Should Beckett be grading these paper cut outs?

[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..

[Fred]

I'll call it going 65 in a 55.... 58, really???

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by novakjr

I don't have too much of a problem with it. Aside from the fact that it probably encourages cutting up the guides.

To some of us that is more than an "Aside", and you can remove the word "probably".

[peterb69]

It does sadden me that somebody ripped out the page from a guide just to try and make a buck (this case many bucks).

Beckett should have notated that is is a "page from" the guide.

But I don't like that the seller calls the item a "card" in the description.

[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.)

[Clutch-Hitter]

What if it was in a PSA holder?

[tschock]

The only minor quibble I have with both the Beckett authentication and the listing is that it is not a guide but a page from the guide. I would like to see Beckett add "Page" at the end of their description on the first line of text on the slab. Similarly for the seller listing the piece. It is not a "card" but a "page" from the guide. Other than that minor point, I don't think there is any deception of misrepresentation of what it is. (I know, that wasn't the original question/concern)

I have a problem "destroying" complete books, but don't have (as much) of a problem pulling pages from incomplete material. So if the guide was already in pieces, pages missing or eaten, etc, I can stomach the removal of additional pages a bit more. Though my "problem" with this directly proportional to the scarcity of an item.

[Clutch-Hitter]

So somebody could send this to Beckett for cross-over:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JOE-JACKSON-...item2c6394d8e6

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by tschock

The only minor quibble I have with both the Beckett authentication and the listing is that it is not a guide but a page from the guide. I would like to see Beckett add "Page" at the end of their description on the first line of text on the slab. Similarly for the seller listing the piece. It is not a "card" but a "page" from the guide. Other than that minor point, I don't think there is any deception of misrepresentation of what it is. (I know, that wasn't the original question/concern)

I have a problem "destroying" complete books, but don't have (as much) of a problem pulling pages from incomplete material. So if the guide was already in pieces, pages missing or eaten, etc, I can stomach the removal of additional pages a bit more. Though my "problem" with this directly proportional to the scarcity of an item.

Yes, card in the seller description is the only problem I see. But, I would not buy it.

Joe

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by 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.)

You are right. Chopping up a Ty Cobb bat and selling the splinters as part of a card also makes that bat more accessible. In fact, why don't we just do that with EVERY collectible? We could chop up all the T206 Honus Wagner cards while we're at it.

...in a perfect world where I owned all the scissors

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Runscott

You are right. Chopping up a Ty Cobb bat and selling the splinters as part of a card also makes that bat more accessible. In fact, why don't we just do that with EVERY collectible? We could chop up all the T206 Honus Wagner cards while we're at it.

...in a perfect world where I owned all the scissors

I'm also against cutting up stuff to "make it more accessible" That's never made sense to me.
I'd love to own a Ty Cobb bat someday. It will probably never happen.
I'd be ok with owning a Ty Cobb bat card. And could probably get one if I wanted it. But I don't think my level of excitement would be anywhere near finding a whole bat that I could afford.

The flip side is stuff that's already in really bad condition. Like maybe a Cobb bat that spent a few decades in the basement of barn that flooded regularly.

As far as books and magazines go, I bought a bunch of magazines from the former publisher of a nostalgia magazine. He also did a whole book of collected christmas stories and art from the same magazines. Some of what I got were in decent condition, others had been cut up already to make the book and magazines.
There's also a bunch of partial magazines. I'm not really all that against cutting up a magazine that had no covers when he got it and then had an article and a couple ads cut out years before I got it.
One of them sells for about $3 in nice condition. But the ad from 1920 specifically aimed at winning the womens vote sold for something like 20-30.
(If you want a bunch of stuff like that just Email me and I'll make you a great deal)

And the batch of stuff he had, thousands of magazines, rotogravure sections, and books. aside from the roto sections the only bit of sports stuff was a spalding guide cover. Just the cover, and in poor condition at that. I looked for hours for the rest of it

Steve B

[sbfinley]

Originally Posted by Runscott

You are right. Chopping up a Ty Cobb bat and selling the splinters as part of a card also makes that bat more accessible. In fact, why don't we just do that with EVERY collectible? We could chop up all the T206 Honus Wagner cards while we're at it.

...in a perfect world where I owned all the scissors

That is a fair argument. In return I would argue that two are far from same in scope. A Spalding Guide, while still very much a part of the hobby's history, is minimal in magnitude. A bat once swung by Ty Cobb, used as a weapon to procure base hits by the most intense character to every play the game, is a relic of the game in its finest sense and should be preserved for the prosperity of the game's history. Collectors have entire runs of Spalding Guides resting on dusty shelves that are but a footnote of their entire collection. Collectors that own a personal artifact from Cobb, Ruth, or Gehrig know that it an important part of the history of baseball. Everything is relative, find me a dealer that will trade a Cobb gamer for a few paperbacks and I'm first in line.