[Topnotchsy]

I'm not one to tell anyone how they should feel about this, and I definitely think that cutting up GU jerseys is a real travesty.

I don't feel nearly as strongly about pants. I've been to Cooperstown. And I've seen a ton of pictures of people's collections over the 30ish years I've been collecting. In all that time, I don't recall ever seeing anyone displaying a pair of Game-Used Pants, except as an accessory to a jersey.

Looking at the market for GU pants, the Gehrig pants sold for $73K. I suspect, though obviously cannot confirm, that that price was due to multiple card companies competing for them. Certainly the top bid was from a card company.

A Gehrig jersey was recently auctioned at Heritage. The reserve for the auction was $5.5M. It did not meet the reserve, but IIRC, it was at $3M or so (someone can correct me). In 2022, a Gehrig jersey sold for $2.19M

$70K/$2.19M is just a hair above 3%. Meaning that, even with the card companies competing for them, it sold for 1/33rd of what the last Gehrig jersey I could find, sold for (and that sale was after the COVID peak).

Similarly, a pair of Clemente pants sold for $30K recently. Addie Joss's pants sold in 2019 for $12K (to a card company).

To me, and I'm not saying anyone should agree with me, the market reflects the reality that pants (like stirrups, undershirts etc) simply don't have the historic resonance that jerseys, bats, balls and caps have.