Does anyone actually have any interest in something like this?

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

What Donruss did on most products from this era was to take pictures, purportedly of the bats from which the slivers were taken and put that on the back of the card. By the way, for the most part "bat cards" have gone the way of the dinosaur in the modern hobby. Only a couple of issues have them inserted at all. Most modern card collectors fall into two themes 1.) "prospect" collectors or 2.) "retro" themed collectors.

But this particular Ty Cobb Card has no such picture on the back side. There is absolutely nothing to differentiate this supposedly "game-used" sliver from that of a store-model bat. The Ty Cobb H&B signature dyes for game-used and store model bats were identical. There is nothing to suggest (much less prove) that this sliver is from a game-used bat.

As further evidence against authenticity of these modern insert cards, there is an excellent thread on the memorabilia side, pertaining to a Ruth/Gehrig signature card. The Ruth is 100% bad, and the Gehrig is very suspect as well... check it out!

Aside form the destructive practice itself (which I personally find deplorable- but to each his own) the authenticity concerns alone would keep me from collecting these moronic and highly contrived "collectibles".

[Orioles1954]

Perezfan, I agree with you. It's all about the willing suspension of unbelief

James

[oldjudge]

My take is that we never truely own these pieces of history. We are just caretakers for some period of time. Perhaps after you pass someone in your family will possess these items, perhaps a museum, perhaps some other person. What your job is, and I truely believe this, when you have possession of these items is to keep them is as good shape (or better) that when you acquired them. Destroying a piece of history in the name of making a buck, and that is all that this is, is a tragedy and crime, not in the legal sense but in the moral sense.

[Rich Klein]

Still prefer "relic" cards in today's world. However, the standard wholesale on most of those modern cards is a whopping $2 per. But they are still considered a cut (so to speak) above common (regular or base or whatever term you use); Parallels (unless really tough or popular) and Standard Inserts (too many to list). When most collectors nowadays talk about "Hits" out of a box they are referring to Autograph or Memorabilia (Bat, jersey, etc.) cards.

Regards
Rich

[barrysloate]

Jay- you said it better than anyone. We are caretakers, and taking a chainsaw to a Ty Cobb bat is doing a rather poor job of it. I rest my case.

[drdduet]

Why not issue a redemption card for the whole bat---I know, I know, economics--they can sliver up the bat hundreds of times. But to keep up integrity (in more ways than one) they could issue a redemption card for the bat and redemptions for "authentic" replicas of it. That way they satisfy "demand" and keep the artifact whole.

I know for sure that I would like to add an authentic wooden replica of a Ty Cobb game used bat to my collection--I would consider that a "hit."

I would like to see them do the same for jerseys and other pieces of the uniform as well--especially period pieces of the games legends. I would value a replica Ruth jersey more than I would a swatch of the real deal. They could even put there logo on it.

[T206Collector]

The economic reason that it is feasible for companies to cut up bats is that collectors don't value complete bats enough. If the value of an unchopped Cobb bat were so high, the company would never have bought it in the first place or chopped it up in the second place. Put another way, the value that the market has put on some artifacts is for them to be in pieces as opposed to whole.

Who is to say that the market hasn't appropriately assigned the differing values between a complete bat and the wood chipped bat that will keep just the right number of game-used Cobb bats in tact?

I blame the demand, not the supply.

What if there were 100,000 Cobb-used bats out there -- would that make a difference? 10,000? 1,000? How many is too few so that they must all be spared? If you say that all Cobb bats should be saved regardless of how many are out there, then I think your view of the historical import of things is a bit skewed. There is no reason that society needs to preserve 1,000 baseball bats that were all swung by the same baseball player.

[cwazzy]

I see both sides of the issue. I would prefer the bat stay in one piece but it's not up to me. I don't consider myself a modern collector but I do have a few St. Louis Cardinals HOF game-used cards. I could never afford an authentic game-used jersey or bat card. But for just a few dollars I can own a card that has pieces of jersey or bat that was used by Stan "The Man" Musial or Red Schoendienst or Bob Gibson. Is it wrong? Maybe. Maybe not. But I enjoy them. It brings me closer to the players that I never got to see play because they were well before my time. They encourage me to do more research into their careers and accomplishments. If these cards bring me enjoyment is it such a bad thing to cut them up. Yes, they may just be 1/10,000 of a whole jersey, but how AWESOME is it to know that the piece of jersey in that card could have been worn when Musial crushed a game winning HR or Schoendienst made a diving stop to save a run from scoring? It's little things like that that make it fun to collect these abominations of the card world.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by drdduet

Why not issue a redemption card for the whole bat---I know, I know, economics--they can sliver up the bat hundreds of times. But to keep up integrity (in more ways than one) they could issue a redemption card for the bat and redemptions for "authentic" replicas of it. That way they satisfy "demand" and keep the artifact whole.

I know for sure that I would like to add an authentic wooden replica of a Ty Cobb game used bat to my collection--I would consider that a "hit."

I would like to see them do the same for jerseys and other pieces of the uniform as well--especially period pieces of the games legends. I would value a replica Ruth jersey more than I would a swatch of the real deal. They could even put there logo on it.

Upper Deck did that in 2000. Each "winner" could not afford the taxes associated with it, were forced to sell, and the bats were re-purchased by card companies and subsuquently pieced out.

[slidekellyslide]

Whatever happened to the days when you bought a box of cards for about $15 and hoped for a Dwight Gooden or Bret Saberhagen rookie card?

Personally I blame Upper Deck.