New Helmar series--highly unusual--your thoughts?

[oldjudge]

Charles, there is a big difference between a vintage card and a recently created Cinderella item. If my choice is the Cinderella card or a nice photograph in a book I will always go with the book. And thank you for the blessing.

[sirraffles]

I understand that you use the word "Cinderella" as a pejorative.

Just out of curiosity I'd be interested to know exactly what the difference is. Is it because the players are retired or even deceased? You're aware that many, many examples of manufacturers including players such as this are found throughout card history. The Goudey Lajoie is just one example. Is it because the Helmar cards are not that old? They will be, and before any of us would like.

I'm definitely not referring to you here but often it is apparent that my detractors voice absolutely silly logic and approach the entire conversation with a serious chip on their shoulders. Sometimes I find it hard not to reply in kind.

I've wondered about this from time to time. These collectors act as though the mere fact that I make wonderful cards personally threatens and insults them. Newsflash: I make cards to make myself feel good, not to make anyone else feel bad. But the fact remains that some collectors respond to my cards as if they are a vague but real threat to their own collections, collections that they have invested heavily in and have painstakingly built from scratch. These collectors do not seem to understand that Helmar cards do not detract in any way from cards made in the past. Yes, my new card of Joe Schmoe might well sell for more money than your 100 year old card of Joe Schmoe...but the old Schmoe card does not suffer. I'm sorry if that makes you mad or jealous but the fact is that Helmar brings more attention to the old Schmoe card and helps support a market for it. I know for a fact that collectors that have come back through Helmar have gone on to once more purchase older cards. You're welcome.

The hobby is much smaller than it was for a lot of complicated (and not complicated) reasons. Helmar is not one of them on any level. I have gotten many, many guys that have written saying that they have started collecting again because of Helmar. Some had quit because they thought card prices had reached stupid and unreachable levels for their budgets. Most, I think, say they quit because the hobby was simply not fun anymore. I make it fun again for them and I am honored to do so. I take my small role seriously. My name is Charles Mandel and I place it here because it is the rule.

[oldjudge]

I used the term Cinderella to describe a card made to appear like a vintage card, but simply being a modern creation. In answer to your question, I have no fear that your creations will directly impact what I collect. I collect photographic cards and there is no mistaking the difference. What i do fear is that some new people to the hobby might confuse your cards with vintage cards and unknowingly purchase them. I think you could go a long way to avoid this by putting the date of their printing on the back of the card. As to comparing your cards to the Lajoie, the Lajoie was a tribute card issued as part of a set of players then currently playing. Those players received payment for their images being used on the cards. Do you pay the families of the players whose images appear on your cards?

[sirraffles]

Is your question of royalties supposed to be your zinger? The ultimate test of what is and what is not a card? Laughable. If you collect early photographic cards then you already know that virtually every one of the cards in your early collection did not pay royalties. Will you now get rid of them? We'll have to consider them illegitimate and I'm sure that you'd like to be consistent in your philosophy. Sadly they are fading into nothingness anyway. I wonder what a blank Cinderella card will sell for? In my case the families of the players are among the best customers that I have. Literally hundreds of family members have Helmar cards and consider them heirlooms. Regarding Lajoie: the fact also remains that he was retired, probably not paid, and was a "Cinderella" card as per your own tortured logic. It will come as a disappointment to many that it, along with thousands of others from the early days until the present, are not real cards. Your fear of new people buying Helmar cards and somehow being swindled is silly at best. Our cards often sell for more than vintage anyway. You make a decisive error if you are conflating our cards with reprints. I agree that reprints are a danger. Better that we all just look at nice pictures in books. Charles Mandel.

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by sirraffles

Is your question of royalties supposed to be your zinger? The ultimate test of what is and what is not a card? Laughable. If you collect early photographic cards then you already know that virtually every one of the cards in your early collection did not pay royalties. Will you now get rid of them? We'll have to consider them illegitimate and I'm sure that you'd like to be consistent in your philosophy. Sadly they are fading into nothingness anyway. I wonder what a blank Cinderella card will sell for? In my case the families of the players are among the best customers that I have. Literally hundreds of family members have Helmar cards and consider them heirlooms. Regarding Lajoie: the fact also remains that he was retired, probably not paid, and was a "Cinderella" card as per your own tortured logic. It will come as a disappointment to many that it, along with thousands of others from the early days until the present, are not real cards. Your fear of new people buying Helmar cards and somehow being swindled is silly at best. Our cards often sell for more than vintage anyway. You make a decisive error if you are conflating our cards with reprints. I agree that reprints are a danger. Better that we all just look at nice pictures in books. Charles Mandel.

