Game Used Bats: PSA vs Mears
 

Do collectors tend to prefer letters from PSA or Mears --- or are they viewed about the same?

Thanks!

PSA by a county mile. Like PSA vs GEM in card grading IMO.

Definitely PSA, I've seen so many mistakes by MEARS, I wouldn't trust their COAs anymore, their full letters do carry a little more weight.

Make sure you read what you're getting with PSA:
https://www.psacard.com/services/batgradingstandards

So PSA can rate something a 5 on a "Game Used" scale without it actually being used in a game. Always read the fine print.

Its not a game used scale, its authentication. An unused game ready bat is still authentic.

When the grade itself contains the abbreviation "GU" in it, I'm not sure I agree with you. But almost none of those grades ever required the player to have used the bat himself, just to show wear. I'm sure many buyers of these grades don't realize what they're getting. Maybe they do?

MEARS blows PSA out of the water.


I definitely prefer a MEARS.

I think it all depends. Nobody can be an expert on every single player's use characteristics. I have seen errors made by both, including wrong dating periods and misidentifying players. As for MEARS, I have seen some COAs that are really skimpy on details and others that are almost packets of info. PSA's standard letter is better than skimpy MEARS, but maybe not as thorough as the more robust MEARS worksheets and accompanying documentation. Are you looking to get a bat graded or talking about a graded bat? I think the quality of a letter speaks for itself when you read the details that it covers. I would say disregard the grader and read the actual documentation they present.

This is, of course, very good advice. In my opinion, PSA/DNA tends to be stricter,---or narrower, if they disappoint you. At times, you may think that the PSA grade fails to consider something that you think is very relevant. MEARS will sometimes take into consideration a great range of interesting details. A big difference is that MEARS doesn't follow the Vince Malta system, as PSA does, and this means that there may be differences about dating, and thus about use. I should say that most of the bats in my collection are pre-1930, so those who collect newer bats may have very different experiences.

There is one thing that always has confused me when it comes to PSA DNA bat authentication. I have a bat which was authenticated by PSA DNA and it came back as an Index bat. Now in the letter it does state that the player ordered that length during that time period, 12 bats to be exact. Now I've seen his bats from that time period in auction catalogs measuring the same length as mine and they are considered Pro Model bats. Those bats have nothing as far as characteristics that mine doesn't have. I've seen this with other players too. To me that's a grey area in which affects the outcome of the bat and it's price if I were to ever sell the bat. So if a particular player orders that model, length, weight, etc how is not a Pro Model and written off as a Pro Stock? I get that there's a small chance the player used it and could never find out if he did or not but there's still a chance he did especially if other's are being authenticated as such. Hopefully this makes sense.

The standard MEARS COA that comes their auctions is worthless, its just a printout of the auction description. When people ask about MEARS COAs, I assume they mean these since they are way more plentiful.

As you stated, the full letter and worksheet are much better.

Yes, no comparison. The Mears full letters are very accurate and complete.

For newer player bats I try my best to put the bat in the players hands. Nothing like a photo of the exact bat in players hand during a game. I would think many players who valued particular bats regardless of era should be able to photo match. Joe Sewell is the obvious example. (Lol).
As for the question since I collect mostly newer bats I prefer PSA 9 or 10 bats over Mears.

PSA and it ain't even close. Go talk to any big bat collectors in the hobby and they will say PSA. Mears was good years ago but they have fallen greatly in the hobby. But I will say Mears is good for vintage jerseys and thats about it..

Can you post the letter?

You're spot on about dating. I saw a Aaron bat on ebay years back dated to 1960 based on Malta's book so it was a team index bat because it didn't match records. But Mears called it a 1957 and used by Aaron so it sold for alot more than it should have.

And just last month a member on this group bought a Terry bat from Mears. But after posting photos in the pickup thread, another member pointed out that it actually wasn't from the dates that Mears said.

The letter also states about the notations on the knob which IMO was probably done by a kid after the bat's playing days. My bat has the characteristics of Pro Model bats. Cleat marks, ball marks and green bat rack marks. I'm sure there are plenty of bats that are authenticated as Pro Model that don't have all of the necessary "characteristics" but because they are in the players ordering records they are pro model. I find it hard to believe that every bat that is authenticated as pro model has provenance and characteristics of that player. Again I know there's no way of knowing if this was game used by the player but I don't think it should be considered a Index bat when there is a chance he did order/ use it.

Adding "game used" to that list, would somebody be so kind as to educate a guy who doesn't collect bats as to the differences between the types?

And, feel free to add any that I have missed, I'm just curious.

