REA catalog just arrived…. almost as fun as the old time Sears Christmas
 

I always enjoyed receiving the REA auction catalog, but it’s especially fun now given the connection. I’ve been lucky enough to have with these Morehouse baking cards.

Hats off to Brian Dwyer for being every bit excellent partner to us as we hoped and expected he would be.

I may just end up buying back a few of these for my own collection!

Jeff Gross

How did you get a cat? What does the 48' Blue Tint Jackie SGC 8 look like? Sorry, I don't have the patience to wait until Friday (even though it's way out of my price range anyway)

Does it look like this?

https://live.staticflickr.com/3270/2...c7f27bd9_c.jpg

Oh shit! That's a monster

My bad tho It was a 48' Blue Tint Jackie in an SGC 8

Wow, that's a high grade for that card.

Since my birthday is close to Christmas, what are the chances on you giving this to me?

Jeff (the OP) was involved with helping bring this discovery to our collecting planet and eventually to REA. Below is his recent posting about this hobby dream:

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=355043

And a great Sports Collectors Daily article that discusses these cards and how they came to the market:

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...eading-to-rea/

So I think Jeff deserves a little catalog preferential treatment. It sure would be fun to be associated with something featured on the front AND back cover of a REA catalog.


Brian

My hobby dream come true is soo right! The hardest part was keeping the story under wraps for months until The NY Times broke the news a couple of weeks back.

The Boston Media has been loving this story - Ruth with the Sox, found in Mass, Morehouse Baking in Lawrence Mass, etc

It’s been a lot of fun. And now, I’ll be hosting an Auction Watch Party with the owner of these amazing cards - hope some of these cards end up with Net54 members!

Jeff

Beauty Jeff! The Robinson I have in my collection is Wilbert.

Pump that consignment!


Any other questions please post to the board!

Rea
 

Jeff- I'm truly happy for you, best of luck. As for the members who insist
on deliberate trolling, pay them no heed as they are petty.

Trent King

No Need To " Pump "
 

[QUOTE=Republicaninmass;2476082]Pump that consignment!


... No need to " pump that consignment ".
I overheard Nepalese Peacekeeping Force soldiers talking about it at the airport in Haiti , where I was stranded for an extra 3 days. The word is out.

Honestly, my reason for sharing all of this is just to share my excitement and experience with the Net54 community of collectors that has taught me so much over the years!

Since this collection has found its way on both covers of the Catalog and has also received lots of hobby and general media coverage already, I didn’t intend this to be a consignment pump!

But I suppose it may look that way to some - defiantly not my intention. I think this find has gotten as much attention as it needs and that is a big credit to REA and the fun backstory of it all.

Jeff

Howa does one get on the mailing list for these (and other) catalogs?

In general, you can go to the web site and request a catalog either through an email request or phone call. In order to keep getting them over time, you will likely need to be viewed as an active collector who purchases from time to time.

The online version is exactly the same in most instances as the printed catalog so it is just as easy to look online than in a thick book and I prefer that and opted out of printed catalogs but some like to actively peruse the pages and prefer the print versions.

Some auction houses no longer send printed catalogs that contain all lots. A few of the well known ones just feature the higher valued items in the print version to obviously save on cost. I think you will begin to see more of this as the cost to print and ship these massive catologs is not a cheap endeavor.

I am jealous

I am still waiting

Mail was just delivered and nothing

Guess I will have to wait to see it on their website

I just got mine in the mail today.

We are forecasted to get 15 inches of snow tonight into tomorrow. I'll be nice and cozy reading my catalog watching the snowflakes come down.:)

Catalog got to me in Boston today - it's a beaut! Looking forward to this auction for sure....

Rea
 

This is their best auction of the year great stuff.

Great auction and catalog.

Have picked up some dandy things from REA over the years and always look forward to their catalogs. Thought I might miss this one on account of I live in Canada and am having to abide a postal strike. I was happy to learn via an email from Brian Dwyer hisself that the catalog was shipped UPS and should get here next week. Take heart, fellow Canada dwellers.

Yeah, maybe went a little overboard with the Halloween Costume this year… but since the story wasn’t out yet, this was a fun release!

Jeff.

That costume is amazing and hysterical.