My, haven't you gotten defensive. When the only way you can make an argument is by twisting the other party's words it is probably better to fade quietly into the background. BTW, that was a long answer to simply say that you are not paying for player images.

[sirraffles]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

My, haven't you gotten defensive. When the only way you can make an argument is by twisting the other party's words it is probably better to fade quietly into the background. BTW, that was a long answer to simply say that you are not paying for player images.

I wasn't twisting your words at all; you have no answer. On the images I have the blessings of many of the families, all that I've had contact with. They are pleased to purchase the cards the same way everyone else does, at auction.

But perhaps I am irritable today. I came to the board earlier today to see if I could find someone to contact about a grouping of 57 T206 cards. They were offered to a Helmar collector and he wanted my opinion. They are in horrible shape. Anyway, when I logged on I found that I was being blamed for making that replica Hassan sign that is the subject of a thread or two. How irritating! How smug the accusations! Why even think of me in relation to that madness?

Of all the Old Judge cards out there, I hope that yours fade the last. Charles Mandel

[ejharrington]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

My, haven't you gotten defensive. When the only way you can make an argument is by twisting the other party's words it is probably better to fade quietly into the background. BTW, that was a long answer to simply say that you are not paying for player images.

I read this whole post as I enjoy the look of the Helmar cards and, in response to the original post, really like the look of this card. For the record, I don't own any and never have bought any. I will say, if he is on the defensive it is because he and/or his product was being disparaged. Eric Harrington

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ejharrington

I read this whole post as I enjoy the look of the Helmar cards and, in response to the original post, really like the look of this card. For the record, I don't own any and never have bought any. I will say, if he is on the defensive it is because he and/or his product was being disparaged. Eric Harrington

+1. Don't own any and never have, but I really like them.

People will pay crazy prices for a Diamond Gold Foil Refractor Titanium card of a modern prospect who may never make it to his second contract in the big leagues.

I have no problem with somebody paying a premium for a modern fantasy art card of Josh Gibson or Tris Speaker, where a lot of thought and creativity actually went into the creation of it.

It's pretty easy to do a cursury search of these things to find out if they are modern or not. Considering the actual fraud going on in this hobby, as evidenced by the T206 autograph scandal going on at this moment that duped many very experienced collectors on this very board for years, I'd say this is almost the least of the hobbies worries.........

[rats60]

Originally Posted by sirraffles

Is your question of royalties supposed to be your zinger? The ultimate test of what is and what is not a card? Laughable. If you collect early photographic cards then you already know that virtually every one of the cards in your early collection did not pay royalties. Will you now get rid of them? We'll have to consider them illegitimate and I'm sure that you'd like to be consistent in your philosophy. Sadly they are fading into nothingness anyway. I wonder what a blank Cinderella card will sell for? In my case the families of the players are among the best customers that I have. Literally hundreds of family members have Helmar cards and consider them heirlooms. Regarding Lajoie: the fact also remains that he was retired, probably not paid, and was a "Cinderella" card as per your own tortured logic. It will come as a disappointment to many that it, along with thousands of others from the early days until the present, are not real cards. Your fear of new people buying Helmar cards and somehow being swindled is silly at best. Our cards often sell for more than vintage anyway. You make a decisive error if you are conflating our cards with reprints. I agree that reprints are a danger. Better that we all just look at nice pictures in books. Charles Mandel.

What is your evidence? We know as early as 1909 that ATC was signing players to contracts and paying them for images. Honus Wagner famously refused to sign a contract resulting in his card being pulled from production. Many sets from this era are missing the biggest names in the game (no t207 Ty Cobb, no t204 Christy Mathewson, etc.). If there was no need to pay players for their images, then why weren't they included in every set? Goudeys, Delongs, Diamond Stars and Play Balls all carry copyrights. Again, why wasn't Babe Ruth (and the other big stars) included in every set if you didn't need to pay to use his image? We know that the 1949 Leaf set signed players to individual contracts, resulting in confusion over the year the cards were released. We know that in the 50s, Topps and Bowman fought to sign players in their sets. So, at least since 1909, it has been a standard that card companies get the rights to players images when issuing cards.

In the 1980s, a photographer named Broder issued a set of unlicensed cards resulting in a wave of other unlicensed cards. This resulted in a lot of controversy and resulted in many card show promoters banning the sale of these cards by dealers setting up at their shows. So, for ~30 years the hobby has recognized the issues with unlicensed cards. So again, what is your evidence that "virtually every card in your collection" is unlicensed?

