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Judge Dred (Fred)Interesting topic.
What (who) qualifies as deserving to have a name on the grading companies label? How long does it have to be in a specific collection to qualify? Charlie Sheen? Didn't he pick up a lot of material from different collections? Wasn't he actively buying cards from the Halper auction (and other auctions)? If he bought cards in the Halper auction wouldn't it be from the Halper collection? The same could be said for Penny Marshall, she bought many items from auctions. You wouldn't even have to put her name on the grading company labels. You could put one of those scripted L's (Laverne) on those labels. What about famous rock stars that collect cards and decide to sell them off - would they deserve a label with their name?
It's kind of interesting to have cards from a famous collection, remember the HARRIS collection of T206 cards (PSA graded). You could ask a lot of experts about that graded collection - you'd probably get the same opinion from most (some trimmed cards and "how can a card with a crease grade at a 5 or 6?").
To me, the Buck Barker idea is good because Buck Barker was an old hobby veteran. There's a hobby veteran worth collecting. It would be nice to have his cards with the writing on the back. From what I understand though a lot of his cards may have to be put in AUT holders because he trimmed them down to fit the plastic pages.
Should labeling with provenance be limited to being a posthumous honor? Adding a name to a label doesn't add value to the card but it does add value to the holder. What happens if someone that really detests "slabs" buys the card and breaks it out (to free it from it plastic tomb of course). Any extra value that card had (because it was "slabbed" with a famous name on the label) is now gone. Maybe they could auction the "slab and label" on ebay...
This post wasn't meant as a cut down to anyone that believes names on labels is cool, it's just a few thoughts that passed between the empty space which lies between my two ears...