[barrysloate]

There would be no harm in citing the people who have expertise in certain areas, with the idea that if a collector had a question about a certain collectible, he could freely email one of these experts for advice. I know vintage baseball books quite well and I often get emails with questions about value and rarity. I even got one today. And I always try to answer and help out another collector.

But giving an award to the guy with the biggest collection is no doubt elitist and serves no purpose at all. If anything, it's just going to alienate the collectors who don't have the wherewithal to afford the rare cards and memorabilia.

I wonder if Bruce were asked questions about say Federal League pieces, advertising display pieces, or any other collectible he knew really well, if he would be willing to share his time and help out another collector. If so, then I would say this is a good thread. We have an archive at the top of the page that directs us to articles written about various areas of baseball collectibles, and that is a valuable resource. Having experts out there willing to field questions and help others get started would be equally useful. But I doubt that sharing information was the reason Bruce thought of this thread.