Who is grading these, and should they be?

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Posted By: Jason

During my weekly ebay searches I often come accross items which seem to sold only by as seller called MSA sports which seem to be nothing more then cut up spalding and reach guide pages put into slabs and sold for seeeming high prices. (sorry I don't know how to link to ebay but just seach by seller and you will see what I mean. First does anyone know anything about what grading company is doing this and secondly what is the general view of whether these are legitmiate collectibles. I have always been fairly put off the prices and would like to hear others thoughts

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Posted By: Phil Garry

I have inquired with one of the sellers recently and was told that it is a fairly new company located in Hawaii and they grade cut-outs just like you describe. Since a lot of the old baseball booklets that these cut-outs originate from can be purchased for around $100.00 or a little more, I don't think $30 - $40 for individual photos/pages is a very good deal since many issues contain over 100 photos.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Do you think that the buyers realize what they are buying?

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's not a recognized grading company.

My understanding is the seller buys numerous old guides, cuts the pictures up himself, puts them in screwdown holders, and the prints up an official looking label. It is deceptive and it makes his product look a lot more important than it really is. I don't know who buys these cutouts, but I guess somebody does.

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Posted By: dennis

this is the sellers own grading company.they are not cards and sellers who list this in the vintage section are duping non educated buyers. ebay has a paper cut-out section for these rip-offs.this stuff is worth-less.

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Posted By: Jason

Is this the kind of activity that ebay would stop or is this just buyer beware?

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Are they suggesting the items are something other than paper cut-outs, or are they just marketing it in a way that makes the items seem more desirable than they truly are?

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Posted By: barrysloate

I don't think ebay can stop him because there is a gray area here. If you cut a picture out of a 1907 guide, no matter what you call it it is still vintage and it is still genuinely 100 years old. So he may have found a way to bypass any check ebay might put on him, and that's assuming they even care in the first place.

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Posted By: Jason

It is more what they do not say rather then what they do, there is no mention that this is a cut out from a guide instead it is called a 90 year old paper collectible with baseball writing on the back- which i quess is true short of

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Posted By: dennis

use the search posts function at the top of this site---roy huff---liberty for all

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Posted By: davidcycleback

A standard recommendation for beginning collectors is to buy a Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards or Beckett Almanac and only buy cards listed in that. Obviously, cut out book pictures aren't listed in either publication.

The sellers of these worthless cutouts have been on eBay for years. eBay doesn't do anything about it, so it's up to collectors to educate themselves. Obviously the sellers are both unkind and deceptive through vagueness-- however, it's not against eBay rules to sell cut out pictures and book pages. If they were vaguely selling counterfeit Vuitton hand bags, you could have the sellers banned permanently.

My cardinal rule for collectors brand new to any area is to not spend much money on an item, for example $25 or under on a baseball card. That way, even if you make the most stupid, embarrassing to admit, obviously fake at 50 meters to a mole with shampoo in its eyes purchase, you're only out a few bucks.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Amen to all above.

I get mad when I see the listings. Some unfortunate person occasionally buys one of the cut outs.

There are two tragedies to this mess... one, a potential collector / newcomer to our fine hobby gets burned and discontinues the hobby. And two, a good guidebook or recordbook ends up mutilated into pieces. And the really good part of the book, the printed stats, is probably trashed.

I recall seeing individual pages from Speed Johnson's fine Who's Who book offered on eBay some time back. Most guys were $10 each. More for stars, much more for big stars. It is a wonderful book, shame to see it broken up.

Map collecting is another of my hobbies. Most of the old maps come from from an old atlas. I'm talking 400 years old, or so. I like the old maps, but it still troubles me that once the were part of a fine book, that has now been cut apart or separated.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Frank- I'm with you all the way, and one of the new phenomena in the collecting world is that great relics that have survived for a century or more are gradually being torn up into smaller pieces. It's happening in a number of collecting fields, and it's primarily due to the high cost of collectibles. It's sad, no doubt, but I think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.