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

[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.

[sirraffles]

Originally Posted by rats60

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.

You are growing tiresome. I've said the Wagner story had nothing to do with my argument, whatever the case was in 1909. Apparently you were able to ask him personally about this. See if you can get him to sign a few things for me. I also said that I assumed Goudey did have endorsement contracts (though I suspect that they did not have one for Lajoie). First learn what a copyright is and then we can discuss further.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by sirraffles

You are growing tiresome. I've said the Wagner story had nothing to do with my argument, whatever the case was in 1909. Apparently you were able to ask him personally about this. See if you can get him to sign a few things for me. I also said that I assumed Goudey did have endorsement contracts (though I suspect that they did not have one for Lajoie). First learn what a copyright is and then we can discuss further.

So you have no evidence of your claims and you are just stating your opinion? Got it. Common sense would be that professional baseball players who were paid to play a game would also expect compensation for their photos used to sell a company's product.

[sirraffles]

Originally Posted by rats60

So you have no evidence of your claims and you are just stating your opinion? Got it. Common sense would be that professional baseball players who were paid to play a game would also expect compensation for their photos used to sell a company's product.

Whatever. The first legal case regarding baseball endorsements seems to have been (by my memory) in 1952. There are a number of subsequent cases with conflicting decisions on major points. We could discuss this at great length but it would be me educating you and you can do that work yourself. I don't mean to be rude but I don't have the time. Again, none of this deflates my original position that many of the sets and promotions did not have endorsement contracts in place. None of that really reflects on what I do, anyway.

After thinking about it for, oh, ten seconds, I've decided not to respond to this thread any longer. I have a beautiful life filled with great people and things to do, just as you have. The negative tone here doesn't serve either of us. Best, Charles Mandel

[bigfanNY]

Charles anybody reading your post can decide for themselves when you say that "Helmar Brewing Ty Cobbs selling for $100 to $300 are in the right range is a lie. As I said a quick search of ebay shows a number of your Ty Cobbs selling for $13 to $15 dollars well below the range you say is fair. I understand you make a living justifying doing things you know are wrong. And clearly you have no remorse or compassion for those hurt by what you do. But when you say something that you know not to be true, What exactly would you want me to call that?
For Clarification I am referring to the small Helmar Cobbs and other 1910 era Hall of Famers on T205 and T206 cards and art stamp etc. that show up in flea markets marked up from the $13 to $25 they sold for and real people get hurt.
And yes when you go so far as to produce sets similar to those issued by Helmar Tobacco Like Leathers and Cabinets and Art Stamps. You make it easy for folks to use your products to defraud others.
To be really specific you have an Ed Delahanty T206 card up for auction on your site. That card has clearly been artificially aged. In fact it is damaged. If it is art why damage it why round corners?
I am not looking for a fight just saying you know WHAT YOU DO HURTS PEOPLE YOU COULD PRINT DATES ETC. TO HELP STOP THAT BUT YOU DON'T. if its art then date it like many artists that sign and date their pices. The only people who would stop buying your stuff are the crooks would that be so bad?

[SetBuilder]

Is there a catalog and price guide for these cards? If not, then they're probably not going to be collected seriously.