supplement...no...cut out of rare book

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Posted By: runscott 

This was cut out of an 1889 book "Atletic Sports in America, England and Australia". It's page 102 (not numbered), and the "number 10" is the plate number in the book. 6 1/2" x 9" - nowhere near a supplement size. I'm not knocking the seller - perhaps he's never handled a supplement - but all this stuff about "unknown magazine", "dealers", "unknown M type", is a bit perturbing. This is a beautiful book in and of itself, and it's even more disturbing to see it parted out, than the more common Spalding and Reach guides.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2788147328&category=31719

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Posted By: Hankron

Assuming it's blank backed (as some picture section pages of old books are), it's possible that the seller bought it that way and genuinely doesn't know what it is. Fancy blank back pages have been been mistaken for suppliments before.

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Posted By: runscott

David - this isn't a fantasy of mine. I own the book...gold-gilt.

Here are some clues for determining authenticity of "uncatalogued" supplements. If it exhibits any of these, I would be cautious:

1) bottom has been trimmed
2) size. Smaller is usually NOT better
3) no one knows what it is
4) bottom has slight upward roll to it
5) border where spine would be is thinner than the one opposite it.

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Posted By: Hankron

Scott, I assumed you had the book and didn't doubt that you knew exactly what was the item ... I was just suggesting that the seller's incorrect description could have been due to ignorance rather than malace.

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Posted By: runscott

I never said anything about malice.

And as I pointed out in my last post, owning the book is not a prerequisite to being able to i.d. pages cut out of magazines and books - hopefully the tips I listed will help someone avoid paying $150 for a page, when you can have an entire book, including 20 additional photos, many including several HOF'ers, for $600 or less.

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Posted By: Hankron

Firstly, I've read your tips and will remember them for my future use. You've onwed more old baseball books than I.

I wasn't saying you said anything about malace or putting words into your mouth. I was just offering a general, I thought harmless comment on how other collectors have mistaken pages for suppliments before ... So, there wasn't any argument, as I didn't disagree with anything you said.

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Posted By: jay behrens

It is not unusual for color and photographic plates to be removed from books, as this was often done in Victorian times and these plates were framed and hung on the wall. If you watch The Antiques Road Show, you see this types of items with some regularity. The plates themselves are generally valuable, but the apprasers always point out that if they had the whole book, they would have something really special.

I remember seeing one episode years ago where they showed someon who had a bunch form plates from James Audobon's book that was quite large, maybe 14x18. They then brought in a person that just happened to have the entire book with them. The guy with just plates was told they were worth about $500. The guy with book was valued at about 10x that.

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

I start getting nervous twitches when I see rare books sliced up. But this is like anything else on ebay - when a particular item type gains popularity and begins selling for ridiculous prices, anything that looks remotely similar gets hopefully labeled as such, with the accompanying wishful thinking credentials (rare uncatalogued "M" type, etc., experts perplexed, etc.) to pump up the value.

I don't consider this malice - but rather, trying to get all you possibly can out of a picture that you're not sure what it is. To me it's obvious what it ISN'T, but I would not presume that to be the case with the seller or yourself - thus the tips. Also, I'm not sure that I haven't done the same thing at times, but with different items.

Related topic - take the Burr McIntosh pictures - these are almost exclusively pictures cut out of a high-quality magazine. It's obvious on the ones that still have the three holes at the bottom from where the magazine was bound (with thick string), but since the magazine had an odd, "supplement-like" size, you see people trim off the holes at the bottom and describe these as supplements when in fact they aren't. I've seen these pictures go for $400, and it's inexplicable. I used to buy them for $15 and frame them - I had no problem with removing the strings and the high-quality picture from a magazine that otherwise contained mostly rubbish (fashion drawings, pictures of high-society folk,etc.).

Now, here's the real amazing thing: you could actually order any plate from Burr McIntosh, and they would mail one that had not been bound! To date, I have never seen one of these, but it would be much closer to the definition of a supplement.

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Posted By: Julie

..from being a pretty good deal, and interesting (although incorrectly listed).

