OT: Does Anyone Here Collect Those Multi Thousand $$ Inserts?

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Take a look at this for only $4000.

http://cgi.ebay.com/2008-TOPPS-STERLING-JACKIE-ROBINSON-CUT-AUTO-1-1-JERSEY_W0QQitemZ270350977163QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_ SM_Sports_Cards?hash=item270350977163&_trksid=p328 6.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C39%3A1%7C240% 3A1318#ebayphotohosting


Why would anyone buy this ??
--

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Richard, I wouldn't pay $100 for that. But maybe the asking price is just a pie in the sky number? Like some of the ebay BIN prices.

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Posted By: stefan

As a dealer in these type of cards i can say that this card would sell in the 1500-2000 area. I would never buy to keep only to resell, but it ticks me off about all of the jerseys, bats and assorted Memorabilia that has been ruined to make these cards. If the pieces are even real that is.
I can remember a card that was sold with a bunch f Hofer sigs on it Cobb, Johnson, etc... Well any how half of the signatures were deemed not real when the lucky guy tried to slab the card. So who knows what your getting could be anything.

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Posted By: Joe D.

My son and I started a football 'fabric-card' collection.

But, I think the most I spent on a card was $100.
And I felt really bad about going that high.

$4000?!?! no way. and it doesn't even look like a full auto.

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Posted By: Anthony S.

Gosh, imagine if the card contained a fleck of the cross he wore around his neck...

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Posted By: Dan McCarthy

When I was fifteen I wanted a cut auto like that incredibly badly... until I smartened up and realized that a Lou Boudreau cut is about $40 and you can get a better looking autograph of him for two bucks.

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Posted By: andy becker

darn joe,
i wish i knew you were collecting football jerseys with your son. i just threw a bunch on ebay last night.....just to make space

i would have much rather they had gone to you.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Jeff - that is not one of those pie in the sky BIN prices... these cards are all listed at prices like that. A George Washington was recently listed for $75,000!!!!

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: DJ

I think it's the same sucker that buys $50 packs and spends $$$$ on new stuff. I watch the Upper Deck Mystery Cuts closely on eBay and the Buy It Now people are out of their minds. $1500 for a Joe Barbara? $325 for Janet Leigh? $855 for a clipped trading card signature of Red Grange? If the Barbara and the Leigh weren't housed and certified by Upper Deck, the would sell for $10-15 tops. That Robinson without a certification is $500 at the most in that size and quality.

DJ

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

The Robinson cut should retail for no more than $300, and it would be a tough sell to an average collector. Most people prefer a whole signature!

Jodi

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Posted By: Sean C

The market for Jackie Robinson signed cut cards has been getting more and more expensive as of late. As noted in this thread from the CU boards:

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=709014

This card sold for $1092:



This card sold for $1125:



Considering that there are 147 possible copies of those cards, a Robinson 1 of 1 card should go for a bit more, even if it is "artificial scarcity".

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Posted By: barrysloate

I've brought this up before but would still like to get some professional opinions:

About fifteen years ago I was selling a group of documents that originated from the Alexander Cartwright family. They were all handwritten in ink by Cartwright himself (not the onion skin letter press copies), and none had baseball content. Almost all were family histories, and since there were many descendents of the famous Cartwright with the same name, "Alexander Cartwright" could be found penned throughout them.

I lost track of the documents but a few years later a major auction house had an Alexander Cartwright signature in the same form as the Jackie Robinson above. Amazingly, I recognized it, and was able to go back to my photocopies and determine that it had been cut from one of the documents. Because it had a stray mark on the cut, I was able to find exactly where in the document it was taken. Turns out it was not a signature at all, but a reference Cartwright made to his father or grandfather.

Now admittedly, there is no question Cartwright penned what was in that PSA slab. But can it be considered a signature? I felt it wasn't, and pleaded my case to the auction house. It goes without saying that they paid no attention to me.

Do others feel this can be considered a bona fide signature?

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Posted By: Justin

Where did Upper Deck get 147 "authentic" Jackie Robinson cut sigs?

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Barry,

I see your point, but will have to side with the auction house on this one.

While the signature was not signed in reference to himself, it still spells out the same name! In these cases, such signatures do tend to command a slightly reduced price, but there are plenty of collectors who would be happy to save hundreds of dollars on a signature that might be otherwise unattainable due to budget restraints. Such a signature is still much more saleable than a hand-printed version.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Thanks Jodi, and I realize it has some level of authenticity. But let's say Cartwright wrote the following on a piece of paper:

My father's name was Alexander Cartwright and my grandfather's name was Alexander Cartwright.

Does that suffice as two valid signatures? And does one write his name the same as he signs it? Just see this as a bit of a gray area.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

I consider those two separate signatures. Chances are they won't be written with the same panache that Cartwright reserved for his autograph, but it goes without saying that these are holographic samples of Cartwright spelling out his name.

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Posted By: Anthony S.

Personally, my signature looks like someone shot me halfway through it. 17 letters combined for a first and last name gets a little old after a while. However, when composing the main text of a letter my penmanship is much clearer. I could definitely see someone writing there name differently in the main text of a letter as opposed to their signature. But then again 19th century penmanship as a whole tends to be much more elegant. There weren't as many shortcuts (typing, long distance phone calls, etc).