[sirraffles]

Originally Posted by rats60

What is your evidence? We know as early as 1909 that ATC was signing players to contracts and paying them for images. Honus Wagner famously refused to sign a contract resulting in his card being pulled from production. Many sets from this era are missing the biggest names in the game (no t207 Ty Cobb, no t204 Christy Mathewson, etc.). If there was no need to pay players for their images, then why weren't they included in every set? Goudeys, Delongs, Diamond Stars and Play Balls all carry copyrights. Again, why wasn't Babe Ruth (and the other big stars) included in every set if you didn't need to pay to use his image? We know that the 1949 Leaf set signed players to individual contracts, resulting in confusion over the year the cards were released. We know that in the 50s, Topps and Bowman fought to sign players in their sets. So, at least since 1909, it has been a standard that card companies get the rights to players images when issuing cards.

In the 1980s, a photographer named Broder [snip] So again, what is your evidence that "virtually every card in your collection" is unlicensed?

Your post is a long one. The original poster that complained about licensing collects 19th century photo cards. There is no evidence that any of those players received royalties. In fact, I doubt anybody here believes that they did. So that was his complaint and that is obviously problematic for him as he had just defined his own collection as being "Cinderella" cards (which he apparently despises). At this unhappy turn of self-inflicted events he complained that I had twisted his words. A small scuffle.

As for Wagner ... Wagner T206 had nothing in the slightest to do with my argument. However, I'll still mention that the story is just unproven speculation and I would think that many on this board are conflicted as to whether or not it is true. As far as I know, no endorsement contracts have been found for any of the big sets of the era, let alone (almost?) all of the small, regional sets that people like. That should lean us toward believing there was little to no licensing in effect unless otherwise proven. Please correct me if I am uninformed on the existence of card endorsement contracts. Even if they exist, however, it doesn't alter my point that many, perhaps even most, early cards did not bother with endorsements.

Per your point that Goudey, etc., carried copyrights: While I would lean toward the assumption that the Goudey brand paid an endorsement fee I personally do not know this for a fact. It seems unlikely that they paid Lajoie. In any case, a copyright mark was meant to guard against other manufacturers using the art and marks of the producer and had nothing at all do with their agreements (or lack thereof) with the players.

In any event, licensing has historically had nothing to do with defining whether a piece of printed matter is a card or not. To me, it is a silly question but interesting to see how logic gets tortured when arguing whether an object is a "legit card" or not.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by sirraffles

Your post is a long one. The original poster that complained about licensing collects 19th century photo cards. There is no evidence that any of those players received royalties. In fact, I doubt anybody here believes that they did. So that was his complaint and that is obviously problematic for him as he had just defined his own collection as being "Cinderella" cards (which he apparently despises). At this unhappy turn of self-inflicted events he complained that I had twisted his words. A small scuffle.

As for Wagner ... Wagner T206 had nothing in the slightest to do with my argument. However, I'll still mention that the story is just unproven speculation and I would think that many on this board are conflicted as to whether or not it is true. As far as I know, no endorsement contracts have been found for any of the big sets of the era, let alone (almost?) all of the small, regional sets that people like. That should lean us toward believing there was little to no licensing in effect unless otherwise proven. Please correct me if I am uninformed on the existence of card endorsement contracts. Even if they exist, however, it doesn't alter my point that many, perhaps even most, early cards did not bother with endorsements.

Per your point that Goudey, etc., carried copyrights: While I would lean toward the assumption that the Goudey brand paid an endorsement fee I personally do not know this for a fact. It seems unlikely that they paid Lajoie. In any case, a copyright mark was meant to guard against other manufacturers using the art and marks of the producer and had nothing at all do with their agreements (or lack thereof) with the players.

In any event, licensing has historically had nothing to do with defining whether a piece of printed matter is a card or not. To me, it is a silly question but interesting to see how logic gets tortured when arguing whether an object is a "legit card" or not.

Honus Wagner said it was true. What other evidence do you need? Are you saying that he was lying? Why then wasn't Wagner in every tobacco set if his permission wasn't needed? We also have a letter from John Gruber saying that he was given a contract by ATC to have Wagner to sign. Is he lying too? What are their motivations to lie about ATC wanting to pay Wagner to sign a licensing deal?

Why wasn't Ruth in the 34 Goudey set if his permission wasn't needed? Why would Goudey not pay Lajoie and print his his card and not pay Ruth and not print his card on the same 34 Goudey sheet? It makes no sense. Ruth was the biggest name in the game. Every company would have printed cards of him in every set if they weren't paying for player's rights. Common sense says that these companies only made cards of players who they had rights to.

Actually licensing historically has had a lot to do with what is considered a card. Certainly over the last 30 years. I have been at baseball card shows where dealers have been kicked out or told to remove items from their tables because they weren't licensed. You are making the claims that these cards were not licensed, it is up to you to prove your claims or at least present some evidence. You have given none.