Modifications to Vintage Baseball Card Sets' Year(s) of Issue

[bcbgcbrcb]

As everyone on the board knows, there have been a number of threads lately addressing the need to update/correct year(s) of issue for a number of vintage baseball card sets. Eventually each topic will "fall off the radar" as new posts are entered and my question is what will ultimately come out of all of our meaningful discussions and insight regarding each of these sets?

Would everyone agree that the Standard Catalogue of BB Cards put out by Krause Publications and updated each year is the most widely accepted "bible" currently used in the vintage baseball card hobby? If so, the board should make every effort possible to get the pertinent sets' "new" Year(s) of issue to Bob Lemke so that this information can be updated on an annual basis. I believe that it is one of Bob's primary objectives to ensure that the annual catalogue is as accurate and up-to-date as humanly possible.

The second part to this issue pretains to the grading companies, which have a major, major impact on the hobby these days. Each of the three major grading companies maintains an extensive database of pop reports which obviously contain baseball card sets' year(s) of issue. As we continue to discover through extensive research, etc. that some of these issue dates are not accurate, I believe that it is critical for the grading companies to mirror any updates that would make for more accuracy within the hobby. Of course, the question is "how to do this" when so many cards have already been slabbed with "old" year(s) of issue dates and already exist in their databases that way. I guess the two options are to continue using the old dates without making any changes or from "some point in time going forward", a sets' "new" year(s) of issue would be identified on both the grading label as well as the database for pop reports. The main drawback to this would, of course, be that each card in the set would appear as two different line items on their pop report.

How do others feel about this topic and is there a better way to implement the new information that many have worked so hard to uncover?

[barrysloate]

One set that the grading company ignores date of issue is the N172 Old Judges. All labels read 1887, when in fact the cards were issued over a period of four years. But do you think it is necessary for them to learn the different styles so that they could distinguish an 1887 card from an 1888? It would be nice, but I would rather they spent the extra time examining the cards.

I think the Krause Standard Catalog should make every effort to get the years correct, without exception, since collectors use the book regularly as a reference. It wouldn't hurt if the grading companies followed suit, but it may not be as important for them.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Good points, Barry.

Either the range of years (1887-90) for the Old Judges or specific year of issue (usually possible to determine in most cases) would better the current 1887 designation given all Old Judges.

For the real hard core Rookie Card collectors like myself, analyzing the cards for specific year(s) of issue, whenever possible, is very important for the collector if not the grading companies. However the individuals at the grading companies who would be responsible for making specific year(s) of issue designations would likely not be the same individual grading the cards so neither person would really have to alter the focus of their job in order to make their product more accurate.

As Barry stated, this topic would be even more prominent for the Standard Catalogue to update (including specific years of issue for the Old Judges) than the grading companies.

[barrysloate]

Phil- as you know, determining the date of issue of some of the more obscure early cards can be difficult.

Take the Reccius Wagner, for example (please take it!). How would you like to be the grader who has to determine what date to put on the label? That would entail more grief than one would want to deal with.

[ErikV]

Phil,

I personally like the idea of knowing when certain sets were issued.
Any form of research I think not only benefits the hobby (current
and future collectors alike), but perhaps more importantly, it provides
an accurate timeline of what was taking place at the time of the sets'
issue. Here's a couple of examples (an earlier post regarding the
E107 issue. 1903 was when the American League was established
and the first World Series took place. Another example would be
the 1933 Goudey set. At that time Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the
Yankees were American icons, thus, each player had a number of
cards issued in that set.) I believe what it comes down to is that
for any given set, there is a general theme as to what was
occurring in baseball. I think as time has passed, these themes
have been long been forgotten by most collectors who simply collect
to compile a set, player, team, Hall of Famers, etc!

As for the Standard Calatog, I think it would be remiss not to
place an accurate date on a set, IF an accurate date could be
determined. It would be no less a disservice to the hobby not to
include a new find such as the Skydash Jim Thorpe Colgan Chip
to this set, as to not include a newly discovered publish date.

