The hobby is surely passing me by
 

Sometimes you've got to say....

https://goldinauctions.com/Honus_Wag...LOT118039.aspx

if I am willing to spend $32k on NFT, i rather get a LeBron James drunk NFT.

That is not for me either.
But obviously someone was interested enough to pay that much.

"A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place."

- Harry Anderson Hello, Sucker 1986

Peter - You didn't finish the statement. It's "Sometimes you just gotta say "WTF" :D

Alan, it was implied, but yes.

so many questions
 

So these NFTs are crypto-shares of an actual thing? or a virtual thing? this silly frog Wagner, does it exist in time and space? And if so, I understand how people can trade the shares, and how the shares might go up or down based on demand for those shares, but where does the card live? Who is its caretaker? Is there a majority owner? How would anyone know if it went missing or never even existed? If you bought all the shares can you get the card?

Am a little surprised Goldin sold this. Pepe the Frog has been co-opted as a symbol of white supremacy. Would they sell Wagner in a KKK hood? I mean, they can sell whatever they want, I'm just surprised.

I had the same reaction.

I think it's just digital, and the significance of the token is that it gives you ownership, but someone younger and cooler than me can probably answer better.

A lot of stupid people doing stupid things with their money.

Looks to me like someone spent $31k on a piece of clip art. Imagine all the real baseball cards that could have purchased!

Yeah I really do not get it either but I understand the appeal of it to the new breed of hobbyist or CIF (Collector-Investor-Flipper). I am far too much a traditionalist with my collecting approaches to ever find this enticing or even interesting.

I'm waiting for Curly of the Three Stooges to be featured on the Wagner card. That nun-fungible asset would easily top 50k. And, my goodness, if it was animated with a soundtrack ("wu-wu-wu-wu-wu") it might go into 6 figures.

WTNFT world are we living in?

Brian

Talk about tax reform… whoever is willing to pay $31k for that should have to pay a one-time, stupidity excise tax of 50% the purchase price; so long as the IRS allows that lucky buyer to recapture that tax when the buyer eventually sells it for a huge loss and/or writes it off as a total loss.

Seems insane to me.

But then again, no doubt I would have been one of those folks in 1970 saying “holy crap…. Some idiot just spent $10,000 on a small card board picture of Honus Wagner …. What the hell is wrong with people!!”

I guess you don’t know how stupid anything really is until some time has passed.

That is a bunch of bullshit. People can put anything on a meme and have it mean something different. Of course anybody putting a Hitler mustache on him, or swastika etc.....then yes, that is racist. A pure Pepe is not racist. He is a frog. I love frogs. Leave him alone. Putting Pepe on a Wags isn't racist.
.

watch this to "get learned" on Pepe:

https://www.businessinsider.com/pepe...esters-2019-10

I watched it before you posted it. I am all "learned" up. I still think the NFT Wags and Pepe is not racist. Everything is effing racist nowadays. I am absolutely disgusted with our society today and I fear for future generations living off the govt. It used to be a black mark to take welfare from our govt. Now it's a badge of honor not to work ....so it seems. People today make everything racist and it's not true.
Just my opinion. Everyone has one.

.

+1

What does it mean if I hate Pepe Wagner?

To me, this is another not-so-subtle representation that the hobby we all love is being transformed into something far different than when we first starting buying cards. I first starting collecting back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the only way to get a desired card was to trade, one set of greasy fingers to the next. No TPG, no auctions, little money, no equity shares, no trimming or alterations and certainly no non-fungible cards.
And I totally agree with Leon that putting a Hitler meme on Honus aimed at the Neo-Nazis and other hate groups is pure racism. Using Kermit is just silly.

This
 

I remember when PSA just entered the market place and I told my friend he was absolutely NUTS for spending 3-10X the raw going rate for PSA 9 and 10 Clemente's including spending 30K for a PSA 9 rookie - years later he auctioned his cards and got a cool million for 1955-1973!! In hindsight he sure knew/suspected something I didn't and got to laugh all the way to the bank!!

Like others - I don't get it, but time certainly will tell.

Then you didn't watch the whole video. It shows how "Pepe" evolved into something that conjured "racist alt-right" thoughts for most Americans but was used as a symbol of rebellion against dictatorship for those people living in Hong Kong. Why do you think the Pepe Wagner NFT sold for so much? It's not because of Pepe the cartoon. It's because of the ideology of his image. Period.

If the NFT were of Garfield or Snoopy superimposed on a T206 Wagner, it would not have garnered much attention. And we certainly wouldn't be discussing it on a chat board.

Exactly. He evolved. He went to a bad place with extremists. To me, that doesn't make a frog racist. Sorry.

I am not interested in racism baited discussion either. If you didn't notice, there was exactly NOTHING racist about what was sold. It was a frog and a Wags card...NFT...

