Columbia University silks etc

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Posted By: leon

I have a question about Columbia U. items...Scott and I took in a fairly substantial Columbia University collection. It has 100 or more silks, an oversized L1 like item (leather with nice insignia) and many other related items including lots of postcards. ALso there is some pre-1910 basketball stuff and 1940's football program(s).....Any ideas if there is a good market for this kind of stuff?

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Posted By: ErlandStevens

Could you be more specific on the pre-1910 basketball stuff?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

All I can tell you is that with vintage football collectors, there is very strong demand for college material. Early Notre Dame or U of Michigan material can be as popular, and even as valuable, as Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. In baseball memorabilia, college baseball is relatively minor, but in football, and perhaps other sports like basketball, college is in high demand. Columbia is an Ivy League school, so would rank as a popular vintage school. In the old days, the Ivy League was an athletic powerhouse, with Ivy League teams winning a majority of the Pre-WWI national football championships. Lou Gehrig played football and baseball at Columbia in the 1920s and was sometimes called 'Columbia Lou.'

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Posted By: leon

I will get more specifics this evening on the things we have....The consignor is a friend and I want to do the best I can for him...and if we aren't the right venue then so be it......back in touch this evening on these items...regards

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Posted By: barrysloate

Pre- 1910 basketball should be in high demand...1940's football less so. There is a cutoff date where this memorabilia starts to get scarce. It's probably 1920's for college football.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I know of a board member, who you know and went to Columbia.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

I'm raising $$ so my wife and myself can have extra to adopt a child(ren) and Leon and myself were both stumped as to some of the items.

After about a 2 hour hash session last night; we figured out most of it. There are still a couple of items we probably need a little more guidance on but for the most (95%) part; we're good to go.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: leon

As you know it's a major no-no for any auction house to expose a consignor or bidder and Scott, nor I, will never do that. If a bidder or consignor wants to let folks know then we certainly have no issue with that. I might post a couple things to get some guidance. I should have them loaded this weekend and you and I can go over descriptions. You were right...the pre-1910 basketball will have some lookers...It's always my pleasure when we get together. I look forward to our next Tin Star lunch too......best regards

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Posted By: barrysloate

Say- wasn't I the one who mentioned pre-1910 basketball would be desirable? Credit please!

(and please fix the spelling of "university" in your title)

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Posted By: leon

Actually Rich said it first but yes, you did...so credit bestowed.

I fixed my typo too...thanks

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we don't see our own obvious typos?

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Posted By: barrysloate

I'm a good speller but I miss typos left and right...you have no idea how many times I reread my posts before I hit "respond." I think it's partly a visual thing.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

I just wanted to help answer David's question; should have done that on an email.

Eeesh. My bad on this; I'll take the wet noodle lashing.

Rich

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Posted By: leon

I love it when people use semi-colons.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I assumed it was Rich-- the Columbia, Leon, Dallas connection pretty much narrowed it down. Didn't mean to cause big trouble.

Actually, at sale, saying the items come from the collection of a former Beckett editor (or 'national sports magazine editor' to be more anonymous) and Columbia grad would only serve to help sales. At least mention that they are from the collection of a Columbia alum. This is for the same reason that a seller would mention a U of Iowa photo album came from a Iowa City family or an ultra rare SMU football pennants set came from the collection of a SMU Professor. Bidders like to know there is regional provenance to the regional material-- at best it adds credence to the authenticity, and at least it adds regional color.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

My great uncle once adopted a child. He said it was the best decision he ever made.

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Posted By: leon

That is a good suggestion. Since Rich doesn't mind it being known then Scott and I certainly don't. I think you are correct in adding something to the descriptions about the owner being a Columbia Alum....

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Posted By: paulstratton

You could put "Obama went here!" in the title too, it might help. OK, I was joking...but not really.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

No partisan politics in the NET 54 crowd. We've had IKE (university president) and Obama amongst others.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

It would certainly not hurt sales to mention Dwight D. Eisenhower was a President of Columbia. He was German and defeated the Germans, that's got to appease to everyone. He was the first President to win both the pro-German and anti-German vote.

And for your political trivia question of the day: What famous former U.S. big city Mayor (you've all heard of him) won both the Republican and the Democratic nominations in the same year?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I'm a Democrat, but I LIKE IKE!



PS Barry, you should change your browser over to Firefox, they have a built in spellchecker which will underline any misspelled or questionable word as you type.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I like the old fashioned way of looking something up in the dictionary...I don't want to see us losing the printed word.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The worst is when the Word dictionary is unable to find a word that even resembles the word you typed out. You fiddle around with letters several times and it still can't find any resemblance to the English language. You're spelling is so bad, it's not even recognized as a misspelling.

Then there are the times you want to find a movie on the shelves and can remember all the words in the title but first one.

Then there was the time I was looking up a word in the dictionary and realized I was looking up the word 'dictionary.' At least I found out what was that thing in my hands.

Did you ever see the episode of the great British historical comedy Blackadder about Samuel Johnson, author of the first English dictionary? The dimwitted servant got a hold of the manuscript and, according to the show, the first word in history ever looked up in a dictionary was 'fart.' The second was 'fornicate.' Also, the main characters thought they accidentally burned the only copy of the dictionary in the fireplace and wrote a new dictionary from scratch in 24 hours in the hopes that Johnson wouldn't notice.