Quote:
Originally Posted by Kco
The thing with Willie Mays is his market for quite sometime was supresed substantially by the flood of what, early on, were believed to be good autographs with the "Say Hey" hologram.
These were available via every major autograph channel pretty much whenever one wanted, for well under $200, even "inscribed". Once the fraud of all the Say Hey items was exposed (Steve Hoskins signing them vs Mays himself), and the TPAs caught on and have steadily invalidated old certs and the general information about them being fake was exposed to a larger proponent of the market, collectors flocked to the genuine items to replace their bogus ones. Inscriptions are far tougher on Mays than many realized and the prices of quality sweetspot balls pushed into the mid to upper 200s. Inscribed baseballs easily bring in 4x that number now.
The other portion is after watching so many of the "card show era" heavy hitters pass away recently (Aaron, Frank Robinson, McCovey etc), Mays is far and away the last generational level player left and at nearly 92 and in poor health probably doesn't have long left so you've got a lot of collectors buying in anticipation of that inevitable surge.
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The Mays "Sey Hey" issue doesn't pertain to signed vintage cards as is being discussed here. While an important subject to discuss, it's a separate matter altogether. That was limited to modern material: balls, bats and photos, etc.