[drcy]

The show is intended for the general public not SABR members.

I think it's an entertaining show and I know little about a lot of what is appraised. My only problem with the show is it is too $$-centric, so it becomes to be a bit of a game show after before long and that part can become a bore. But I enjoy seeing the different stuff I know little about.

I don't fully understand appraising-- 'appraising insurance purposes' or 'replacement value' apparently means for more than normal price. The show often uses 'retail price' and we all know what that means. They sometimes say 'value at auction' or 'value at auction on a good day.' I'm not sure they they use a single standard for pricing, and I've seen items within my realm of knowledge where I thought the appraisal was low. I've seen instances where the appraisal is based directly on past (and varying) auction realized prices, which is as reasonable a way to price as any. Also, appraising has to have a large margin of error, in part because as many of us know if you auction the same item twice it will sell for two prices . . . So I take appraising and appraisal prices with a large of grain of salt, and the show's appraisal standards seem to differ from item to item, from retail to what a real person might actually get.

Another thing is, a lot of the items shown on the show are unique historic items and appraising the value really is an educated guess. For example, no one here, nor Mr. Olbermann (nor REA nor Lelands nor Heritage nor etc), knows exactly what the Mort Rogers collection would sell for at auction. I've just listed numerous hobby experts (including many board readers) and they don't know. Know one knows to what dollar amount the collection's provenance will effect the final value of the score cards, in part, because the desirability of provenance varies greatly between baseball card collectors. Some think it's great that a 1958 Topps belonged to Sandy Koufax, while others don't care. And the exact ownership here isn't the estate of Harry Wright but of estate of the team's landlady. I know of no landlady provenance financial calculator. Though I'm sure the provenance of the collection will raise the value of the collection, as the items came from team members, comes from the estate who directly knew them and the story is interesting.