Cuban Baseball Market

[Jason19th]

For about the past year and a half I have been focusing on Cuban baseball items. I feel that this is an over looked and undervalued part of our hobby. Most of this stuff is not just rare but actually hard to find. For example the El Score paper that is shown below is the only example that I have ever seen on Ebay (I know that there was a large lot purchased in REA last spring but none of them have seemed to hit the market). These item often feature significant Negro Leaguers and MLB stars. Yet they do not appear at shows (at the national last year that were two booths that had any real selection) So this this post has two purposes 1. Lets see other Cuban Items and 2. What do you see the market doing with these items both in terms of price and availability

Items pictured
El Score 1908 featuring box scores from the team that Rube Foster took to Cuba to participate (and win) the Winter Season
Page for Acebo album 1950
Photo's of Jose Oliveras and Vicente Rodriguez (catcher on first year 1920 KC Monarchs)-- sorry I do not know why the image is flipped to the left

[bcbgcbrcb]

Here are two of my favorite Cuban baseball pieces, the 1923-24 Cuban League & MLB Tomas Gutierrez albums (sample page from each shown).

[rgpete]

Very tough to find now in decent shape, here is a couple of mine

[ramram]

As soon as the Castro's pass away and relations become somewhat normalized, I expect an MLB team to expand to Havana. The Cuban collectibles market will then blow wide open.

Rob M.

Leonard Pearson & Ray Noble

Leonard Pearson & Ray Noble.jpg

[ramram]

Scorebook from a game the All Cubans played during their 1905 tour of the states.

Rob M.

All Cubans.jpg

All Cubans Closeup.jpg

[Kenny Cole]

I have the Acebo and TG Cuban albums, but they aren't scanned. Here's poor scans of some other stuff I have.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Fantastic collection of Cuban cards, Kenny!

[Jaybird]

Holy moly, Kenny. I just kept scanning down and seeing one amazing card after the other. Thanks for sharing them.

[albertheras]

I agree Cuban baseball memorabilia will grow in value in the upcoming future. please check out my Cuban autograph post on the autograph section I also collect mainly Cuban autographs memorabilia and baseball cards.

[Jason19th]

Here is "some other stuff" to keep the thread going -- if Kenny is showing his other stuff I wonder what his real quality items look like.


First baseball book printed in Cuba - 1886

[collectbaseball]

I always seem to see Cuban baseball stuff getting super strong prices (or at least they seem that way to me). Do you think it is really undervalued? I've always wondered if you could turn up some neat old baseball stuff if you traveled down there.

Anyway, here's my only (tangentially related) Cuban piece... he did play baseball, after all! Dated just four days after he became prime minister.

[Jason19th]

Dan

I would agree that there are instances where there are very strong prices - I would point to the recent Hakes auctions. But for the most part I am able to pick up this stuff pretty cheaply. I have been able to pick up a 1906 Cuban Spalding Guide for $60, a type one photo's of Cocaine Garcia (one of the best pitchers from Cuba who also performed very well in the Negro Leagues) for $20, year books and media guides in the 20-50 dollar range and so on. A lot of the pricing stems from people not really understanding the items and there true scarcity. I would also note that condition issues which are very common to these items have a huge impact.

Jason