong to question this card's population when one grading company has privately noted that it has slabbed some copies?

Frank

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Posted By: ScottIngold

My guess about the passion in regards to this card is that each one that pops up lowers the value.

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Posted By: Josh Evans

Ryan is right on target as far as population
Independently I come up pretty much the same numbers

Jeez people love to talk about this card
Josh

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Mark,

Yes, my estimate takes into consideration graded examples from all companies. Pop reports are almost always misleading, and this is no exception. For example, there is a PSA 7 Gibson that used to be an SGC 84. Does that count as 2 Gibsons known or one? It's one card, graded twice, but you'd never know it by adding up the total of all the pop reports.

I have personally gotten Gibsons graded by both SGC and GAI.

Pop reports are another good way for inaccurate information to be spread.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Cat

Ryan:

Out of curiousity, were any of the GAI cards high grade (7 or above)? SGC pop report indicates high grades of: one 88 (Hal's card), one 84 (I assume this is the one that is now in a PSA holder) and an 80. PSA just has the one 7, as far as high end grades. Just trying to get a feel for the higher grade cards. Do you or Josh have any raw examples that will grade well?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

The PSA 7 is in fact the former SGC 84.

Leland's told us this when they were auctioning off the card.