Sort of Ethical Question Re Baseball Signed W-2 Forms

[MooseDog]

I've got a small stack of IRS W-2 Forms signed by various SF Giants from the 1960s. This is the IRS payroll form wherein you declare how many deductions you want from your paycheck. One gotcha is that they all have the players Social Security Numbers on them. Got these years ago, just rediscovered them going through my stuff for possible sale.

Wondering what you all think about selling these since they have the players SSN on them. With all the possibility of identity theft and vague liability issues, would you:

1) Not consider selling at all.
2) Consider selling only deceased players.
3) Cut out the signatures only (no SSN visible)
4) Sell whole anyway.
5) Go ahead and sell with blacked out/cut out SSNs.


Mostly common autographs but there are a couple of toughies in there, both living and deceased.

Thanks for looking.

[mr2686]

That's a tough one. I can only say that I would not be a party to passing along SS information like that for living players. Just doesn't seem right even if the documents came long before ID theft and the computer age. Just my opinion.

[mr2686]

As a follow-up, any chance of blacking out the SS numbers?

[MooseDog]

Mike -

That's a good point. I'll add that to the list of options.

ps...how 'bout them A's, eh?

pps. It occurred to me that contracts are sold all the time. Most of those have SSNs included.

[drc]

I'd cross out the ss numbers, and did that once on a contract. Don't know if it matters for dead players.

Duly note that eBay prevented me from selling a Carl Yastremski signed 1960s state tax document, even though there was no social security number or such information on it.

[thecatspajamas]

Might I suggest that if you do sell the documents unaltered, at least black out the SSN in the scans that you post (assuming you're selling them online). That way, you only have to worry about 1 other individual (presumably a fellow collector) misusing the info, rather than anybody in the world who happens across the listing images.

[mschwade]

My suggestion is sell only the deceased and hang on to the living. Not only will that keep the documents whole (and worth more IMO), but will likely maximize your profit (deceased signatures generally worth more). And it alleviates any worries of identity theft since the living remain in your hands until their passing. Is this an option or do you need cash right away?

[Scott Garner]

As you're aware, player contracts get sold with Social Security numbers and addresses all the time. Typically the auction houses that sell them never show the SS in any of the pictures that are associated with the lot, but they're definately there.

If you were to sell them on eBay I would take precaution to not show any of the SS numbers, but I would not consider altering the documents because that's part of what makes them cool to begin with. Auction houses will do the right thing and not compromise personal info if they act as your selling point.

Food for thought....

[D. Bergin]

I black out the Social security numbers completely when I sell documents. No reason anybody else needs to see that particular information.

If others consider that "altered", so be it.

[MooseDog]

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

The way I see it, it's not a baseball card. PSA or SGC isn't going to ding you for it on a condition scale.

I'd find it odd if a collector scaled back his bidding or buying process based on a Soc# being there or not.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

Thanks for the replies. Interested to see others chime in.

Blacking out the SSN information certainly seems to be the right thing to do, but on the other hand it's easy, for say a Mike Corkins W-2 but what about a Carl Yastrzemski fully executed contract? Both still living but one worth a couple of bucks and the other worth four figures.

While I totally agree in principle, I'm not sure I could run that marker over the Yaz document.

I definately agree. Common sense would have me believe that someone buying a Yaz contract for several thousand dollars in a major sports auction would likely not be doing it for the purpose of stealing his identity.

Speaking from personal experience, I own documents like we're discussing for focus players in my personal collection. I likely will not be selling these documents any time soon as I really enjoy owning them. The thought of ever exploiting this personal info would never cross my mind. If anything, I feel that on some level, that having a document in the hands of an advanced collector may actually protect the player from the possibilty of identity theft, if you follow my line of thinking. Would I like owning a contract less if this info were blacked out? Possibly, as it changes the way that the document existed prior to someone changing it from its original condition, IMHO. I'm sure others would possibly not view it this way, FWIW...

That being said, the world we live in today is a twisted place. If this personal info was available without requiring a huge expenditure of capital, cyber crooks would be all over it.

[Mr. Zipper]

SSNs for deceased is a moot point because they are easily found online at the Social Security Death Index. Anyone with bad intent could easily harvest millions of SSNs from that site alone.

