Posted By:
warshawlawIt was not about whether the cards are legitimate. They are and for the Negro League players, they are just about the only contemporaneous issues and are their rookie cards (However, I'd stick to a US issue for those players depicted on one. Let's say there is a 1935 Satchel Paige card from Cuba or Mexico; no one is going to convince me that his Leaf or Bowman (I forget which) is not his true rookie card).
My point was that I would not rush to collect these cards and pay the big rarity premium on them until after the trade situation normalizes. Foreign cards often bring very high prices initially when "discovered" by US collectors then crash when the supply reaches the demand. Case in point are the English Churchman's boxing cards from 1938. Three years ago, these cards routinely went for $150+ as sets and Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, etc., sold for $20-$30 each. When it became apparent that these cards could be sold here, UK dealers came in with massive inventory and the prices crashed. Who is to say that the same will not happen when free enterprise reaches Cuba. The fact that guys like Stinson who go over there looking for memorabilia do not find much is not meaningful. They are essentially smugglers/black marketeers defying a totalitarian government. Of course it is going to be hard to find stuff in those circumstances. When the commerce is legalized and formalized over there we will see a burst of Cuban cards. After all, look at the news reports of all the tapes and CDs that survived the Taliban in Afghanistan, where they'd whip or kill you for having the stuff.