Absolutely great job.

apparently the market can absorb

7 1951 bowman mantles
7 1951 bowman mays
5 1952 topps mantles
7 1952 topps Mays



bet ya 75% These will be posted on facebook groups before they are even shipped

I've never seen anything like it

What a time to be alive!!

Thanks... we have fun around the Gross household. And we take Halloween pretty seriously!

(this life size Morehouse Ruth card costume/box is making its reappearance tonight at our "auction watch party" - consigner and I and our wives get to raise a toast and see how it's all starting off - ya gotta love this hobby)

I recall a day, not that long ago, when REA would not take the same card in similar grades. Show me the money! Careful where you consign, people.

Well then, safe to say the debate has ended with regards to 2024 Net54's Man of the Year. That costume Jeff, holy moly they should sell that at REA Auction as well. Might not get as much as the actual Ruth but it would do pretty well!

Dress up
 

I couldn’t agree more. Not weird at all. Very cool!
!

I didn't realize the Babe had murderous tendencies.

Attachment 641530
Brian (nice costumes, and fun photo box)

Bloody mirror, mirror on the wall...

I can't be the only one who doesn't know what the lady's costume is supposed to be??

In the minds of most, you don't get any better than REA. You know, you can ask them & YOU have a choice whether or not a card goes in their auctions. Ask them for example, how many '51 Bowman Mantle's are in the next auction. They'll tell you. Again, you have the choice to consign to the current auction or wait until the next one.

Think of all the people who pump their cards online. Somebody will post his lower-grade 52T Mantle (there are thousands of them) or his 86F Jordan (millions of them) and everybody is just like "Oh my God!!! Oh my God !!! Congrats!! My dream card !!!" Now, think about what the OP came across here: a Babe Ruth rookie ... actually, TWO Babe Ruth rookies, Shoeless Joe and a hundred others ... and all have these super-rare backs that we'll probably never see again ...
I can't blame him for pumping them cause' I would do the same thing if I had been in his shoes ... actually, no, I would go beyond that! I'd make a music video with these cards and put strippers in the background ... I'd get a Morehouse Ruth tattoo on my bum ... seriously, I would go crazy !! Finding something like this is insane. I totally get it.
And there is nothing better than investing in a Ruth rookie. In five years, it'll be worth double.
Good luck to you all !!

I think this hobby needs a metric to evaluate how delusionally out of touch the buyer pool is going to be for a given auction based on the number of certs that begin with a 0 or 1. Every time I look through these auctions I just crack up at seeing all the clearly altered cards that everyone just can't wait to add to their registries and all the PSA "8" holders that would be lucky to get 6s today lol.

Maybe we can call it the Registry Ratio, or perhaps the Lichtman Score. The ratio of early certs to recent certs. If you have a Lichtman Score greater than 0.5, your collection is over graded. If your score is greater than 1, you would be wise to reevaluate your purchasing decisions. If it's above 2, you're likely a delusional registry chaser, and if it's 3 or more, you're probably a lawyer.

Was only making an observation. Was not attacking your favorite house. Of course a consignor can ask. I wonder how many think to ask. In addition REA has Huggins and Scott going on with even more overlap.

I am not sure if prices are hurt by having so many of the same card offered at once but I understand why an auction house would do it and have posted in their defense. Why let a competitor get the consignments by only having one of something. Bad for business.

Aspergers guy getting frisky.

Nice bond bread Jackie you have. 2 thumbs up

He does have a point though. E.g. There’s a certain popular t206 currently at auction that is laughable. PSA 0x cert. 3 grade w/ that appears cut short & has paper loss. The hammer price hopefully reflects this.

There are plenty of other examples like the 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson (PSA 8 - 02023137 ) that was obviously trimmed. Was recently reholdered & kept the 8 grade & resold privately. It also sold for over $100k twice since 2020. Current owner must have filed a claim w/ PSA as the card as been regraded as “authentic altered”

In some ways I feel bad for the current Collectors mgt as they are cleaning up & literally paying for the mistakes of the previous regime. So those types of payout costs being passed on to us. Plus we are dealing with their current overly strict inconsistent grading. Even SGC’s grading consistency seems to have changed since early summer.

Side note: I’m ranked high on a few PSA player set registries. Never going to have a chance at the top slot even if I cared because those people own high-grade early cert trimmed cards.