I would not physically alter a document whether the player was alive or not. It seems that digitally obscuring it for any online display would mitigate any real risk of ID theft.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Mr. Zipper

SSNs for deceased is a moot point because they are easily found online at the Social Security Death Index. Anyone with bad intent could easily harvest millions of SSNs from that site alone.

I would not physically alter a document whether the player was alive or not. It seems that digitally obscuring it for any online display would mitigate any real risk of ID theft.

+1

[thecatspajamas]

Another question to consider is that, if you had not already told us that the SSN's are not blacked out, would any of us have expected them to be visible if offered a player's signed W-2 form? As several others have said, it's common knowledge that contracts are often available with the SSN showing, so a collector might be disappointed or less enthusiastic about obtaining one that had it blacked out, assuming that it was some collector who had done it rather than the player or whoever in the club handled the old contract documents.

In this case though, if the collector had never seen any players' W-2 forms offered, would they know that it was ever available with the SSN showing, or just assume that it was blacked out when the document was released to the general collecting public? In other words, if they're not expecting to see the SSN still visible, how would that have any effect on its value to a collector?

Maybe I'm wrong and there's some sort of W-2 Collecting Community that I'm not aware of. Just offering a little more food for thought on the subject.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Another question to consider is that, if you had not already told us that the SSN's are not blacked out, would any of us have expected them to be visible if offered a player's signed W-2 form? As several others have said, it's common knowledge that contracts are often available with the SSN showing, so a collector might be disappointed or less enthusiastic about obtaining one that had it blacked out, assuming that it was some collector who had done it rather than the player or whoever in the club handled the old contract documents.

In this case though, if the collector had never seen any players' W-2 forms offered, would they know that it was ever available with the SSN showing, or just assume that it was blacked out when the document was released to the general collecting public? In other words, if they're not expecting to see the SSN still visible, how would that have any effect on its value to a collector?

Maybe I'm wrong and there's some sort of W-2 Collecting Community that I'm not aware of. Just offering a little more food for thought on the subject.

Lance,
FWIW, I don't think that you are wrong in assuming that there is not a W-2 collecting community lurking in the weeds.

As an advanced baseball player collector of sorts (Nolan Ryan, Johnny Vander Meer, Bob Feller, Walter Johnson, to name a few), finding an oddball item like a W-2 form from one of my focus players would be something that I would be thrilled to add to my collection. I have other friends that are player specialists (Ryan, Cal Ripken, Carlton Fisk, Mark McGwire, Sandy Koufax, etc.) that would be all over an item like this if it became available in the hobby.

It's weird, but believe it or not, I have a few fellow Ryan collector friends that are after a 1979 Nolan Ryan signed gas station receipt and paper route receipt (Nolan age 15) that I own in my collection. Sometimes the most oddball items are the one's that are the most interesting to an advanced collector.

One way of looking at this is that there is probably someone out there that collects everything. It's just a matter of finding the collector that wants what you're peddling as a seller. When you have two or more people interested in the same thing, then it becomes an auction with sometimes interesting results. As a long time seller, you know this way better than most.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

Lance,
FWIW, I don't think that you are wrong in assuming that there is not a W-2 collecting community lurking in the weeds.

One way of looking at this is that there is probably someone out there that collects everything. It's just a matter of finding the collector that wants what you're peddling as a seller. When you have two or more people interested in the same thing, then it becomes an auction with sometimes interesting results. As a long time seller, you know this better than most.

Scott, I wasn't implying that nobody collects such things and therefore nobody would care if the SSN was blacked out or not. What I was trying to suggest was that, when you find that collector of oddball items related to their favorite player, not only will they not care if the SSN is blacked out, but will they even expect it to be otherwise?

I just can't picture a Nolan Ryan collector finding one of his old W-2's with a blacked out SSN and deciding to hold out for one without the black mark, or even assuming that such an unmarred document exists.

Indeed, as a seller, I have learned not to question the whims of collectors. Many a time have I thrown something up for auction hoping to get a single bid and been surprised by two bidders duking it out, and probably just as many times have I started something low that I thought would draw lots of bids and wound up selling it for the opening bid price. You just never know with auctions, and that anticipation as the lots are ending and the final bids are coming in is one of the things that keeps me in the game! (Well, that, and bills to pay )