OK, you broke it down bit by bit so I guess I understand your thinking, however I'd suggest the aesthetic when viewed as a whole has a throwback vintage look and not at all modern. But that's fine.
Wood slice is NOT behind any plastic, none of the memorabilia cards I own are sleeved behind anything...

I find the thinking interesting on the topic, I guess I've certainly stuck and offered far more than 2 cents worth.
I wonder if the same people thinking desecration and destruction hated and still loathe the 60's action of hot-rodding...taking a perfectly good 34' Ford and cutting down its roofline, messing with fenders, cutting and changing etc?
Similarly the current love affair with resto-modding must be equally challenging to one's need to keep all classic things in their original form?

How about going into a historically period perfect home and ripping out a functioning and as designed kitchen and replacing it with something modern and sleek and chic? Bathroom too, heavenly days. Talk about destruction!!

But lets keep it in our wheelhouse.
Was this an act of abhorent destruction, or merely the need and desire of the owner to own and make appropriate to their desire? Is it ok because the owner performed the act so long ago, it was somehow less distressing and destructive?
Cut down from an advertising sheet:
https://i917.photobucket.com/albums/...onbuchner2.jpg

Or how about this piece.....the auto I promise has not resided in this card since inception. Cut auto's ok even if they destroy the integrity of their original housing? What if there was text immediately before the auto giving context and history to it's penning...?
https://i917.photobucket.com/albums/...ps18a69fd3.jpg

I'm going to guess most don't feel the same about signatures. How come?
This attitude that the jersey/bat have been destroyed, as if nothing remains, is patently untrue. It exists in miniatures to be sure.:D

And while I own exactly one bat card, as shown above of Shoeless Joe, I also own this (just a store model, nothing exotic):
https://i917.photobucket.com/albums/...beruthbat4.jpg

I own one Soccer memorabilia card of Pele's...
https://i917.photobucket.com/albums/...pslsv3jf5u.jpg

...but also own a genuine game jersey of his from his Cosmos time:
https://i917.photobucket.com/albums/...psvsxplxsi.jpg

I enjoy ALL my pieces, and can honestly say about equally. I get no more 'authentic' an experience holding the Ruth bat than I do gazing at the Jackson card sitting on the wall across from a 1964 Gold Crown pool table.
Honestly, there's a price and value difference, but these cards can have an incredible artistic and creative vibe if you allow yourself to enjoy them.

And yes folks, I promise never to cut up my stuff and put it in little home made cards.
But there is room in my mind for both to exist and bring enjoyment to many who might only be able to afford the one iteration.

No

Its really a matter of perspective I think. I'm not intending to disparage the cards but rather explain why they aren't for me. I know they are going for a throwback look, but it just doesn't work for me, for the reasons I outlined earlier.


There is a huge difference between the two in terms of value added though.

The cars used by hot rodders would have simply been junked without their intervention.

Game used bats of HOFers on the other hand would not have been junked without Upper Deck or whoever buying them to turn them into cards: they were already considered quite valuable. They would have been preserved without really requiring much in the way of cost or effort to do so.

Also, while hot rodders were altering the original condition of those cars, they were doing something qualitatively that was vastly different from just cutting them up into little pieces. They spent a lot of time, effort and imagination to turn something that society at the time placed no value on into something useful and interesting. Its quite creative what they did.

Buzz sawing a bat into little wood chips and putting them into cards isn't even remotely the same. The bat already had significant value. There isn't much artistic originality involved in cutting them into little squares. I just don't see the same value being added as I do with the hot rods. The only benefit I see is that cutting them up and distributing them like that makes physical contact with the bat (or a small part thereof) more accessible to more people. But I'm not sure that is on balance worth the cost of the destroyed bat (and of course destroying bats to make cards makes contact with an intact bat less accessible over time).

I'm not a huge fan of the cut signatures either, often times it is obvious that the original signed item (photo, card, etc) was a much more attractive piece than the card they put them into after cutting out the autograph. But the cost/benefit analysis is significantly different than with bats or jerseys. In terms of accessibility, cutting a bat up might turn 1 bat into 500 woodchips (or however many? I have no idea), thus significantly increasing the distribution of that "piece" throughout the hobby. Cutting an autograph doesn't do that though, you start with 1 autographed photo, you end with 1 autographed card. On the other hand though the qualitative level of destruction is usually much less with cut autos - sometimes its just an autograph from a piece of paper where all they've done is trim the edges a bit and nothing of significance was lost (as opposed to an entire bat, jersey, etc being destroyed).