I wonder if it's at books that one always draws the line.
Old Harper's get cut up and the wood engravings are sold individually; baseball card sheets get cut up into cards, and packs of cards get opened and the cards sold individually; cohesive collections get scattered to the winds, and Sports Illustrated baseball card sheets get cut apart and the "cards" are sold individually (occasionally). In the late 19th century, college yearbooks consisted of many pages of"pouches"--each with a photo in it--and although the whole yearbook would be very desirable, the individual photos are nice, too.
I guess an illustration from an old book is better than NO illustration from an old book--although the whole book would obviously be better.

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Posted By: slacks

(continuing Julie's list of grievances)...not to mention the heinous crime of cutting up bats and jerseys into eensy-teensy bits and slipping them into modern card inserts...

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Posted By: slacks

Okay, maybe not heinous, but I sure don't like it.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

The real abomination of dispersal in the hobby. Gehrig's bat and Vezina's pads--cut up into little slivers and put in cards...

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Posted By: jay behrens

Just imagine if the Mona Lisa got cut up and the piece turned into insert cards. Sure, you own a piece of the Mona Lisa, but it just doesn't have it's original appeal anymore.

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

I am most concerned with rarity, historical significance, and intent to deceive. Actually, I don't have a problem with people parting out virtually destroyed copies of books, as in a sense you are giving value to something basically valueless, i.e - if no one is likely to ever re-open the book in question, then cutting out nice photos and displaying them might be a good thing.

For years I had a Bernard Shaw frontispiece matted and framed on my wall, but feeling guilt each time I read the book, I finally returned Bernard to his rightful place...if I open the book incorrectly he slips out and stares out at me malevolently as a reminder of my past transgression.

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Posted By: scgaynor

I think the term "supplement" can mean different things to different people. I have always thought of supplements as pieces issued with the intent of being removed for display.

A page from a book is obviously not supposed to be removed, however Burr-McIntosh was basically a magazine full of blank backed prints that were to supposed to be removed for framing so I have never had a problem calling them supplements. It is a gray area.

Scott

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Posted By: runscott

"2. a part added to a book or an extra part of a newspaper."

A "Sporting News" supplement is a good example of what a supplement is. But, Scott, to use your example - by your definition every full-page plate in a Burr-McIntosh could be thought of as a supplement since it was common for people to take it apart and display the pages; however, a true supplement would be either a section added to the already complete item, or a page inserted into the already complete item...I would even agree that we now commonly use the word "supplement" to describe the large photos that you could mail off for using ads in publications. On the other hand, I would not consider the inside front cover of a copy of "Baseball Magazine" to be a supplement, even though it might have a photo of a baseball player and also the appearance of a true "Baseball Magazine" supplement.

I don't think it's a gray area at all.

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Posted By: runscott

I think that by "a part added to a book", Random House is referring to the material added to the end of a "completed" book when additional information was obtained, as opposed to adding the photographs after the text had been written.

Yikes - my aptitude test said that I should consider becoming a "dictionary editor". This is scary.

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Posted By: runscott

I promise to quit after this post probably

You could order "reproductions of photographs made by the Burr McIntosh Studio" - 12 1/2 x 7 1/2, matted with Japanese wood veneer and backed, for 25 cents each. Selection was limited, although I'm almost certain I saw an ad mentioning that any plate could be ordered.

In keeping with what you mentioned earlier, they also offered a "passepartout outfit" for 50 cents to "enable anyone to convert the pages of our magazine into beautiful passepartouts in a few minutes".

So the Burr McIntosh pages are "passepartouts" ! I guess I will start using that in my descriptions...NOT

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Posted By: Hankron

In the baseball and relatied hobbies, a publication's suppliment is:

1) a print that was included in the book but not physically attached. An example being the loose map folded and stuck in a National Geographic. If you get a National Geographic and shake it by its spine, the suppliment falls out.

2) an attached print but one that was obviously designed to be removed to be its own item. An example would be that same map but stapled to the inside so it wouldn't fall out during mailing.

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Posted By: Hankron

Lastly, a suppliment is included with the product. A premium is something you have to send away for. A premium almost always had a cost, whether it be money, coupons or box tops ... So, a premium and a suppliment can look essentially the same (The Baseball Magazine Prints are premiums, while the Police Gaz. prints are suppliments), the only difference being how they were obtained.

