Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffrompa
How about cutting up T202's and selling them as 3 pieces ?
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Actually, I've had a few of them over the years. Ditto a 4-on-1 exhibit cut. If I can get a major HOFer end piece from a T202 for a few bucks I'd pick it up just for the novelty of it.
The items we are discussing are not singular works of art; despite their often aesthetically pleasing graphics, they are essentially mass-produced low cost items. Treating a Reach guide that can be had for well under fifty bucks with the same reverence as a 1,300 year old hand-illuminated manuscript is a false equivalence. There is a hierarchy of preservation-worthiness to everything in the art and collectibles sphere. An old magazine falls pretty low down that spectrum.
I find the idea that refusing to allow these items somehow strikes a blow for preservation of baseball history to be rather silly. Even assuming for the sake of discussion that a beater Reach guide is worth preserving, whether or not cuts from them are sold here will not 'save' one item from the cutting shears. As is the case with many other things [like paper conservation techniques], I think our hobby is once again debating whether to try to close the barn door as the horse runs down the road. People have been cutting up books and magazines for a very long time; illustration sales are a normal and accepted part of every vintage paper fair I've ever attended. Designers and decorators have been framing and using them for years. Cut materials are found throughout the National as well; just take a look around at the Harper's woodcuts.
I am not comfortable banning items solely based on origin as long as they were accurately described. It is too difficult to do without making judgment calls that simply are not appropriate for an ostensibly free market. Is it OK to sell a Harper's woodcut? How about a page from a Police Gazette? If so, why is that "better" than an illustration from a Reach guide? All were removed from publications they were intended to be part of. I really don't want N54 to make that judgment call for me. I am also confident that if the market is allowed to work, it will work. If you believe that the customers will dictate whether an item is worth buying, then let the items be sold with proper disclosures. If no one buys the items here, the sellers will go away.
Finally, I am not a fan of dictating to other collectors what they can collect. Everyone has their own style and desire and budget for collecting. I am not comfortable telling those collectors who value a cut item for whatever reason that they are not welcome here, that their collection sucks, etc. I collect plates removed from old books. It is often the only way to get a career-contemporary [or close to it] item depicting an athlete. I'd hate to think that someone would tell me 'sorry, you can't buy or sell a Tom Molineaux print for your HOF collection because it was once in a book'.