So I don't know. Personally I'd prefer to get a redemption card for an autographed photo, piece of paper, check, whatever of a famous person than I would to get a cut autograph in a card.

That is an interesting way to look at it. But I have to go with the thought that cutting up super rare items is a shame. I get that people collect differently and can enjoy it how they want to. But to me, it is like restoring a piece of furniture or a survivor car. They will never be pure natural again. To each their own....

Not really my thing, but I agree with Leon here. I'm a bit surprised that some find this topic reason to insult each other. It's sad in this day and age that someone can't have an opposing point of view without being attacked.

Maybe the companies could cut up old cards and insert them as swatch inserts into these lovely modern holographic beauties.

I only collect the modern players, because in the end I don't really care if one of the hundreds of Jacob deGrom game worn jerseys has been cut up. If I like the card, I buy it.

And you want the bat cut up because....

You don't like the idea that one person could own it?
Or that someone has that much money?

Have you ever been around one? Not as some little sliver of Ash, but as a whole bat? Ruths bats are really pretty big.
Come to think of it have you had a chance to actually handle an older major league bat? I'm not sure why, but most of the ones I've held from the bigger sluggers seemed to swing better than a smaller store model bat.

Even if that experience becomes less common, I wouldn't like to exclude it as a possibility for future generations. And with proper care, wood can last a LONG time. Most of King Tuts stuff looked very usable, and that's over 3000 years old. Wool too.


While you may like those cards, aesthetically my opinion is.... different, lets just leave it there.

Just a tad bit over the top, LOL.

Well, some of you guys are really passionate about these relic cards of the old time players. That's great. But neither side is right or wrong. Let's not fight over these cards just because of how someone feels about them. We are all entitled to our opinions without fear of being attacked.

That said, I have mixed feelings over the relic cards of prewar/vintage players. I like the newer players' relic cards but there are tons of game worn jerseys and bats of the modern players. I like the look of some of the prewar/vintage player cards, but not a lot of them. I hate when they put a Babe Ruth bat relic in a really shiny colorful modern looking card design. I like a lot of the old Timeless Treasures and Prime Cuts cards though.

I feel like if you buy something you are allowed to do with it as you please. If that means cutting it up and making a bunch of relic cards for the masses to enjoy, then you should be allowed to do so. Do I like it? Not very much, no. But they have the right to do it.

Only the first few years had the original game used pieces.

The certs on the back keep getting more sketchy as they go. Now they only say it was worn in a game. Card pictures Ruth, but the jersey is a 2018 Yankee Jersey. They never said Ruth wore it.

So who cares? Ruth, Gehrig, Huggins or Clemens is pictured by Matt Nokes wore the jersey.

Maybe there's something unique about sports cards / memorabilia and it's collectors that shape what should and shouldn't be a rule for collecting...it's devotees seem to believe that a set of rules exist, have always existed, and it's a crime to see the paradigm differently.

Funny, I don't remember too many of the posters that have been on knife's edge in this thread, feeling similarly about collectors from the early 1900's cutting down their cards to fit in whatever holder they were working with...
From needing to fit albums, or their wallets, or sections of wall that they pinned whatever formation they desired.
I wonder if anyone walked by and called them selfish, or monstrous for their actions? Oh go on, now you're going to tell me they just didn't know better, that collecting then was different...
No shit. And it's different today, and will be different in 30 years time.
What about presentational bats cut down to a certain dimension before being adorned with silver and other ornate encumberances. Destroyed, or altered to fit a desired memorabilia design? Ahh, but if only ALL bats of ALL time had been kept, we could ALL be swinging and feeling their weight.

Sword collectors don't all just collect entire swords. Japanese Tsuba are enormously popular and seen as art themselves even though they form just one part of the sword.
Similarly do we condemn a family who break down the diamond tiara that some exceptionally wealthy member once owned, but which now forms rings given to daughters and bracelets and necklesses that so very many can enjoy.
Surely a Tiara is much more magnificent. It also has less relevance to today.

