Legendary cuts....

[Archive]

Posted By: T206King

Saw this on Ebay, what does the public think?? I think Upper Deck has gone overboard for these signed cut autographs to be honest.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Babe-Ruth-Ty-Cobb-Wagner-Johnson-1-1-Cut-Signatures_W0QQitemZ8731418204QQcategoryZ98015QQrd Z1QQcmdZViewItem

[Archive]

Posted By: Hal Lewis

I smell SHILL bidding.

Those two bidders have never paid more than $125 for ANYTHING on EBay in history.

[Archive]

Posted By: Cobby33

The winner most recently bought a "SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE GAMECUBE GAME CUBE NEW SEALED." Definitely a high-roller.

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

This looks more like sport bidding. People bidding one something with no intention of paying, just so that they can say they bid... When I saw this auction I figured it would go high, but it's reached a level that is utterly ridiculous.

Andy

[Archive]

Posted By: Anson

Now if he bought a XBox360, I would say he's the real deal

$89k.......I'll pass.

[Archive]

Posted By: zach

So lets break it down. You are paying over 20k an autograph.
Just by using ebay let me see how much it would cost to make this myself.

First, Ty Cobb. The bidder is paying $20,0000 dollars for his autograph when on ebay in completed listings, a signed and dated check by Ty Cobb went for roughly $900.

Second, Walter Johnson. Once again the bidder is paying $20,000 for his autograph. On ebay under completed listings there are no autographs on paper but an autographed ball was sold and it went for $1700.

Third, Babe Ruth. The buyer is paying $20,000 for his autograph. On ebay recently a very clear Ruth auto PSA/DNA certified sold for $1500.

Finally, my favorite Honus Wagner. The bidder is paying $20,000 for his autograph when on ebay a check of his failed to get a bid at just over $1,000.

So in conclusion, the bidding on this card is at $88,000 when it only cost Upper Deck roughly $5,100. I understand this card is a status symbol and could reach maybe $20,000 or less one ebay, but $88,000 ?!?!!? I don't understand it. I could buy all of those autographs and frame them where you could see all of them at once and not have to flip the piece around and it would still cost less than $6000 to do. Do people really care that much about the 1 of 1 or what not to pay over $80,000 more than what the company used to produce the card ?

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

Zach,

I think that the price that many other "Cut Auto" cards have sold for answers that question. And the answer is "Yes, there are collectors that do care."

Personally, if I were to open a pack and pull something like that, I'd immediately sell it, buy an auto from all those on the card, and do something smart with the rest.

[Archive]

Posted By: zach

I hope I didn't come off like I was bashing those who collect the cut autographs but this takes things to a new level.

[Archive]

Posted By: damian

Is that Beckett..as in the card books etc? Hal said shill bidding? if thats is true wouldn't that mean Beckett was in on it? Because as they said they hadn't purchased anything over a gamecube game or a D. Turnbow PSA 9 for 4.95

or can you retract bids at no penalty to feedback, basically meaning the kids/guys are just jerk?

Autograph cards are overboard to me as well... i love how becketts 1950's thru 1995ish is relagated to 1 1/2 pages now....then 50 pages of auto/inserts/game used/game cuts/celebrity cuts etc...

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

Zach,

I don't think you did. I think you put it into perspective quite well.

I recall much the same thing happening with a George Washington "Historical Cut" (put out by Topps I believe). The closing price was like 4-5x what you could buy a complete and whole Washington signed document. Which would you rather have: a complete piece of history, or a signature cut from a document that is now destroyed?

Damian,

Yes, it is the same Beckett, as in the magazine. They do consignments for sale on eBay (in addition to sometimes flat out selling cards they grade [conflict of interest much? But I don't think that's a matter for these boards]).

Andy

[Archive]

Posted By: JudgeDred (Fred)

You could purchase FULL CHECKS of each of those players and Mathewson to boot and still have a nice sum left over...(probably enough money to purchase a second set of the same checks).

$88K is a bit much.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

If only they'd had all 5 original inductees, that would have been something to see.

