12 ½” Munsing Union Suit Baseball Player Die cut Signs – Out of Halper Collection

[CarltonHendricks]

This was the first Halper piece I’ve seen resurface, or at least paid any attention to…But of course I’m sure out of all those items lots of stuff must have gotten resold. I’m planning to do a feature on the Munsings at some point so have been digging for more of their history. The eBay seller got them out of a brick and mortar auction I had never heard of named Stair Auctioneers and Appraisers of Hudson N.Y. on April 26th 2013...Less than a month before I won them on eBay May 24th 2013…the seller got them for $425.00. So within a month they more than doubled in value…Good for that seller!

I don’t know the criteria to claim a price collapse but I assume one would rely on some basic appraisal science…I think to establish an estimated value of something professional independent appraisers and appraisers for auction houses use simple documented records of past prices realized for the same given item or similar items. I think it’s just a matter or averaging what an item has sold for in the past…But naturally there would be factors like scope and reach of the past auctions which would affect hammer price…that is, the kind of auction, and how hard they beat the drum, or publicized. Naturally, including an item in an auction along with other related items would usually affect the price outcome.

I’m not certain on this but I would speculate appraisers do not include eBay’s finalized prices when estimating values because of the nature of eBay. There are no catalogs or mail out lists to targeted potential bidders which brick and mortars often use, etc. Although eBay is categorized we all know bidders have to wade thru a lot of junk to make a find. Much of the time people just give up and go do something else with their time. Auction house catalogs on the other hand can be much more targeted to specific kinds of bidders and much easier to navigate and find things in.

My Munsings sold for $2,300.00 in the Halper auction in 1999. Fourteen years later they sold for $423.00 in a brick and mortar…they then sold for $898.00 a month later on eBay….And really that’s only because I happened onto and spotted them…Again, the nature of eBay is that it’s so large, serious bidders can miss stuff and a lucky bidder can score big and get a bargain…I emailed the seller I got them from and asked the viewer count, i.e. how many times the listing was viewed, but still waiting to hear back…would be interesting.

Anyone who hunts for stuff on eBay regularly knows you can’t see it all…All kinds of scenarios can prevent you from finding things…seller lists it poorly with wrong key words in the title…wrong category…doesn’t know what it is, how rare it is, out of their element….etc etc….Plus the fact everyone takes breaks….you get busy….you get burned out…you don’t go on for a while…Right now as I write this….there is probably something listed that I would get seriously excited about…but I may never even see it…because eBay is just so big you can’t see it all….

Given all that, in my opinion, to proclaim a price collapse of the Munsings would be a very large and questionable conclusion. From what I’ve read there are ill feelings about faked stuff that was allegedly in the Halper collection….and rightly so. However I would ask what percentage of the collection was misrepresented…I would speculate a small one.

I’m not interested in moving them but if I were…put them in one of the big four….REA, Hunt, Leland’s, or Legendary…where they would be in the right sports memorabilia theater…then if they didn’t do well then talk to me about a price collapse…. And speaking of sound appraisal…see the bottom photo in my initial post of this thread … a single batter from the set sold five years after the Halper auction for $464.00 in REA in 2006…

In closing I would urge discretion when discussing the value of items. Or if you don’t care to use discretion...back up what you say with valid criteria…I say this particularly since I’ve received interest from this thread to buy them even though I disclosed what I paid…