PSA’s first card was trimmed. We’re going to pretend that many to most high graded cards aren’t altered? And the disparity between grading standards across the years? You could lose your mind trying to walk between the raindrops in buying graded cards.

The prewar goodness in this auction definitely packs a punch. Amazing. Same with postwar. The only thing missing for me are any of the final three ‘68 Topps 3-D cards needed to finish the set.

Great job by the REA team who put this auction together.

Hey, a side hustle here… tattoo art for hobbyists! (Starting with the “cancelled” stamp for your backside 😂)

Hey Snowman!

The Halloween theme was “Myths and Legends” and Mrs Gross here was Bloody Bloody Mary, which apparently is a kids myth tied to saying Bloody Bloody Mary into the mirror at midnight… or something like that.

👻

Leaving to one side the problem of altered cards and focusing just on grading, AT THE TIME of these certs (indeed up until the late 2010s or so) the hobby did not have an issue with the standards being applied to grade cards. They reflected the prevailing consensus. There were regular complaints that PSA was too harsh (see old CU posts on the "grader of death") but rarely that they were too lenient. That many older certs seem overgraded from today's perspective is an inevitable consequence of tightened standards but hardly seems a reason to mock people?

I think congratulations are in order, as you had your name mentioned. As did Judge Wapner's


Raymond: One minute to Wapner

Charlie: Yes, one minute to Wapner. I had you in there, Ray! You were in there! The defendant, the plaintiff, you had it all. They are in there making legal history

At least here they don't have to skip over the facebook posts

"With all the amazing news surrounding the discovery of the ruth Morehouse, I'm looking at buying a signed Ruth ball"

Please let us know when you buy one!


Edited...guess i spoke too soon

You should keep pretending like someone striking a plea deal is equivalent to them being tried and found guilty by a jury of every single thing mentioned in that plea deal.

I have to admire a man who is shown to be clearly wrong, but instead of admitting he's out of his depth, then doubles down. Over and over again. You've been wrong about nearly every single thing you've said about the Mastro case since the beginning when you kept insisting that the Wagner card was not even part of the charges. But this -- thinking you know more about guilty pleas than a leading criminal defense lawyer -- is truly beyond the pale lol.

What is the story behind REA Lot #713 bidding?
 

Can anyone explain why Lot #713, 1914 CJ Ray Caldwell PSA 2, is sky high, currently at $6500? Is this exceptionally rare or short print? I can’t remember ever seeing this card going for so much? I’m thinking about selling my SGC 2 if it hits $10k 😁

Just because getting a jury to find a defendant guilty on a charge and getting someone to agree to a plea deal both result in you being able to tally another 'W' on your oh-so-important W/L record doesn't mean they're equivalent. This isn't a discussion about how the law works out how a courtroom works. It's a simple logic problem. And you guys look stupid whether you realize it or not.

The scariest thing about this is you called me "Snowman." What a horrific thing to do!!!! You, my friend, are scarier than Bloody Mary.

Oh so now it's not a discussion about the law? I missed that qualifier. So what are we discussing, just subjective impressions? Your personal belief that one is less significant than the other even though the legal effect is identical? Oh, ok.

Ha, oops! Sorry Jolly Elm

There's something seriously wrong with your brain, Asperger's.

Again: a defendant who pled guilty to charges has the same effect as being convicted by a jury -- in fact, most would suggest he's more guilty by pleading because he can't blame a mistaken jury or government misconduct at a trial, or any number of potential appellate issues which could vacate his conviction.

Mastro pled guilty to every charge he faced and admitted to even more bad conduct which wasn't charged.

But you know more about the law because you have a ten card collection and you stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

I've heard of fur burgers, but never have eaten an Ass burger. Just me though, i could be missing out.

I can't really add anything here. Bloody bloody Mary look in the mirror. That's all I've got

(Deleting my message - probably misread your comment, Ted…

Kind of a stretch there. I was clearly posting about Snowman telling people they looked stupid to look in the mirror.

Thou doth protest too much.

Got your 15 mins if fame and multiple posts about;


Black swamp find
Auction house to use
Grader to use for high end cards

Etc


It was all so contrived.





Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

Congrats on a truly incredible find and bringing it to market Jeff and hats off to Brian for marketing the find properly, I'm sure the consignor will be very happy.

https://media.tenor.com/HC_g_9HMXB0A...s-time-ufc.gif

Lichtman vs. Snowman (special guest referee P. Spaeth).

