S74 silks

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Michael Peich

Interesting thread, and thank you for the clarifications Ed and Bob. I hope my Cobb has some value.

Cheers, Mike

Michael,

That is nice Cobb, and probably pretty fairly graded for once. The image is nicely centered and very clear and clean. The color combination of blue ink and a rose/pink material goes together to make a very presentable image as well. I never worry about creases or folds, especially in the colored version silks, as you have to remember these are made of a satin type material (not actual silk) and can easily be ironed perfectly smooth if you wanted to. I often find SGC grading for silks a bit of a mystery though and think they could do a better job and not try to grade on the same basis as baseball cards. I at least give PSA credit for not grading them as they probably wouldn't really know what to use as a basis for grading them and admit they don't know, so they don't grade them.

In the case of your Cobb, you can easily see the substantial fraying at both the top and bottom of the silk, but you can still make out what tobacco brand it is and the factory it came from. It also looks like this may have been removed from something it was previously sewn onto. if you look closely on the right and left hand borders you can see what appears to be a difference in the material on the outer and inner edges, with the outer edges being more creased. And you can almost see some minor imperfections in the silk, which are normally from where the pin holes were for the thread that the silk was sewn onto something with. So think about the fraying like some real severe corner wear on a card, or even missing pieces/edges on the card, and the pin holes in the silk just like pin holes in a card when grading it. Actually I think your silk is technically over graded and should be no higher than a 1 because of the fact it was sewn into something and then removed. Still, the image and colors are really nice and still make for a very presentable Cobb. I would expect someone to want maybe up to a couple hundred or so for it. It is Cobb, and a comparably graded T-205, which has the exact same image on it, would go for a lot more than that still.

People sometimes forget these silks were intended to be used to make blankets, pillows and such with them. I wish a lot of sellers hadn't gone ahead and pulled these items apart in hopes of getting an individual silk that they think would be worth a lot more like that. I think they're much nicer if left like they were originally intended. Nice item though in any event.