Mark Rucker Book and Ephemera Collection to be Auctioned

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Posted By: barrysloate

BASEBALL PHOTOGRAPH, BOOK AND EPHEMERA AUCTION. Mark Rucker is de-accessioning a large group of baseball photos, books, and ephemera in an auction in early March. He is raising capital to work on a number of publishing projects that are uncompleted. The auction items will be coupled with golf collectibles through PBA Galleries, aka Pacific Book Auctions.

A catalog can be requested through their website, www.pbagalleries.com or by phone toll free at 866-999-7224 or by mail at PBA Galleries / 133 Kearny St. / San Francisco, CA 94108.

The auction will CLOSE ON MARCH 6th, and will be live in SF, by phone, mail or on the web through ebay. There is lots of material to be sold, so if you can view the materials in person, the advantage will be yours.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Barry thanks for the heads up- great stuff

I am wondering what you think about the estimates- to me they simply don't make that much sense- for example the H book of Harvard athletics, which can be bought on abe for $65, has a 300 high estimate while other books seem to have estimates that are way to low

Jason

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Posted By: barrysloate

Haven't even gone on the website yet. Mark just asked me to post this for him. I will try to check it out later tonight.

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Posted By: Joseph

I realize there would be any number of reasons why Rucker chose this venue and I am
aware of PBA Galleries prominence in the area of books and manuscripts, but, frankly, this is the first I've heard of this sale.

Thanks, Barry, for bringing it to our attention.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Does anyone know if Transcendental Graphics is Mark Rucker??? And if so are those some of the baseball photos that will be sold?

There are some Nebraska Indians photos that have appeared in print that are attributed to Transcendental Graphics and I would dearly love to get hold of them.

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Posted By: Joseph

Yes, TG, is Mark Rucker.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I believe Mark has a good relationship with this book company and decided to go with them. Actually, he and I spoke about it earlier but I didn't feel I had the right client base for this kind of collection. A rare book auction house has a better reach.

There are a lot of interesting sounding group lots but you really do need to go and look at them, something which I won't be able to do. A few of the lots do have high estimates but they are just that, estimates. Should be a good sale. There are some choice books in there.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Yes Dan, that is Mark's company but it is not clear that he is selling everything. I asked him to follow this thread and respond to questions, I hope that he comes on and does so. I'll shoot him an email and let him know he has some.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Yes, if he is in the mood to sell off some of his photos I would love the Nebraska Indian baseball team photos he has....I hope they are not buried in some lot that I will have no shot at.

edited to add: "Baseball team" because I know that Mark has Native American photos of all types in his collection as well and I don't want to cause confusion if he reads this thread.

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Posted By: mark rucker

Greetings, everyone.
Nice to be with you again. To answer some of your questions, I should first say that my company Transcendental Graphics is NOT closing. We are de-accessioning some materials in order to fund other projects that have been languishing. Among these are the Baseball History Through Photography book, that we have discussed in the recent past.
I chose PBA galleries because of their book expertise, their ability to accept lots with values of less than $1000., and because the timing was right to couple the sale with a golf collection they were scheduling.
We will see if my decision was a good one.
As for the estimates being high or low, I must admit I left the pricing of the books entirely to them. They have the expertise in that field, and research sales histories that I cannot access. I believe that the low estimate per lot is twice the reserve, so all lots should start reasonably. They may have cataloged books that they have no record for, and thus do not know proper values, but I have yet to check that out.

I appreciate your interest. I hope you will see that all the publications and images for sale were selected for their visual qualities and historical importance. Virtually all the pubs contain important images, some of which can be found no where else.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Mark, how does your company work? Is it possible to obtain copies of photos you have? I have seen two Nebraska Indian baseball team photos attributed to TG in a magazine called 108 (RIP) and I would like to get copies of them.