Two Baseball Silks Needing Information

[DeeDee]

Is it safe to gently wash and iron these or is it better to sell as is?

[rhettyeakley]

Originally Posted by DeeDee

Is it safe to gently wash and iron these or is it better to sell as is?

Sell as is, don’t mess with them. They came folded in the packs so some bending or folds are expected.

[BobC]

You can gently iron them. i would suggest a towel or other material as a buffer between the silk and the face of the iron. Not so sure about cleaning them. Though they are commonly referred to as 'Silks", the material is described on the backs of the white version silk ads as "Satin". I would definitely not wash them with soap and water in the conventional sense as that would likely lead to fraying. You'll notice that the top of the red silk is definitely starting to fray, which happens very often to the silks over time. The Matter silk fraying has almost started to take out some to the printing, which will effect the value to a collector negatively. Think of it like rounded/missing corners of a conventional card.

The Summers silk displays almost no sign of fraying at the top and bottom, and is how you ideally would like to collect the colored version silks. Because of the fraying on the Mattern silk, i would think the Summers silk is the more valuable of the two, despite the fact that the dark red colored silks are a bit rarer. The dirt/discoloration on the Summers silk will negatively impact the price also but, probably not as much as the fraying.

And like most cards, rarity has a big impact on the value as well. Neither of these common players would be considered very hard to find examples of. Given the market for silks right now, I would tend to think that these two would be closer to the lower end of Rhett's price range he gave you.

I imagine it could be safe to try some type of dry cleaning of a silk but, don't know of anyone ever trying that before, nor what a dry cleaner would likely charge for something like that, if they could do it. Good luck, are you looking to sell these or keep for yourself then?

[DeeDee]

I'm definitely looking to sell them. I was thinking about listing them on eBay. My hubby found them (along with 10 of the starlets in similar condition) in a book he purchased for $.50. Is there any value in the ladies?
DeeDee

[1880nonsports]

unless you have Lillian Russell

[DeeDee]

The only name I recognized (of the few I have)was Louise Dresser. Thanks for your information.
DeeDee

[BobC]

The actress silks are not that valuable or widely collected unfortunately. Take Rhett's earlier estimate for the value of the baseball silks and move the decimal point at least one space to the left I'm afraid.

And as for actresses in the set that you may have heard of, the one actress who is probably the most well known of still today is Billie Burke. Not too many people will know of or have ever seen Lillian Russell in a performance. Almost everyone should know of and have seen Billie Burke perform on screen.

[1880nonsports]

Billie Burke - she's interesting but still a couple bucks. Lillian Russell in this set is RARE and QUITE EXPENSIVE. Agree that Rhett's ballpark is a little ambitious. Rhett however knows a LOT about many things :-).