If I make a meme of a US quarter, and put Hitler on it, would it make all quarters racist? You will never convince me that that NFT had anything to do with racism.

Omega put Snoopy on a watch, and that piece is now backordered for the next several years and selling on the grey market at 3-4x retail. It's certainly getting a lot of chatter on watch collecting boards.

I guess you felt like I was challenging you in some way. I was only making a point about symbols and how they can be co-opted and turned into things they weren't meant to be. Not anyone's opinion on symbols.

Put your name out here and please continue.
And sorry, I still disagree. A frog and a swastika are 2 different things. I love frogs and see them all the time at my house. They aren't racist. They are green. I would never have a swastika at my house. It's a bad symbol, frogs aren't.

Not sure about Pepe but some frogs are pretty tasty. And Peter, don't know about you but the hobby passed me by awhile back :)

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag.../IMG_6425.WEBP

Do NOT mess with Snoopy. He's a bad mutha***er.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...hing%20gif.gif

This whole NFT thing, a big 'who cares' in my collecting book. I collect to enjoy something I enjoyed as a kid the way I enjoyed it as a kid. Unlike Cap'n Crunch or Pop-Tarts, something that won't make my 56 year old body sick. That means cardboard and paper in hand to play with in front of the television. Period. This digital, fractional stuff, forget it; if I want something i can't play with I will buy stocks. See signature line below...'nuf ced

A swastika is not a bad symbol. Being Buddhist, I can confirm that. :) A swastika is a symbol of peace and actually represents the Buddhist footprints. Its actually a lucky symbol. This has been the way since almost the birth of the Buddha. Unfortunately, some group in Germany decided to use it as their symbol. Maybe whats being done to poor Pepe the Frog.

I always say thank god (or thank Buddha) the US made baseball. Its the only thing that connects me to the country anymore. Having got rid of my US citizenship decades ago, I still appreciate being able to come back during the summer and attend as many MLB games as possible and participate in the National and other shows during that time. I can say that after this summer, sadly the US has lost it way. Ignorance has been taken to a completely new level.

My biggest concern is not a frog or a swastika, but that I hope there is no strike for this next season. I have already paid for season tickets for next year.

I'll just have to stick with my Speedmaster I guess.

What's a "watch"? My phone has a clock.

The swastika was also a Native American symbol with a reverse image:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0At%20Ease.jpg

The Benham Indian Trading Co. used it as logo on their postcards 114 years ago.

Excellent point.

I don't understand NFT's but I also don't really understand Crypto and both seem to be booming.

I think the NFT people are a separate section/separate hobby entirely. It relates to cards but it's more of an offshoot.

What I'm more curious about is if there's a lockout, how will the market, both NFT's and physical cards be affected.

Funny you should mention that Peter; the watch in question is a Speedmaster.

Wasn't the 1994-95 strike one of the things that popped the hobby's bubble in the 1990s?

Blasphemy lol.

It was also painted on the nose cone of Spirit of St. Louis.

That is when I quit watching MLB. I will watch part of a game every now and then. Or maybe game 7 of the series but after that strike I never went back...
.

The Silver Snoopy, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Omega receiving a safety award from NASA.

It's hard to ruin a Speedmaster and it's tastefully done. But still.

OMG the price.
https://www.swisswatchexpo.com/watch...iABEgJGM_D_BwE

Modern will take a hit for sure. I am not sure a lockout is going to affect Babe Ruth's stats. I bet if it does pop the current vintage market some there will be a lot of people ready to pounce on quality vintage material at attractive prices.

And that's down from where they were at the beginning of the year. I remember seeing them being flipped for $40-50,000--and people were paying that.

I didn't say the image as drawn was racist. But, facts are facts - Pepe the Frog has been co-opted as a symbol of white supremacists. Sometimes benign images or symbols get co-opted - such as the swastika. I was expressing surprise that an image that has been co-opted was being sold by Goldin. You're making a distinction where one doesn't exist.

Lemme just re-emphasize, Goldin can do whatever they want. I honestly don't care one way or the other if they sell it. But I am surprised.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-...htmlstory.html

https://www.statepress.com/article/2...hite-supremacy

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/21/128936...g-donald-trump

Thanks for the articles. I had read the first one. I am not co-opting him. Sorry. He's a frog.

That only matters to people who:
1. Give white supremacists any credibility whatsoever
2. People who want to keep racial tensions strong by finding racism wherever they look.

For me, I give white supremacists zero credibility and I likewise give race baiters zero credibility. The goal should be for us to find common ground and unity, not constantly look to group people based on race, then pit those groups against each other.

Pepe is a frog. Period. I don't care if terrorists worship him or some other group sews his image in their leather jackets, the cartoon is a frog.

I generally agree with you. That said, even Leon admits that he thinks some benign symbols are objectionable. What's the line?