I once had this discussion
 

With a small (I'll call them a focus group) group of SABR people at the 1st Deadball conference in 2002. Almost to a person, and understand they were not collectors, but had a fascination with the history of baseball, they were not against this process, providing two caveats

1) As long as not the ONLY or the LAST known example. For example (and my math may be a little bit off here), A Babe Ruth bat because it was so large, might produce 1,500 bat pieces that can fit on cards. Babe Ruth bats are reasonably available and cutting one up for this purpose is not going to affect the values very much of a full bat. In addition, you might be able to get younger collectors more interested in the greats of the past.

A case such as the Georges Vezina goalie pads being cut up (when they were the only ones known) was a good publicity move for ITG but a terrible blow to history.


2) If said bat or jersey was historically significant. For example, a bat the Babe used on an August day which broke without any homers coming off that bat, etc is frankly not as historically signiificant as the one he hit #60 in 1927 with. Historically significant artifacts should not be tampered with.

Regards
Rich

Did Donruss provide information about the provenance of this bat? If not, why in this day and age of rampant fraud would anyone assume it is what it purports to be?

What Donruss did on most products from this era was to take pictures, purportedly of the bats from which the slivers were taken and put that on the back of the card. By the way, for the most part "bat cards" have gone the way of the dinosaur in the modern hobby. Only a couple of issues have them inserted at all. Most modern card collectors fall into two themes 1.) "prospect" collectors or 2.) "retro" themed collectors.

Of Logs, Bats And Splinters
 

I found this sentence to be amusing and ironic because of the adjective "valuable."

We ought to be getting a little more philosophical in this thread:

Why is it okay to cut down a tree to make a few bats, but not okay to cut up a bat to make a few cards?

If only 1 person can enjoy the bat, but 10 people can enjoy the splinters, why not make 10 people happy?

If the bat was going to sit in a closet, but the card will be on display at a museum, does it matter?

Is Cobb's bat more important than an unknown player's bat? If so, why?

I have loads of questions about what really makes people tick about this particular "atrocity."

Mostly, I see a card like that and think (a) the price of Cobb bats just went up because there are fewer of them -- good thing I don't collect Cobb bats; and (b) hey, neat card, but I wouldn't pay more than $10 for it.

There is more than enough tragedy and art in the world to mourn the loss of anyone's baseball bat.

That's too philosophical for me. My take: leave the bat alone.;)

But this particular Ty Cobb Card has no such picture on the back side. There is absolutely nothing to differentiate this supposedly "game-used" sliver from that of a store-model bat. The Ty Cobb H&B signature dyes for game-used and store model bats were identical. There is nothing to suggest (much less prove) that this sliver is from a game-used bat.

As further evidence against authenticity of these modern insert cards, there is an excellent thread on the memorabilia side, pertaining to a Ruth/Gehrig signature card. The Ruth is 100% bad, and the Gehrig is very suspect as well... check it out!

Aside form the destructive practice itself (which I personally find deplorable- but to each his own) the authenticity concerns alone would keep me from collecting these moronic and highly contrived "collectibles".

Perezfan, I agree with you. It's all about the willing suspension of unbelief :)

James

My take is that we never truely own these pieces of history. We are just caretakers for some period of time. Perhaps after you pass someone in your family will possess these items, perhaps a museum, perhaps some other person. What your job is, and I truely believe this, when you have possession of these items is to keep them is as good shape (or better) that when you acquired them. Destroying a piece of history in the name of making a buck, and that is all that this is, is a tragedy and crime, not in the legal sense but in the moral sense.

James, actually many collectors
 

Still prefer "relic" cards in today's world. However, the standard wholesale on most of those modern cards is a whopping $2 per. But they are still considered a cut (so to speak) above common (regular or base or whatever term you use); Parallels (unless really tough or popular) and Standard Inserts (too many to list). When most collectors nowadays talk about "Hits" out of a box they are referring to Autograph or Memorabilia (Bat, jersey, etc.) cards.

Regards
Rich

Jay- you said it better than anyone. We are caretakers, and taking a chainsaw to a Ty Cobb bat is doing a rather poor job of it. I rest my case.

Why not issue a redemption card for the whole bat---I know, I know, economics--they can sliver up the bat hundreds of times. But to keep up integrity (in more ways than one) they could issue a redemption card for the bat and redemptions for "authentic" replicas of it. That way they satisfy "demand" and keep the artifact whole.

I know for sure that I would like to add an authentic wooden replica of a Ty Cobb game used bat to my collection--I would consider that a "hit."

I would like to see them do the same for jerseys and other pieces of the uniform as well--especially period pieces of the games legends. I would value a replica Ruth jersey more than I would a swatch of the real deal. They could even put there logo on it.

History
 

The economic reason that it is feasible for companies to cut up bats is that collectors don't value complete bats enough. If the value of an unchopped Cobb bat were so high, the company would never have bought it in the first place or chopped it up in the second place. Put another way, the value that the market has put on some artifacts is for them to be in pieces as opposed to whole.

Who is to say that the market hasn't appropriately assigned the differing values between a complete bat and the wood chipped bat that will keep just the right number of game-used Cobb bats in tact?

I blame the demand, not the supply.