In terms of grading companies, that's a whole different issue.
Many issues such as the ones you brought up would be big
problems. There again, what about cards that have been historically
accepted as being one year and through research are determined
to be wrong. (One example of this is the 1933 Goudey #106
Nap Lajoie, which was actually issued in 1934!) Would the hobby
accept this new publish date? I rather doubt it. Again, I would
hope the movers and shakers of the hobby embrace all new info
discovered by researchers, but only time will tell.

ErikV

[barrysloate]

I think the hobby could deal with a reassessment of the date of issue if it's clear there was an error made.

The N28 set is a good example. It has always been assumed it was issued in 1887, yet until recently nobody made the simple observation that John Clarkson didn't join Boston until 1888. I can live with the date 1888 on that set.

[Jim VB]

I would always side with accuracy over tradition when it comes to dating a set.

Use the US Caramel set as an example. It has long been listed as a 1932 issue, but it can be shown to be a 1933 issue. I realize that changing the accepted date on the set will make an awful lot of slabs inaccurate. But if new information comes to light, the "facts" as we all thought we knew them should change also.

The subsequent data bases should also be changed, and if that means double listing, I'm OK with that.

What about the old slabs? I don't care.

[barrysloate]

The only time it might get tricky is when a date is changed, and a card assumed to be a player's rookie card loses that status. Who would want to pay a big premium for a rookie only to discover it was actually the player's third card?

[Jim VB]

But, in this case, the truth is, it already is the players third card. Nothing has really changed. If it's been classified wrong and it isn't changed, then we're acknowledging that we catalog them only for financial purposes, not historical.

[bcbgcbrcb]

One other thing to consider is the advantage that an on-line baseball card catalogue/database such as the ones maintained by OldCardboard and VCP have in that they can update all of their information at a moment's notice as they are not limited to a once-a-year time frame for updates. It appears that this concept is really the wave of the future (and maybe even the present with blackberries, etc.).

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

One other thing to consider is the advantage that an on-line baseball card catalogue/database such as the ones maintained by OldCardboard and VCP have in that they can update all of their information at a moment's notice as they are not limited to a once-a-year time frame for updates. It appears that this concept is really the wave of the future (and maybe even the present with blackberries, etc.).

No doubt. But it is very hard to keep internet updates long-term. History has to dictate something more concrete, otherwise we lose so much information.

When I was researching the 1966 unreleased Beach Boys album "Smile" during the early years of the internet, tons of new information was emerging from inside the walls of the long-closed Beach Boys world. In many instances throughout my life, I have just thought such information would always be available and I did nothing, but in this instance, I must pat myself on the back for printing out literally hundreds of pages from emails and internet sites now long-gone.

And I suggest that that will be the same with much of this baseball card knowledge should nothing concrete find its way into libraries.

[barrysloate]

Didn't Brian Wilson release "Smile" just a few years ago?

[Brian-Chidester]

Not to derail, but, yes and no. He did not release it as it was originally recorded during the psychedelic era. He re-recorded everything and released it as a 2004 solo album.

The original tapes remain unreleased.

I was a writer and researcher on a documentary about the album produced by Showtime in 2004, but the film was more of an homage to Brian Wilson's efforts to finish it than a true look at its place in the context of '60s counter-culture.

Anyway, with regards to baseball card info online, I think it is an excellent resource for the collector. You can type any question into a search engine and get answers quickly and pretty accurately. That helps immensely in the process of buying and selling. However, long-term information pertaining to a card's history must be printed in some format that can be collected by a library or historian.

I enjoy web information tremendously, and count on it to make decisions about purchasing. But since I don't plan on writing a book about cards anytime soon, I rarely print anything from the internet out. I suppose it's up to those who are writing or documenting any one subject to take the time and weed through the internet information, and to document what they consider important new information about cards.