That Ruth bats and Gehrig gloves should exist is wonderful, and I fully hope that a number survive intact for eternity. I'd be interested to know out of an entire American generation of kids how many ask to go view them in a museum in their lifetimes.....could we guess less than 1 tenth of 1 percent.
What if 10 times that number owned a piece of history themselves and that they shared that feeling, that connection, to their next generation?
Maybe that doesn't matter to some here, that people don't know what's good for them and thus we should just do some things because it's the right way to do it.
I'd answer that by saying this.
Most collectors of today who grew up in the 50's - 70's never once stopped to think that they were doing something awful by folding their cards in half to fit a pocket, that watching them tear into pieces in their bike spokes was some sort of assassination, that drawing glasses on the faces of hated rivals or ones own name or other designation would somehow be a besmirching of the sanctity of the paper.
Oh those precious millimeters of border to each card - what have you done to me elastic band, what have you done!!!
They've only grown to treat this stuff so incredibly deferentially over the last 40 years. That's a damn new phenomena in the history of all things collecting and surely not the last word, no matter how big an expert or devotee you might think you are.

Only a precious few collected with any great long term holding plan for the first 80 years of sportscards production, and condition was no barrier to the enjoyment of them nor was passing judgement on how previous owners had kept their own collections alive at all important.

But geeze were precious these days.
Better slab everything up boys, the PSA / SGC / BGS baseball bat boxes that will survive being shot into space are only around the corner.
Perhaps there's time for a few to buy everything up so they can save collectors like myself, from myself.
Here's hoping.:(

That Ruth article is just to use his name and likeness, they didn't get items from the Ruth family to cut up and destroy.

If you do more research, you'll find articles about these companies buying fake jerseys and knowing they were fakes to put into cards.

Should we also cut up the declaration of independence or the Mona Lisa so tons of people can enjoy it and actually touch it, instead of just sitting in a museum behind some glass?

It may be the woodworker in me, but I don't get any "connection" from some tiny scrap of wood. And I find it hard to imagine getting that.

I do find some connection with complete objects. I don't have much for baseball stuff, one 80's jersey, a couple game used bats, and maybe one 1900-1910 era game used bat.
I got the early bat because friends of my brother were playing softball with it and cracked it. I traded a usable bat for the cracked and glued one. Would I have preferred to find it uncracked? Sure, but it was only available after it cracked.
I do get some connection from riding the pro and national team racing bikes I collect. You read opinions from the time about how they handled etc, and getting to feel it firsthand is pretty special. (I also have the special helmets, but not a full uniform so far. There may not be any that fit me. )
I can't imagine cutting them into slices of tubing or bits of seatcover or whatever.

Likewise with cards cut from banners etc. I see them the same as hostess cards cut from the box. Would I prefer the whole banner/box? Of course. The same goes for the couple T206s I have where the top got trimmed off to fit the pages they had.

But, while I'm ok with the trimmed card, I probably wouldn't have any interest in the piece that was trimmed off. (Probably, I do have a piece I got in a classic draft pack that is the bit cut from between the cards during production)

I don't like the cut signature cards either. The original document would be so much more interesting that the card with the cut in it. (That Stanley card is incredibly ugly. ) Especially the ones where they cut the thing so only one name is on the new card, or half the name is hidden.
But the autograph is still an autograph.

Cut up equipment isn't still equipment anymore.

I'm working on a project using Ash, who do you want a bat card of?

The cards are fine, they are not for me.
I don't think we have that big of a problem bc I'm not convinced very many pieces of anything authentic (and historically significant) were cut up.

I've never been enamored of the "preserve it for posterity" argument vis a vis privately owned objects. Whether some guy has a jersey in his collection or whether Topps makes it into a few hundred relic cards that a few hundred collectors enjoy is irrelevant to me since I am never going to own the jersey and will never get the chance to enjoy it intact. The utilitarian argument would prefer the jersey cards. If the owner of the item really wants to have it preserved and enjoyed, put it in a museum. If not, leave out the holier than thou part. You don't like it, don't collect it. Me, personally, I just try not to crap on what others like.

That said, if the item is going to be in a card, my only preference is that it is aesthetically pleasing. My pet peeve is when they chop off a piece of the signature. I've been shopping for a Lefty O'Doul jersey card. Haven't found one I like yet--the closest was a really nice item with a uni cut and an auto, but of "efty O'Dou"--but if I do find one I am certainly not going to give two seconds' thoughts to the sanctimony some collectors may express towards it. Pay my mortgage and you can tell me what to do.