What if there were 100,000 Cobb-used bats out there -- would that make a difference? 10,000? 1,000? How many is too few so that they must all be spared? If you say that all Cobb bats should be saved regardless of how many are out there, then I think your view of the historical import of things is a bit skewed. There is no reason that society needs to preserve 1,000 baseball bats that were all swung by the same baseball player.

I see both sides of the issue. I would prefer the bat stay in one piece but it's not up to me. I don't consider myself a modern collector but I do have a few St. Louis Cardinals HOF game-used cards. I could never afford an authentic game-used jersey or bat card. But for just a few dollars I can own a card that has pieces of jersey or bat that was used by Stan "The Man" Musial or Red Schoendienst or Bob Gibson. Is it wrong? Maybe. Maybe not. But I enjoy them. It brings me closer to the players that I never got to see play because they were well before my time. They encourage me to do more research into their careers and accomplishments. If these cards bring me enjoyment is it such a bad thing to cut them up. Yes, they may just be 1/10,000 of a whole jersey, but how AWESOME is it to know that the piece of jersey in that card could have been worn when Musial crushed a game winning HR or Schoendienst made a diving stop to save a run from scoring? It's little things like that that make it fun to collect these abominations of the card world.

Upper Deck did that in 2000. Each "winner" could not afford the taxes associated with it, were forced to sell, and the bats were re-purchased by card companies and subsuquently pieced out.

Whatever happened to the days when you bought a box of cards for about $15 and hoped for a Dwight Gooden or Bret Saberhagen rookie card?

Personally I blame Upper Deck. :D

Amen.

Those were the good ole days...

Actually Press Pass started this
 

whole "game-used" issue before Upper Deck started their own in 1997. I will say, that this did not involve "vintage" issues until 1999.

I will also say, that when I was at Beckett, I know that our baseball people spoke to UD on numerous occassions and although this took a couple of years to implement, they never would purchase/cut up anything that might be down to a few artifacts (Ruth jersey, etc.). I don't know about their current policies.

I will also say, that currently, most of the relics cut up, are the more modern relics and not old-time relics. But there are even stadium seats cut up and let's face it, not all the seats survived in great condition so again, something OK to cut up.

Regards
Rich

What was the historical significance of this bat that was cut up?

Since this is a vintage baseball card chatboard, and most of the people posting here have a much greater appreciation for cards than for game used bats, let me pose a hypothetical question:

Suppose Upper Deck bought a T206 Wagner at auction, cut it into fifty pieces, and inserted each one of those tiny cardboard squares randomly into packs. Maybe some lucky collector would end up with the eyes, or some of the orange background, or the "WAG" of his name. Would anybody who supported the notion that it was okay to destroy the bat feel differently about decimating the holy grail?

The bats, jerseys, etc. that have thus far been more equivalent to a T206 Cobb than a T206 Wagner. And as much as I love T206 cards, if you want to cut up a T206 Red Portrait Cobb, be my guest.

I think the turning point is "historical significance" and there is just no evidence to me that this Cobb-used bat has much historical significance.

Wouldn't a bat used by Ty Cobb (assuming he did use it), have as much significance to a bat collector as a rare baseball card would have to a baseball card collector? I don't see the difference.

I personally like the modern relic cards (football mostly).

but.... leave the old stuff alone.

Sure -- but not the T206 Wagner. Even the bat collector trades his best bat for one.

There are far more T206 Cobb's than there are Cobb game used bats. I may be totally wrong here so please don't unleash the Spanish Inquisition on me, but there may even be more T206 Wagner's than certified Ty Cobb gamers.

T206 Collector- you are splitting hairs here. It's not about whether a bat collector would trade his best bat for a Wagner. It's about having respect for rare collectibles, and recognizing it's tacky and inappropriate to destroy them to make a few bucks. That's really the last I can say about it. I'm pooped!

There is nothing historically significant about that bat in particular. The high price estimate is due to the fact that it has the etched signature part of the bat. Modern insert cards with Cobb bat swatches can be found on ebay for as low as $100.

If a youngster gets a kick out of ripping open a pack of cards and finding a card with a piece of a bat, then that is great. If the youngster sees a deceased player on a card, and decides to read up on Cobb and turn of the century baseball, then even better. I'm all for anything that creates excitement for new collectors.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....

And I'm not splitting hairs. You can't equate the T206 Wagner with a game-used Cobb bat. If you could then why hasn't Upper Deck cut one up yet? It would be much easier -- you could use a scissors.

Historical significance is in the eye of the beholder. A game used Ty Cobb bat is coveted by those that collect game used bats, there really is no difference in cutting up a Cobb gamer, T206 Wagner, Action Comics #1, the upside down airplane stamp...or any other "holy grail" type collectible. It is abhorrent behavior to destroy an item like that.

I agree
 

Well put!

ANY Ty Cobb Game-used Bat (if authentic) carries historical significance. And for the record, the number of surviving Ty Cobb Game-used Bats is far closer to a T206 Wagner than to a T206 Cobb (it's not even close).

I own a couple of T206 Cobbs, but will never own a couple of his game-used bats... or even one, for that matter (barring lottery winnings or some other miracle).

I have no interest in the card but am not offended by it. I accept that there exist historically significant items that should be preserved, but a baseball bat doesn't rise to that level for me. Mark

Exactly.