Sherman vs. Gross

Only on Netflix

Just don't do it....
 

One thing I have tried to do on this forum, is not argue law with leading attorneys. It just doesn't go well. Now, if we are talking pre war type cards, I should be able to hold my own. :cool:

Ditto. Same with doctors (my wife). Ha

Same with Nuclear Physicists (me)

Anyone else skip right over the bickering posts? Good lord it's tiring and so boring.

Back to cards...Yes the Caldwell is top 3 hardest cards to find for 1914 set collectors. Last I checked there were only 33 graded examples between PSA/SGC. Ray Keating, Del Pratt and Hick Cady are all around that same pop.

The funny thing is we're just taking past each other. They want to pretend that we're arguing about the law or legal terminology. It's hilarious. I'm just making a very simple point that there's a world of difference between someone agreeing to a plea deal and someone being tried in front of a jury and found guilty of a crime (especially in this case where the other charges he was facing were far more serious than him trimming the Wagner). It's not a legal debate. It's just common sense and simple logic. You don't have to be a mathematician to know that 2+2=4 and you don't have to be a lawyer to know that there's a difference of implications between someone agreeing to a plea deal and someone being tried in front of a jury and being found guilty of specific charges.

If a prosecutor lists out 20 things that they think they might be able to get you on and you come to an agreement with them because you think overall the terms are more favorable than you'd get if you were to fight them in court, it says nothing about whether or not each of those specific 20 charges would have stuck. Regardless of whether or not an entire room full of lawyers tells you otherwise.

Mastro pled guilty to every count he was charged with and received no “terms” in exchange. He admitted to all criminal conduct the government said he had done and more crimes than what the Feds were even aware of. He was sentenced for more than trimming the Wagner and selling it as untrimmed. He was sentenced on all that he pled to which included every charge in the indictment. He did not receive a break on the plea by being required to plead to only some of the charges.

He threw himself on the mercy of the court at sentencing and even brought a priest along to help exemplify his acceptance of guilt. Part of the sentencing computation was a three level downward adjustment in his sentencing guidelines (which determined the length of his sentence) for “acceptance of responsibility” for his crimes. He received that at sentencing.

Had he gone to trial he would have fought every allegation. He would have told the jury and the public he was innocent. After conviction he would not have received the three level downward adjustment in his sentencing guidelines for acceptance of responsibility for his crimes. Additionally, afterward he would have surely publicly said the jury was wrong, they didn’t understand the hobby, the judge was biased against him, the prosecutors withheld favorable evidence and the original charges against him were faulty as they didn’t make out crimes. To his grave he’d continue to claim publicly he was innocent.

You might be the only person on the planet who believes Mastro’s guilty plea makes him less guilty than if he had been convicted after trial.

Now can you stop?

No. He can't.

Mary, Queen of Scots was known as 'Bloody Mary" for her proclivity of having opponents' heads cut off.

I have one that was slabbed, but I can't tell if it is an older PSA or SGC slab.

Of course, this could be a 1915 card as well...the orientation of the copied text on the back offers more questions than answers.


Brian

This is the new normal. I don't know how these guys make money when you are trying to sell a card that sold 1 month ago. Insane.

I agree with everything you said here. But all of that still has nothing to do with my claim. Like I said above, we're just talking past each other. You know damn well what I'm saying, you are just too stubborn to admit that I have a valid point. If you were hired to defend the argument that someone accepting a plea deal does not have the same implications as someone being tried by a jury of a specific charge and found guilty, you'd surely be able to come up with a compelling argument.

Let's all pretend like Lichtman isn't the one who brought this back up (again) in this thread.

I actually don't know at all what you're saying because you make no sense. There is no compelling argument for anything you said about Mastro's guilty plea. I made it very clear why Mastro's guilty plea - without any out for him to claim that a jury got it wrong or he was unfairly convicted -- is actually more powerful than a conviction after jury trial. You're not a lawyer, you've never been inside a courtroom, you've got no idea what you're talking about. You just are one of those guys who thinks he knows everything when in fact you don't know shit.

I don't know why you continue to double down on this but I have to think there's something wrong with your brain. And next time you want to attack me in a thread, just be aware that I'm going to continue to bring up this idiocy of yours.