I see a big difference between taking cut signatures or signatures from commonplace documents and making them into a really nice authenticated item and chopping up a bat or jersey. The essential integrity of the item is still there--the autographs. I would love to see some themed cut compilation cards like this one: tinker-evers-chance, $100k infield, Tigers 100 RBI infield, etc. The potential is there for some really nice cards that would be good for the hobby.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie Vognar

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

Great point Zach. I would much rather purchase signed checks of these guys individually and pay 10% or less of the price of that card/checks. I don't understand the added value of them on a card. But then again, I'm sure many don't understand why I collect what I collect. I'm sure some would look at my collection and say "what are you thinking? you're nuts!"

[Archive]

Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

It is a SWEET card but I think that in the end either eBay will pull the listing b/c the bidders are not serious or the seller will have a non paying bidder and have to list the item 4x's to only get serious bidders.

This auction reminds of the Pope John Paul auto card that sold for somewhere in excess of $100,000 then the seller finds out really quickly that none of the bidders are serious. I think that he finally sold the card the 3rd time he listed it for about $5500.

[Archive]

Posted By: will watson

"Is that Beckett..as in the card books etc? Hal said shill bidding? if thats is true wouldn't that mean Beckett was in on it? Because as they said they hadn't purchased anything over a gamecube game or a D. Turnbow PSA 9 for 4.95"

how on earth does that mean Beckett was in on the shill bidding? they graded the card. what happens to it afterwards is out of their hands. does this mean any PSA or SGC graded card with suspicious bidding mean PSA and SGC are somehow shilling? of course not.

[Archive]

Posted By: Josh K.

Will,

look at the Seller ID - "the_beckett_store"

the seller and the company that graded the card are one in the same.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard Masson

would you rather have this card or a full set of autographed B&W plaques from Mastro?

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

2 answer some ppls.... they do have a 100K infield card. and it went for crazy amounts. i find that upper deck and other companies destroying jerseys, bats, pants, and nice signatures. i was looking up mickey mantle signed stuff, and half of his autograph was missing on an upper deck signature card. it said "ickey Mant", how can there be an increase in value, when not all the autograph is there!!!!!! no offence to the ppl who collect them, but they cut up cy young autographs, worth a little bit of doe, and upper desk lovingly cuts half the "c" off of cy and the "G" off young. i dont get it.......................................

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

Josh K.,

I wouldn't say this is shill bidding at all. I would certainly call any company that grades cards selling those same graded cards a conflict of interest.

Andy

[Archive]

Posted By: Glenn

Good point there. Who needs another first-party grading service?

[Archive]

Posted By: Josh Adams

I'll probably get flamed for this, but here it goes.
I think the idea of the Legendary Cuts series is a good one. It allows collectors the chance to get an autograph they might not be able to afford otherwise. The chance to pull a Cy Young, or "y Youn" depending on the company ,for about $4.00/pack is indeed enticing to collectors. Plus, it may just get younger collectors who buy the new stuff interested in the hobby.
The young collector might buy a box of Legendary Cuts, hoping for a Ruth signature, and instead pull a bunch of pre-War HOF cards such as Cobb, Plank, Matty, you get the picture. That may spark in interest in that collector to find out more about that player, and generate a whole new group of pre-war collectors.
Now, in PRACTICE, it's a bit different. These "1/1" cut autos create a fictious scarcity. I saw a Hank Greenberg cut auto go for several thousand dollars. I bought a PSA/DNA Greenberg auto for $100.00 at a show last month.
If I pulled the card that was listed at the top of this thread, it would be hard NOT to sell it, and finish that darned '33 Goudey set!

Go Go White Sox
2005 World Series Champions!

[Archive]

Posted By: Josh K.

A couple of Points:

Andy - I agree with you. I was not arguing that Beckett was shill bidding - I was simply responding to Will's post (which was in response to another post suggesting that there may be shill bidding going on) which asked essentially, "how could beckett be shilling when all they did was grade the card"? In other words, he didnt realize that Beckett was also selling the card.

T206 - I dont think that any of those cards destroyed any autographs. The full auto is most likely there, just covered in part by the card. Most likely, once you rip the cardboard on top of the auto away and you will have the full auto.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

Josh- oh i dont doubt it if the auto. is all there, but spending 1-100 times more for an auto. cut card? i think the market is flooded with these cards. i bought a rube marquard 3X5 long time ago for 10 bucks with PSA/DNA included, and the autographs of his r over 100 bucks, its weird. but they are insert cards and will go down in value very soon....

it would be nice to own an autograph cut yes, but i c beautiful programs from the 20's with Gehrigs auto. on it, and upper deck cuts its wrong and inserts it in the card. Also with jerseys and bats, i find its destroying memoribilia. to have a 1/8th by 1/8th square is nothing to me(my opinion. also with upper decks problems with the Eddie Plank autograph,i can see fake autographs getting into upper deck very soon.........

