Should Beckett be grading these paper cut outs?

[danmckee]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPER-RARE-1...item4170cb7db4

I have a real problem with this. Now we have a legit company grading pages cut out of periodicals. That guy in Hawaii who started this was destroyed on this board years ago. I believe it was NASA grading and AAA?

I think to have a legit company slabbing pages from a periodical is just sending a bad message.

Your thoughts?

[bn2cardz]

You said grading, but it is just authenticated. So they are only saying it is an authentic page from a book.

If they started numerical grades I would agree with you.

[honus94566]

It doesn't have a numerical grade, just a slab to say it is authentic and not a copy. I don't have a problem with it whatsoever.

Grading companies aren't bound by anything. They can listen to their customers and do whatever they want to make their customers happy and grow their business.

[Bored5000]

I saw that listing last night, and looked up on Google what it was. I was actually able to find the auction where this piece previously sold. You can tell the collecting world has little respect for this piece when a playing era Shoeless Joe item sells for less than half the $625 the seller is asking for a minimum bid.

[Leon]

As I said in our email, I have absolutely no issue at all with it. Why anyone would, I don't know. It is labeled correctly. It is not for me but like I said Dan.....if you pick a cig butt up off of the ground and sell it as a cig butt off of the ground, and someone wants to pay for it, why should anyone care? They are a grading and authentication company. That is what they are doing. So, I politely disagree with you.

[triwak]

I'm not a big fan of this either. Encourages people to damage historical items, not intended to be torn apart. Also encourages attempts at misrepresenting items as "cards" to newbies.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by triwak

I'm not a big fan of this either. Encourages people to damage historical items, not intended to be torn apart. Also encourages attempts at misrepresenting items as "cards" to newbies.

+1 Not sure how others in the hobby could not understand this, but if you don't have an appreciation for old books I guess it's possible.

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by triwak

I'm not a big fan of this either. Encourages people to damage historical items, not intended to be torn apart. Also encourages attempts at misrepresenting items as "cards" to newbies.

Agree completely. If this photograph were issued as a single sheet then I would have no problem with Beckett slabbing it.

But because this practice encourages the destruction of the limited number of Spalding and Reach Guides that are still in existence, I hate it.

Edited to add you can buy an intact 1909 Spalding Guide for around $100-150, depending on condition. Why a single page is worth five times that amount is a bit of a mystery.

[Fred]

This just goes to show how crazy this hobby is becoming...

You could take a Spalding Guide (over 100+ pages) cut out each page and have a butt load of slabs made from one book. This does a couple of things, first off it destroys a perfectly good Spalding Guide, second it allows the yahoo to pull a page with Joe Jackson on it and try to get hundreds of dollars for it. I guess, overall, we may see more and more perfectly fine books being destroyed in order to pull the page with Joe Jackson on it. Next they'll be looking for pages of magazines with Fatty Arbuckle or Jimmy Claxton...

For now, we could all go looking for that particular Spalding Guide and buy it for less than the cost of that slabbed page....

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Fred

This just goes to show how crazy this hobby is becoming...

You could take a Spalding Guide (over 100+ pages) cut out each page and have a butt load of slabs made from one book. This does a couple of things, first off it destroys a perfectly good Spalding Guide, second it allows the yahoo to pull a page with Joe Jackson on it and try to get hundreds of dollars for it.

There is no "trying" to get hundreds of dollars about it. The same item previously sold for $298 last year. I am not an expert on Spalding Guides, but don't entire Spalding books sell for significantly less than this one page out of the book?

https://monthly.scpauctions.com/LotD...px?lotid=18691

[danmckee]

Originally Posted by honus94566

It doesn't have a numerical grade, just a slab to say it is authentic and not a copy. I don't have a problem with it whatsoever.

Grading companies aren't bound by anything. They can listen to their customers and do whatever they want to make their customers happy and grow their business.

Grading companies aren't bound by anything? They can just do whatever they want? WOW! I completely misunderstood what their purpose is then.

[ullmandds]

I also am fine with authentic...not all that different from a page out of a significant comic book...I guess? Do they even grade those? I'd guess they do!

A number grade I'd have a problem with.

[danmckee]

I can't read the flip, does it state an authentic page from a book or magazine? I guess that wouldn't be too bad then a new collector would understand they were only getting a small piece of a full item.

Ok looks like I am way off base here. Maybe NASA grading should come back.

[Matthew H]

It's in a slab so it's a card now... You can't call it a page anymore.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by danmckee

I can't read the flip, does it state an authentic page from a book or magazine? I guess that wouldn't be too bad then a new collector would understand they were only getting a small piece of a full item.

Ok looks like I am way off base here. Maybe NASA grading should come back.

It only says "Spalding Guide" on it Dan. I don't think you are way off at all and I definitely see your arguments. Like I said too, there is just so many other things to combat that are so much worse. It's like a cop getting someone for going 58 mph in a 55 mph zone, to me.

[novakjr]

I don't have too much of a problem with it. Aside from the fact that it probably encourages cutting up the guides. I have a handful of these type of pages(only one slabbed). They can be great, for players that you otherwise may not be able to find something of. Like Sockalexis on the 1902 Lowell page, and the Moonlight Graham on the 1907 Scranton page. I also have one of the 1894 Cleveland team that used many of the JUST SO photos(it's a great item for Young and Burkett). Do I like that they've been cut out? NO! They make for some nice smaller display pieces though..

[sbfinley]

I own a couple of these. As a full time student, it is an affordable way for me to acquire and display a period piece of players such as Ed Delehanty or the famed 1890's Baltimore squad. I can understand Dan's displeasure about destroying an intact item in this manner, but as a counter argument it affords collectors without a major budget an avenue to 19th century players and teams. (The price of that New Orleans page, however, is ridiculous.)