Ok, I'm done with this. You've done some fine litigating and I see a bright future in criminal defense for you. But at this point it's a disservice to anyone who is forced to read this.

This is just the latest in a series of absurd positions that Travis never acknowledges were wrong, he just moves on and/or doubles down.

The Wagner had nothing to do with the case. Oh, wait.
The Wagner wasn't in the indictment/part of the charges, Mastro brought it up to curry favor. Oh, wait.
The Wagner had nothing to do with the guilty plea. Oh, wait.
The Wagner had nothing to do with the sentence. Oh, wait.
And now, a guilty plea doesn't mean as much as a verdict.

And who did you say looks stupid?

I just asked my poker friend (another high-profile attorney that you guys would surely know the name of if I told you) about whether or not charges listed in a plea deal could ever be irrelevant. Here is his response below. Funny how he had no problem grasping what I was saying even though, as you've pointed out dozens of times, "I'm not a lawyer".

"Yes, in some situations, charges included in a plea deal can be considered irrelevant to the case, particularly when they are used as leverage to negotiate a plea on a more serious charge, essentially "throwing in" a lesser charge to secure the defendant's agreement to plead guilty to the main offense."

Except that's not what happened at all in the Mastro case. He pled guilty to every charge in the indictment. He also cooperated and provided information on all the charges against him, admitting all of it. There was no leveraging anything here. For you to suggest that a guy who pled guilty committed perjury before the judge, is really comical. You provided bogus information to your imaginary friend and then received a bogus response back.

Why don't you ask the FBI agent who investigated Mastro if he was guilty of all things he was accused of? He thinks you're a moron too.

LOL. Travis previously. It's four lines but I cannot even count the errors.


I'm no lawyer, but when I read through discussions of this topic on the Blowhard forums a few years back, I seem to recall most of the lawyers there were in agreement that he had not in fact been charged with any crimes in relation to the Wagner card. But rather it was brought up during the trial as a mere testimony to his character, or lack thereof. Him basically just trying to come clean with anything and everything he could in an effort to gain favor and get a more lenient sentence. But he was not directly charged with a crime for anything related to the Wagner. You mention that he admitted to trimming the Wagner in his plea deal, but that plea deal was rejected by the judge. He was not sentenced for anything to do with the Wagner.

If you look at all his lies regarding Mastro’s case, they all form a pattern: his effort to downplay Mastro’s criminal conduct of knowingly selling an altered card. Which just happens to be the very thing people on this board accuse him of: willingness to sell altered cards without disclosure.

It’s fairly obvious why he’s willing to die on this hill, no matter how bad it makes him look.

I would be more than happy to disclose anything I've done to any of my cards. But I don't alter cards, so your theory doesn't hold up.

I'm curious though, when you were representing Brent, why do you think he told you to go pound sand and fired you after you told him that he was cooked and that his best defense was restitution and a plea deal? And why do you think you were wrong and that his best defense was to instead fire you and listen to someone else's advice?

And why do you think your boyfriend Brusokas was fired (sorry, "retired"?) after the investigation he spent years on, and millions of dollars worth of our tax dollars, fizzled out and fell flat? An outcome that I predicted years prior, I might add.

And why do you think an "ignorant moron with Aspergers" was able to see how this would all play out ahead of time while one of the best lawyers (even a "savant" in his own words) in the country was absolutely certain it would end quite differently.

You are digging deeper but please continue. It's the trainwreck you can't take your eyes off of.

I get that one has to really disconnect from facts a bit to try and justify things like criminal fraud, which is the central point of every Snowman thread for reasons that surely do not have to do with him being a fraudster doctoring cards and selling them without disclosure, but it will never stop being funny that the hill he chooses to die on more than any other in his quest to justify fraud is the absurd claim that pleading guilty to a crime just doesn't really count.

It would be interesting to know what changed in Brent's approach to the investigation, which did seem a turning point from this outsider's perspective after Brent initially was cooperating -- but attorney-client privilege means we won't know unless Brent himself chooses to talk. Without knowing, it's pretty useless to speculate.

In any case, to tie this back to a favorite false theme of Travis, I highly doubt the reason for ultimately not bringing the case was the lack of a viable legal theory. That part, as has been explained ad infinitum, is easy -- mail fraud and wire fraud.