In the end, it all comes down to accurately describing to the potential bidder what an item is so the bidder can make a knowledgeable bid. If a seller firmly beleives that a picture removed from a book is wonderful, that's fine and he is welcome to say how wonderful and undervalued it is and how he thinks it's just as good as a suppliment. But he is still required to describe the item so the potential bidder knows that it's a page removed from a book and not a suppliment or premium.

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Posted By: Hankron

My test for authentic descriptions in cases of fraud, and as applied to Roy Huff's auctions, is: Did the person leave out, or intentionally describe in an overly vague way, an item's quality or nature that 1) If it was included or described clearly, would cause the bidder to submit a substantially lower bid or not bid ("If you had said it was a book page, instead of a suppliment, I would have lowered my bid by 50 percent"), and 2) Did the seller know that if it was included or described clearly, that the bidders would likely bid lower the bid or not bid.

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Posted By: scgaynor

My reasoning for including Burr-McIntosh in the supplements category is because the magazine was issued with a string binding, probably so it could be taken apart, a page removed, and put back together. Even though one could send in for prints, the large borders and way the subject matters is presented on the page, I think the original intention was to remove the pages for framing.

As far as dictionary defintions of words, they don't always apply to our hobby. We probably use a different defintion of "slab" than you would find in a dictionary. I also doubt the dictionary definition of "snipe" would be to outbid somebody withing the closing seconds of an auction.

Scott

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Posted By: Hankron

As long as things are explained well, terms can mean different things to different people and the seller's auction description can still be authentic. Personally, I and most others don't consider Harper's Woodcuts (large pictures cut out of the 1800 magazine) to be suppliments. However, if a seller says, "Offering for sale an 1887 Harper's Woodcut Suppliment. This was a woodcut picture was printed as part of the magazine cut out from from page 76 of the magazine and has a part of an article on the back. Though this is a cut out picture, I consider these to be suppliments, because I beleive that they were intended to be displayed like prints." ... Though I would disagree on the use of the word suppliment, the description was clear and detailed and the potential bidder would know exactly what he is bidding on.

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Posted By: Hankron

Then, there's the no harm no foul rule. 'Suppliment' and 'premium' are regularly used as interchangable words by sellers. But since a suppliment and premium are held in similar esteem and value by collectors, and often look the same, it's no harm no foul. Few collectors will demand a refund, or care, if they find out that the premium print they bought was really a suppliment.

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Posted By: runscott

I have no problem with "picture removed from a May, 1904 issue of Burr McIntosh", or even "from the May 1904 Burr McIntosh", but calling it a "Burr McIntosh supplement" and showing a picture with the binding holes trimmed off the bottom doesn't provide an accurate description of the item.

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Posted By: runscott

I can't remember ever seeing such a description.

I do remember seeing an odd image that I thought might have been one of the "mail order" ones, but the seller didn't respond to my questions about it, so I didn't bid.

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Posted By: chefmint

I had no intent to mislead or decieve the Ebay public. I had absolutely no information about this at all and thank the board members for sheding light on this. My description has been revised and is shown below.


"A neat photo of the 1889 Louisville baseball team.

It has been brought to my attention that this not a supplement at all, but a page cut out of an 1889 book "Atletic Sports in America, England and Australia". It's page 102 (not numbered), and the "number 10" is the plate number in the book. 6 1/2" x 9" - nowhere near a supplement size. I never owned the book nor did I cut it out from it's original state, I bought this page from someone who didn't know anything about it. I had no prior knowledge of it's origin and was genuinely confused about the definition of a supplement. Thanks to runscott for clearing this up. My opening bid is for less than what I paid for it. Thanks and good luck."

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Posted By: runscott

Your handle is familiar - do we know each other?

Scott

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Posted By: chefmint

Scott,
Yes we do know each other. We have even worked a few deals through the years. Perhaps I will run into you at this years National again. Work has had my completely preoccupied and I have been out of the loop for a while. My wife is expecting so I have been selling off some of my stuff on Ebay. Take care. Later, Gene Mcdonald

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Posted By: runscott

Now I remember. Enjoy the new child and we'll see you at the National.