Another sad day for vintage collectors

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens 

I really wish it was illegal for card companies to destroy rare, game used sports equiment for the sake of making a buck. Their logic is that it gives everyone an affordable chance to own a piece of history. My ass. That's like like cutting up the Mona Lisa and selling off the bits for the same reason. The only problem is that those bits are totally meaningless. It's the whole that is what is beautidul and improtant. I could care less if something like this becomes affordable for everyone. I'd rather have in tact and unaccessable, then destroyed.

http://espn.go.com/sportsbusiness/news/2003/1020/1642358.html

Jay

[Archive]

Posted By: Rob M (ramram)

You've gotta be kidding!

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller

Won't be long before one of these ******* companies exumes the body and has pieces of the Babe's corpse as an insert. Can't some historical society or governmental agency put an end to this? Can't these jerseys be declared historical treasures, like buildings being historical landmarks, and their desecration become illegal?

[Archive]

Posted By: jeffj

You are totally correct. Heres a better one.
Let's dismantle the Empire State building and let every town have their very own office room from the famous skyscraper. That way we can all afford and office with a view. How totally stupid.

[Archive]

Posted By: Marc S.

The only "good" thing I can see coming out of this long-term is an increase in the value of the extant game-used jerseys, etc., that will hopefully keep them within museum and private collector hands. Thanksfully, most of the major collectors who own these types of items have enough money to not need to liquidate for personal reasons. Love or hate Barry Halper (as I was a 12-year old when I toured his collection with Joe D., I love him...), many of his jerseys ended up going to the HOF -- and thus are not in danger of suffering the cruel fate extended upon this Ruth pinstripe jersey.

If Donruss really wanted to "bring the Jersey to many people", it would include the Jersey, in its entirety, on a rolling exhibition throughout the country -- not by cutting up indeterminable swatches to put inside a baseball card. How f*cking absurd.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

This is bullsh*t!

Damage is already done, but is there a way TRUE vintage collectors condemn this kind of stuff?

I know this site works...

http://www.petitiononline.com/

[Archive]

Posted By: runscott

If someone ripped a Babe Ruth jersey into quarters and gave you one, what would you do with it? Does cutting it up even smaller and packaging it nicely make it any less worthless?

[Archive]

Posted By: Rob M (ramram)

I agree with Jimmy.......BOYCOTT!!! Oh, I forgot, none of us collect that new crap anyway. Well, somebody ought to do it!

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

This isn't event he grossest example either. Back about 10 years ago, I think it was ProSet, that bought the only pair of leg pads that Terry Sawchuck ever wore in his entire career and cut them up. The owner of the company claim to be a hockey fan and huge Sawchcuk fan and used the same logic to cut up this one of a kind item. What kind of true fan would want to see a piece of history destroyed?

Jay

[Archive]

Posted By: jw

As long as someone can make money from this kind of debacle, it will continue. Jay Miller is not too far off with the exuming statement. I saw Cobb's dentures sold in an auction a while ago. Think if they would have sold each fake tooth separately, what a windfall that would have been. It's a joke. There's no end to it.

[Archive]

Posted By: Hankron

It's known as a justification (excuse) rather than a reason. If they said, "We cut it up because we could make more money that way," I would respect them for their honesty.

[Archive]

Posted By: Hankron

Anyone who watches Siefeld knows that George Castanza has a lot of interesting justifications for his actions .... (During small smokey fire at a kid's party, in which he hysterically pushed an old woman in a walker to the ground and a variety of small children out of the way in order to get to the door first): "I was merely pushing the old people down so they could be away from the smoke" .... "I wasn't racing down the hall ahead of everyone, so much as I was clearing a safety path for the children."

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Is that they spend so much money to so miss the boat. Skip the jerseys and spend the $$ on a couple dozen cut autographs, then package them with impeccable authentication into a card. Then you've got something worth collecting. These cut up sliver cards are just crap. I cannot help but think of the medieval craze for slivers of the cross.

[Archive]

Posted By: Hankron

What would be cool is if they inserted redemption cards for various old memorabilia-- like a Mickey Mantle home run ticket stub or Braves season pass, a Sweet Caporal pin, baseball tintype, 1946 Red Sox Picture Pack, a 1975 Reds W.S. pennant, an old baseball movie poster. A lot of that could be inserted directly into the packs, and the collectors would be getting something of longterm value and interest.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

Sadly, most madern card colelctors want instant gratification and don't have the patience to mail in the coupon and then wait for it to arrive in the mail. They want to be able to brag to their buddies on the spot and resell it to the card shoper owner/dealer. Although a redemption card is about as meaningless as a card with a swatch or sliver, at least they can claim to have something 'real' with sliver or swatch.

I haven't looked a modern card or price guide in eons. Is there even any secondary market for these inserts a few years after they are issued. Seems to me they would got he way of the error craze in the 80s. Worth a ton for a year od so, essentially worthless now.

Jay

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

....

[Archive]

Posted By: TBob

I shudder to think at the next round of chase cards from these clowns. Now that Ted Williams has had his head amputated from his cybergenetically frozen body, I see Topps offering cards containing, no, I won't go there.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

I think warshawlaw got it exactly right. Cards with a Ruth autographed cut would be legitimate collectibles that would probably increase sales much more than a crappy jersey swatch. And no harm is done by cutting an autographed cut down to size to fit on a card.

And I wonder if the chopping up of this jersey was a stupid business decision on a second level. Will they really increase sales by more than $264,000 by inserting these cards? I doubt it.

[Archive]

Posted By: Charlie

I seriously doubt that any valuable jerseys have ever been cut into swatches inserted into cards. Same type jerseys and from the same era...yes...but one worth big money...a Ruth? never...Just my opinion...I'd never believe it unless I was the one with the scissors.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

Rread the article. they had a huge cerimony with Ruth's granddoughter cutting the first piece from the uniform. And yes, these exec's are stupid enough to cut up authentic jerseys. I don't see how they make the moeny back either since the margin is already slim on the product. Even if they are $25 on every box they sell, it would mean they have to sell and extra 10,000 boxes just to cover the jersey. I don't think those sales are gonna happen. Then again, I shouldn't underestimate the stupidity of the modern card collector either.

Jay

[Archive]

Posted By: Hankron

Seriously, Donruss probably used the amount of one sleave (if that) to make these cards. I'm confident that have more than enough jersey left to be used for many future card and similar issues.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jeff M

The worst thing about this is since you don't see them put the swatch in the card, How do you know its not the CEO of Donruss' underwear they put in there. He's probably wearing the Ruth jersey with a small cut in the sleeve. I pulled one of those Cobb game used bat cards from Topps a couple years ago and my wife said how do you even know it was from a bat or even his bat for that matter. Needless to say it was sold after that.