Spalding, Reach and other cut outs sold on our BST

[MW1]

Absolutely no. Cutouts should not be allowed to be sold either her or on eBay for two compelling reasons:

1. A "cut out" picture is an alteration of the original page it come from. Like an altered sports card, it should not be given a numerical grade, much less encapsulated at all (see below).

2. "Cut outs" are typically produced on thin paper and usually involve rudimentary printing methods. As such, they would be much easier to counterfeit or duplicate than actual sports cards. Allowing these types of items to be sold is like opening Pandora's box. If there's a legitimate demand for such things, collectors would be better off buying the publication and doing the cutting themselves. Sports cards that were produced to be collected and traded are an entirely different entity than paper cut-outs. It's like the difference between a studio portrait and a polaroid.

Edited to add:

I have one other thought on this subject. Many of the cut-outs, particularly those from Spalding and other similar baseball guides, are usually seen in graded holders of some kind. If cut-outs were a legitimate, stand-alone collectible, you would see similar quantities available for sale that were "raw" or ungraded. But you don't. That, to me, is clear evidence that there is an effort on the part of sellers to deceive and that cut-outs themselves, are a contrived collectible.