Thanx,
Doug


PS - while I don't collect bats, I do have one. From a player with a career slash line of 1.000 / 1.000 / 2.000

I'm curious as to how much it costs to have PSA authenticate a bat? Does it differ by player and era or is it a flat fee?

It is a graduated scale based on the value of the bat. The pricing starts around $75 or so for common players from the modern era. I got a couple of Gil Hodges bats, a 1953 World Series and a 1951 All Star authenticated and graded a year or so ago and the fee was $350 each and he is not in the Hall. It can get very expensive for high value HOFers.

Doug, very cool bat of Roy Gleason, a member of the 1963 World Champ Dodgers. I'm sure a lot of Dodger collectors would jump thru hoops for that one in order to complete their 1963 set.

Regarding the MEARS vs PSA question, PSA is certainly the one that auction houses prefer. I've consigned bats that have letters from both, and the auction house uses the PSA letter in their listing and doesn't even list the one from MEARS, even if the letter grade is higher.

Can you offer a bit more info on what the Vince Malta system is and how there can be dating differences?

Long-time collector Vince Malta examined thousands of game used bats, and he devised a method for classifying when they were made. He provides a number of clues for determining, more or less precisely, which year or years a Louisville Slugger bat could have been manufactured. His methods are explained in his now standard book A Complete Reference to Louisville Slugger Professional Bats.. The book is indispensible because it also contains records of the bats that were ordered from Hillerich and Bradsby by hall of fame players. Records are pretty much non-existent before 1920, but by the early-mid 20's, there are records that tell us about the weight, length, and style of bats each HoF player actually ordered from LS.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Refer.../dp/0979137004

How can experts differ about the dates of manufacture? As I understand it, Malta studied when players returned certain bat models to the factory to be duplicated (or modified slightly) by H&B, and he dates the manufacture of the bat to the year it was returned to the factory. At MEARS, they hypothesize that a given bat model could have been used for a year or more before examples started being returned to the factory for duplictation/ modification. I'm sure others know more about it than I do.

Thanks Mark, that is helpful. I bought Malta's book last year but have yet to seriously study it. So, his system is for Louisville Slugger and then for other companies people assume players would at a minimum have been likely to order bats with similar specs?

Thanks everyone for the feedback on PSA v Mears. It seems like everyone likes PSA and that some trust full letters from Mears even if they may not be quite what they once were.

Malta Dating
 

Just want to explain why MEARS doesn't support the Malta dating system and ask for feedback from the collectors community as to the validity of my research.

For some background, our bat dating system was by Dave Bushing and incorporated into the MEARS dating criteria. Bushing had access to the Louisville Slugger vaults where 1,000's of side written bats were stored.

For those not familiar with side writing, in the era approximately pre 1940, when a player wanted duplicate bats made, he often returned a bat he favored back to the factory. That bat was then "side written" or the player, team, and date the bat was returned was written on the bat in grease pencil.

So, the 1,000's of bats in the vault all had a date of when the bat was last used (or returned to the factory shortly after last being used). It is my understanding that Vince Malta would then use the marking on the bat and correspond it with the side written return date. That date became the dating used for bats.

I had a problem with that methodology since the dating was when the bat was last used, not manufactured. The manufacturing of the bat may have been done prior to the year of the side writing on the bat. Or, the bat was manufactured with parts (centerbrand, powerized logo, player name) which was made and used before the date of the side writing. Meaning, the parts used to make the bat were laying around the factory. In order for the side writing to match the markings of the bat, the parts used to make the bat would have had to be known to have been produced in the same year of the side writing. That link has not be established. Often, the bat may have been produced years in advance. Per the actual bat dyes used for stampings of the bats (auction by Hunt Auctions), the centerbrand, powerized, and player autograph were interchangable. They came in sections that could be put together like a puzzle when being used to turn the bat to create the stampings. The pieces, used to stamp the markings into the bat, were all made prior to the side written date. The problem being, we didn't know how much earlier. A centerbrand may have been designed and first used 1, 2, 3, 4, or more years earlier than the side written return date.

In my opinion, the data was too incomplete to use for dating. For example, lets take a 1930s bat for example. The bat was manufactured using a centerbrand, a powerized stamp, a facsimile barrel stamping of the player, and Genuine or other barrel stampings.

If the bat was side written 1936, Vince documented the centerbrand, powerzied stamp, and barrel end as 1936. The problem with that is, during the manufaturing process, the lathe hands used various, inter-changable centerbrands and powerized stampings. The combinations were endless.