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

This card looks great; all autos are full and viewable. Unfortunately that's not always the case.

Not to mention some of the mistakes that have plagued Upper Deck. The most notable being the Ed Plank cut auto. It was a nice looking card, with a nice full autograph. Unfortunately someone found that the "Ed Plank" that signed the card had a strikingly similar to the autograph of a player who passed through the Giants organization in 1978 and 1979.

Another good example would be Ray Dandridge. Again, the autograph was nice and full (cut from the bottom of a check), but it was signed "Henrietta Dandridge," Ray's wife...

I'm all for these cards, as long as they don't cut off any of the auto in the viewing window, and the auto is indeed real. Granted I'm not going to pay the premium that these cards command.

[Archive]

Posted By: JudgeDred (Fred)

what about cut autograph cuts...?

UD finds a rare autograph (Addie Joss, for example),

They cut it into 9 pieces (so more people can enjoy it).

Card 1 of 9 = A
Card 2 of 9 = D
Card 3 of 9 = D
Card 4 of 9 = I
Card 5 of 9 = E
Card 6 of 9 = J
Card 7 of 9 = O
Card 8 of 9 = S
Card 9 of 9 = S

Heck, I think the art world has done that with Rembrandt pencil drawings...

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

Please don't give them any ideas.... They've already shown they'll destroy vintage equipment.

[Archive]

Posted By: Josh K.

LMAO

[Archive]

Posted By: will watson

"Will,

look at the Seller ID - "the_beckett_store"

the seller and the company that graded the card are one in the same."


whoa, i totally missed that. my apologies. that is pretty suspect, but then again so is everything else Beckett does

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Rousseau

I totally understand where you're all coming from. But for people that are legitimately willing to pay for a card like this, it's the "1/1" status that is the attraction, not the signatures themselves exactly (most of them realize they could get entire autographs for less money). While the companies may talk about the 'little kids' winning that card, they know that it is primarily people looking to hit the lottery and flip a rare auto for bigger dollars. No 'kid' could afford to buy their product.

[Archive]

Posted By: will watson

i somewhat collect modern cards, so i'd like to chime in about the cut card auto vs. auto check/3x5 debate. comparing the prices and values of cut auto cards to other autographs is like comparing apples to oranges. just like every Ty Cobb card isn't the same, every autograph isn't the same. different cards and different autographed items carry different values. sure, you can get a cheap Ty Cobb card or a cheap Babe Ruth signed index card for a lot less than you can for other similar cards and autographs. same principle.

granted, these cards are man made and a big part of the selling price is due to artificially created rarity. of course there are hundreds of autographs of these players, but only one cut autographed card - at least in this particular set. god knows how many other 1/1 cut autographs of the same players are out there.

i recently bought a Miguel Cabrera card with a game used MLB Logo patch on it for $300. it's the only one in the world. of course, i probably could have bought an entire Cabrera game worn jersey for a few hundred bucks more. but that wasn't what i wanted. i wanted the card with the patch affixed on the front. i suspect this is similar to the people who pay outlandish prices for cut signature cards instead of spending thousands less for each individual signature. personally, if i wanted those autographs i'd save myself thousands and buy them one at a time. but apparently a lot of modern collectors think differently. they're paying for the card and the scarcity over the actual autographs themselves

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

The one thing modern-issued autographs have going for them is built-in provenance. I often buy modern autographed inserts to be sure that I am getting the player's autograph (or in the case of the infamous Jack Kemp Pro-Line card, maybe his auto-pen).

Again, I have to disagree as to the merits of the prices allegedly paid for these cards, but their collectors have as much right as anyone else to do as they wish with their money.

[Archive]

Posted By: JudgeDred (Fred)

I'd laugh my butt off if someone pulled one of these autographs off the card and sent it into PSA/DNA only to find out that it may be questionable signature...

[Archive]

Posted By: Andy McKay

It has happened. Read up a few posts about the Eddie Plank and Ray Dandridge autos.