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As many of you already know, I am one of the biggest proponents of 19th Century newspaper woodcuts being encapsulated (always as "Authentic" only) by a major grading service. At this time Beckett is the only one of the big three that does so. SGC prefers to stick to cards and PSA prefers to stick with catalogued-only issues as their customer service people will tell you (not much room for misidentification there but I'm sure it happens more than enough).

For today's vintage baseball collector, the 19th Century woodcuts represent an affordable way to collect images of players whose cards are often so rare that you can't find one under 4-figures and that does not include some that will go for 5-figures plus. Why not be able to have your best items encapsulated for protection and uniformity in your collection.

I liken these woodcuts to the 20th Century "press photos" which, not too long ago were kind of frowned upon by many vintage baseball collectors but have more recently become an accepted and growing area of the hobby. Values of original press photos today are sometimes appreciating at a greater rate than many of the hobby's most iconic cards. Since the woodcuts, by their nature, were mass produced, I doubt that their values will ever approach the most prominent original press photos of the 20th Century but I think there is still room for a good deal of future appreciation.

Although I did have a number of baseball guide book pages encapsulated a little while back, I have come to realize that these pages are better left alone in their original form as part of the guide and the guide books themselves make better collectibles. Of course, the graded pieces are much better for display and since Beckett will not encapsulate cut-outs from these guides but instead full-pages only, I am okay with those collectors that prefer to go that route as Beckett clearly labels these items as such.