MEARS did not feel that the sidewriting, applied once the bat was retired, could accurately reflect an accurate dating point. The Malta book would date the combination of the centerbrand and powerzied to 1936 (per my example), but the bat may have had parts used in 1930-1936. Hunt Auctions sold many of the dyes used to produce the bats, and this supported our position that there were too many combinations to be so specific.

Back to Bushing, when looking at the bats in the vault, studying the side writing, and understanding when model number were first introduced (1938 circa) we were able to create a more general dating period. Now with 30+ years using Bushing's initial overall broad range dating, it has held up as being accurate. Taube still acknowledges the accuracy of the broad range dating used by MEARS, he just used the Malta book to fine tune and provide what he feels is a more pinpointed dating. The dating was introduced to our initial worksheet back in 2004, and after 16+ years of review, we have not found any concrete evidence to change.

Regarding a bat that was recently sold via our auction, yes, there was a discrepancy between the MEARS dating and the PSA dating. I do not consider it a mistake by MEARS though. When the winning bidder brought it to my attention, he was refunded the money.

My final thoughts on the Malta book is that it is very confusing. When examining the images in the book, reviewing the 44 centerbrand pictures posted, which represent the years 1890-1940, a 50 year time span, that is referencing less than 1 centerbrand per year. There were most likely dozens, if not hundreds, of centerbrands used at the factory during that time span for each year. The representative sample was too incomplete for me to adopt for the MEARS company.

In my experience when trying to make sense of the dating, I was comparing my bat, (centerbrand and powerized) to the picture in the book. In many instances the centerbrand of the bat was "close" to the picture in the book, but never exact. I routinely found small deviations of the centerbrand to the picture and dating in the book. I concluded that "this" is not "that".

I would encourage collectors to compare the dated images to the book, see if both centerbrand and powerized are an exact match. From my experience, there were most always some deviation.

Respectfully,


Troy R Kinunen, MEARS Evaluations, LLC

Thanks for coming on and addressing the discrepancy in dating.

Malta Dating
 

I just want collectors to come away understanding that PSA and MEARS have two distinct methodologies with respect to dating bats. When there is a difference, it is not because MEARS was "wrong", we are just adhering to a system that we have designed and used since our inception of which we believe in and feel is backed by research and experience. Knowing that, collectors can decide for themselves which company they want to use and are most comfortable with. Troy

All of which seems to add up to dating bats from the early days is more guess work than many would like to admit.

Malta Dating
 

It isn't such a matter of guess work. The fact that is often overlooked by skeptics is that professional model bats are quite rare. Store model bats, made for the masses, were mass produced in much larger quantites than what is known to be professional model or game used bats.

For non HOF'ers and lesser stars, it is pretty much likely that if the bat exists, it was issued to the player. The numbers support that. What can't be proven is that the use was only applied by player in question. That is why the grading criteria was designed to represent likelihood of use by player:

A5 = 50% chance
A7= 70% chance
A9= 90% chance
A10 = 100% chance. Documented known players traits with or without solid provenance gets you to this level.

In our opinion, a store model bat, which we dont grade on this scale, doesn't qualify.

The grading was always intented to serve as the likelyhood that the player used the bat.

Back to dating, when you examine a player, take a player like Ken Holloway. His career spanned from 1922-1930. From our experience, a professional model bat bearing his signature in an extremely high percentage of times would fall into the broad MEARS dating range of 1921-1931, as per our worksheet. His career was 1922-1930, so the known manufacturing traits which defined the MEARS dating criteria corresponded with his major league career, thus supporting our dating. This system proved consistent from my years of evaluating bats. What I could not document, was exact year dating which would have defined his time with Detroit (1928) vs Cleveland (1929), but we were confident to date a bat from the overall span of his playing career. I do not consider it guess work as 1,000's of examples have supported our used dating findings. Troy

I understand what you are saying, about a Holloway bat being almost certain to have been issued to and probably used by Holloway during his 9 year career.

But, to my mind, "almost" and "probably" and "9 year" includes enough guess work to consider it to be guess work.

This is a Holloway bat.

We do not KNOW that he used it, put he probably did.

But we don't know what year he (or possibly somebody else) might have used it, and we don't know what team he was playing for.

The best you can do is the best you can do, I'm not badmouthing you or your company, or anybody else.

Doug "I'm just saying..." Goodman

Thank you for coming on Troy...

Very informative, and much appreciative of your thorough response!

Although certainly not a hardcore early bat collector, I appreciate the amount of work and methodology that goes into the process for evaluating bats.

Having a scientific background, I do also appreciate Troy's response, which is thorough and thoughtful as a methodology.

I certainly appreciate the education...

Nevermind

working with bats for over 50 years and I learned something today. Thanks Troy for your analysis.