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Posted By: barrysloate

Fair enough. I had a little problem with it conceptually (I also had a problem with the fact that the documents were cut up and destroyed), but I accept others' opinions.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Justin - there are a lot of Jackie Robinson signed checks out there.
Now there are 147 less.
=

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: keyway

I like the card where the sig. has been cut off of a full check. Now on a card it sells for 4 or 5 times what the full check would bring. I just can't understand what people are thinking. Frank

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jodi- I just thought of another angle. What we have in the case of Cartwright is the lucky coincidence that all the ancestors shared the same first name. Using my last example what if he instead wrote:

My father's name is Joe Cartwright and my grandfather's name is Harry Cartwright.

There is nothing different in theory from my first example, but would you agree we would now have no signatures? Because in the first example, he wasn't technically citing his own name; he was referring to somebody else.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

"(I also had a problem with the fact that the documents were cut up and destroyed)"

I don't think there is another hobby in the world where a piece of a picture, postcard, check, document, etc. would be sold for more than the entire piece. Utterly ridiculous.
=

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: DJ

What's worst than checks is when they clip a Gold Hall Of Plaque. I saw one on eBay of Al Lopez that was about an inch by an inch and it looked stupid. As stupid as that Red Grange that I mentioned above, where they clipped a card triangularily and consider that a price for someone.

The worst (IMO) is Tri-Star. Their inserts appear to be cards and there's nothing worse than seeing the center of a vintage Ted Klu. card and that's it. They also love to clip common 54 Archives card. Yick!

There are A LOT of Jackie Robinson signed checks. It's like with any horde or find, there is a closet full of collected personal checks.

I actually bought 750 checks of Wizard of Oz actor Jack Haley in one shot ten years ago from a fellow dealer who had more to part with as well.

DJ

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Posted By: Steve

After all it is a 1/1!


Edit to add:







Steve

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Posted By: peter ullman

I only collect the kind that were inserted in tobacco and candy packages almost 100 years ago.

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Posted By: Mark Evans

I continue to be baffled by the apparent value of new items (like inserts) that are in short supply due solely to the limited nature of the issue, as opposed to the passage of time. I can't imagine that these items will retain their value over time.

By the way, I remember that when Moe Howard died (1975) his daughter was selling his cancelled checks via classified ad in Rolling Stone for $10 each. I kick myself that I didn't pick up a bunch of them.

Mark

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Posted By: Dave Williams

Here is a link to the PSA board, where Topps cut up a document where Thurman Munson signed a contract, listing his wife's name, and all the "Munson" words were cut out, put into a Topps card, and called a Thurman Munson autograph card. All you can see is a scraggly "Munson".

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=705416&highlight _key=y&keyword1=munson

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Posted By: Fred C

Holy crap, who'd pay $4K for a cut auto let alone $1.5K for that same cut? You can pick up an entire check for half that price. If some of these companies were smart they would offer a service called "make your own signature card" and charge $750 to have a signature authenticated by one of the better authenticators (though I think they're all full of crap) and then put it on a card for you.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Richard, all I can tell you is the epiphany I had the other late night while tossing and turning in bed with the flu and flipping through the channels for anything to watch. I stumbled upon a video of a 1970 Who concert at the Isle of Wright -- one of the most incredible concert videos I've ever seen. After watching that, I continued flipping until I landed on this insane reality show I had never previously heard of: a bunch of NYC cows whining about money, their fat asses and their dumb husbands -- The Real Housewives of NYC. And it hit me, and I'm not sure it was my fever talking: Western Civilization as we know it is seriously in decline. That Jackie Robinson card is further proof.

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Posted By: marshall barkman

I used to deal in very high end game used and rookie cards of the modern era. The people who buy and trade these cards are generally young and love to gamble. I know a kid in Atlanta Ga who used to buy 10 to 20 cases of certain products looking for a big hit and if he got it then dump the rest of the cases and boxes.

When Donruss introduced Timeless Treasures it really started the game used market to skyrocket. At one point in time the Gehrig 1/1 jersey auto sold for over 10,000 and the Ruth was around 23,000. People pay more of a premium because the card is considered a part of that set and there is only 1 available in the set where a check or cut signature is a part of nothing and really is not even a baseball card.

The madness has gone down alot because of the over saturation of game used product and the countless rumors that half the stuff is not even real. Do you really think that when you pull a Shoeless Joe Jackson bat card or Mickey Mantle bat card that those are real? The bat chips could be off any old bat and i have always thought that.

At one point in time if you had a Ichiro multi colored patch card then those babies were worth 500 to 3000 depending on the print run. At the 2004 show at Chicago i sold a Ichiro patch card numbered to 5 which was a piece of the Mariner logo for 1750, also i then sold a Ben Roethlisberger jersey patch auto for 1000 which was 7/10 and considered a 1/1 because it was his jersey number.

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Posted By: marshall barkman

Lichtman...i read your post and you are killing me. I nearly spit up my drink with the New York housewife line. Hilarious.

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Jeff, I think anyone who thinks of collecting these cards should listen to The Who,,,, "Won't Get Fooled Again", their best song IMO. Maybe they will self educate themselves and stop this foolishness, but I doubt it.
==

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss