...another blast from the past - Hager's book

[Archive]

Posted By: runscott 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3563329500&category=29384&rd=1

I have heard the stories about this book, but never actually seen it. Anyone have an opinion?

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

Hager's book had by far the highest quality photographs of cards of any price guide. It also had a very interesting innovation that I wish Krause would adopt. He made an effort to judge the relative scarcity of cards from each set. For example, Just So cards and Four Base Hits cards were ranked in the scarcest category, George C. Miller cards were placed in a less scarce category, Goudeys were placed in a fairly common category, and modern Topps cards were placed in an extremely common category.

However, the book had two big problems. First, the prices were, to put it charitably, ahead of their time. In some cases, prices were 4 times reality, maybe even 10 times. There was speculation that this was done to enhance the value of the author's own inventory. I haven't looked at the book lately, but some of the values may now be accurate.

Second, the book was dripping with the author's efforts to toot his own horn. For each set, the author included a comment about how many cards from the set he had "handled." He never provided a definition of "handled," but it seemed unlikely that he had been in the same room with as many Just So's, Four Base Hits, etc., as he said.

If it was cheap, I'd buy it just for the pictures.

[Archive]

Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

Scott,

Dennis Purdy, Sr. did a truly magnificent investigative 18 page editorial on Hager and his "guide". The article was "Alan C. Hager: A Buffalo Hunter in a Wild West Hobby" and it was published in VCBC # 9. According to Dennis' article, this book is filled with errors and false information. I can't remember all of them offhand, so you'll have to read the article. I skimmed through a copy of Hager's guide that a friend of mine had a few years ago and aside from a few nice pictures, I couldn't find anything useful about it. Personally I think that Alan Hager and his people represent a lot of what's wrong with this HOBBY. I believe Dennis referred to Hager's book as "Pretty like a whore" and I think no truer words have been spoken.

Regards,
Adam

[Archive]

Posted By: Brian H

Scott- I agree with Paul -- I've has a lot of fun looking at that book over the years. I'd recommend it if the price is low. Hager's rankings of scarcity really are great thing -- before that I actually thought that fascinating issues like Four Base Hits and Just So were sufficiently plentiful that one might actually build a set with a little patience and caseh.

Paul also charitably neglected to mention that no copy editor was ever employed.

[Archive]

Posted By: TBob

The spelling and grammar were atrocious. There were way too many factual errors to list, including fabricated numbers of what cards were selling for at the time. Dennis Purdy in VCBC took him to task and I won't repeat all the duplicitous comments made by AH in his book, but on the flip side, some of those outlandish values for cards which were 4 or 5 times the, then, present value have been realized. If you check on ebay for caramel cards from the E93, E94, E97, E98, E99 and E100 sets, for example, you'll see those prices are escalating rapidly, much as Hager projected.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

IMHO, a piece of crap. The prices are useless as is Hager's semi-literate commentary (Lipset doesn't write pretty, but he is coherent, unlike this dude), which leaves only the checklists and pics. Bob Lemke does a much better job of checklisting, so all that is left are the pics. If you can get it for a buck or two, worth a laugh, I guess, but not to be taken seriously as a work of reference. And yes, the Purdy expose is one of the true classics of VCBC reporting. That plus his (in)famous article on PSA got me into writing on cards and exposing issues in the SMR, grading services and Broadway Rick's in later VCBC issues.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller

I have the book and in fact I got mine when it first came out. I originally thought it was a great book and, over time, nothing has changed my opinion. First, the card photos are fantastic, better than I have seen in virtually any other publication. Second, although the prices were a little ahead of their time the market has caught up and passed some by a wide margin. The VG Connor Kalamazoo Bat that someone(Olbermann?) paid over $15K for in Lipset's auction catalogs in Hager's book at $1800. In NrMT it is $6000. Hager's Old Judge prices for scarce cards relative to common cards are probably better than any standard catalog. In fact, I like the book despite Hager's slam on the Old Judge set. In his set recommendation he states:"(Old Judge) recommended for those who want to collect a crude looking black and white set that offers very little future potential. ..." So he got that one wrong. My stock broker has alot worse track record than him. Hager also tried to eduacate the reader in his book. His section on determining if vintage cards are trimmed is a step in the right direction.
Is the book perfect? No. It is very self serving and Hager probably did write it to hype what he had in inventory. However, he probably had what he thought would appreciate. I dealt with Hager twice. I bought a two player K-Bat from him in NrMT for $1700 and bought the anonymous Mayo football card from him in Ex for $2000. I would repeat either transaction happily. Was Hager's past a little checkered---sure. However, so are the pasts of many of today's hobby icons.
Scott--get the book. I think you'll love it and have lots of fun with it.

[Archive]

Posted By: Todd

I bought my copy back in 1995, and think that if you put yourself back to that time (I think he published it in 1993), it really was pretty decent. The pictures are fantastic, although the spelling, grammar and punctuation are so bad that your eyes may start to bleed. There is alot of self-aggrandizement in there too-- his bio would have you believe he's a mixture of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Merril Lynch.
Still, if you get the book at $20 or so, I think it's money well spent.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

Agree with both Jay and Todd.
I purchased the book the first time offered and even won some cards in his first auction without any problems.

If you can get a cheap copy, go for it.

[Archive]

Posted By: Albie O'Hanian

I have an autographed copy that I received for free after winning a handful of items in one of Hager's auctions. I find the book useful for some things. If you already have a base knowledge of vintage cards you would probably find it beneficial as you would know what was B.S. and what was reality. When I received the book I had no clue and took a lot of what he said as reality until I read Purdy's article.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Well sure, the same could be said of nearly any overpriced antique item bought a decade earlier. I've got plenty of cards that I "overpaid" for years ago that are now worth multiples of my overpayment. The problem here is that Hager's prices weren't ahead of their time, they were fabricated to give Hager cred for his sales and auction asks.

There are two species of price guides: price guides based on facts (actual sales, surveys of dealer asking prices, etc.) and guides based on what the seller/writer would like to be facts. Hager's book fell into the latter category. So does parts of the SMR. I don't have a problem per se with this type of pricing, as long as the seller/writer states that the prices are based on a belief and not fact. I had to decide on this myself when preparing the pricing segments of my boxing card book (hitting ebay shortly, BTW, plug, plug).

[Archive]

Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

I received the book as a gift when it first came out. Since I was putting together type examples of the seven (7) catchers that I collected from 1905-1918, the general rule of thumb was dividing his pricing in half provided a good idea of of the Fair Market Value of cards from this era.
Aware of the book's shortcomings from the get-go, the photos and lists still served their purpose.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jon

http://www.k6az.com/acg.htm


His ASA / ACG coin and card practices are still taking place on eBay.

He also maintains he does not own the grading companies (maybe legally).

He is the reason I will not buy anything substantial from anyone in FLA.

Curious how he filed for bankruptcy too.

Someone put him away into club fed for a very long time!