Do Pre-War Collectors buy Modern Cards Featurin Game Used Items of Pre-War Players

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

You do know that the overwhelming majority of memorabilia given to museums never sees the light of day, right?

Boy did I learn that one the hard way. They can also sell it or anything they want with it. I learned this the hard way after a museum begged me for some items. Also the one item in the collection the curator said they really liked magically disappeared.

[68Hawk]

I think they can be mesmerizing...I regularly look at this one and am transported to another time.
I feel lucky to own it and not at all bashful to say so.

[obcbobd]

Warning grouchy old man rant!

I think there is a special place in baseball hell for whoever cut up a Babe Ruth bat or uniform into a million pieces.

[Snapolit1]

Zero interest. Would guess 95% of them are bogus. Human nature being what it is, I'm sure numerous Babe Ruth jersey and pants swatches were located in a nearby Goodwill store.

If you are trying to find the corner of the hobby most likely rife with fraud you've no doubt found it. And there's ample competition.

Zero provenance to any of this crap. Could be anything. Piece of a Babe Ruth bat? Yeah sure it is.

And I don't want a miniscule slice of wood even it it was was they are saying it is.

[bbcard1]

Yep. Love them. Have several. I wouldn't break the bank on one..I think the most I paid was $100 or so for a Babe Ruth pants card numbered 150 of 150.

[68Hawk]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Zero interest. Would guess 95% of them are bogus. Human nature being what it is, I'm sure numerous Babe Ruth jersey and pants swatches were located in a nearby Goodwill store.

If you are trying to find the corner of the hobby most likely rife with fraud you've no doubt found it. And there's ample competition.

Zero provenance to any of this crap. Could be anything. Piece of a Babe Ruth bat? Yeah sure it is.

And I don't want a miniscule slice of wood even it it was was they are saying it is.

Not quite sure what the distress is about? I mean, if were talking about more than one existing of anything of course.....

You want that bat whole so you can swing it one day? Think you'll get the chance? Or so that you can own it one day in your man-cave privacy...are you one of the very few who have the pockets to do so?
Or maybe it's so that you or others can visit it at a museum in the unlikely event it becomes owned by one? Because, you know, museums never sell off their stuff privately when they don't have the money because of low patronage...

What's all the wa wa-ing for?
Nothing else in life gets parsed in time for others to enjoy?
Autographs in books or other never get separated so that they can be framed alone for an owner to enjoy?
Sheets or folios from ancient Bibles haven't been unbound and given as gifts to other clergy members or sold to collectors to enjoy?
Audubon plates of birds aren't removed from original massive collations to be framed and hung on walls to be enjoyed by the many?
Massive 12 chair dining sets aren't broken up among family members so that more can enjoy their grace?
Cars aren't cannibalized so that 'original' parts can be put frankenstein style into other survivors to keep that new amalgam on the road?
How come sports cards that are never originally meant to be inked over but that collectors get signed haven't been 'ruined' and desecrated?
That can't be undone either.

Mate, it's only 'stuff'. Things that break down molecule by molecule over time just like our own bodies and should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. These memorabilia cards haven't been destroyed, or removed from existence the pieces used to create them, but have simply transformed their form so that many more people can be connected to them.
And often, in my opinion, the resultant cards become works of art that are every bit as special to behold:



Or maybe you just wanna sit around in you lounge room in a mothball smelling jersey Earl Averill wore just for kicks?

[packs]

Other than cutting something up for no reason, the problem with these cards is that you might just have swatches of someone's little league jersey. There is no provenance given for any of the material on the cards that the companies insert into products as chase cards, thereby selling the product on the pretense that a person has the opportunity to own a piece of......something.

In my opinion, if you're going to use the memorabilia as a pretense for selling merchandise, there should be some kind of history associated with what you're selling. Why can't consumers know where the material they're purchasing came from?

[68Hawk]

Originally Posted by packs

Other than cutting something up for no reason, the problem with these cards is that you might just have swatches of someone's little league jersey. There is no provenance given for any of the material on the cards that the companies insert into products as chase cards, thereby selling the product on the pretense that a person has the opportunity to own a piece of......something.

In my opinion, if you're going to use the memorabilia as a pretense for selling merchandise, there should be some kind of history associated with what you're selling. Why can't consumers know where the material they're purchasing came from?

The companies mostly document the process closely.
If you want to search them out when the product is announced or being released, they will list the item of memorabilia and where and when they attained it eg. Auction or private purchase with photographs of that specific piece.
They take pictures of the item in their ownership and in preparation of 'dissection'.
They don't hide from the fact the item is rare, expensive, and therefore has assumed value for collectors to chase. It's not so much they make their money back from the sale of the memorabilia card itself (though they do over many subsequent releases in updated designed cards as you can squeeze ALOT of small numbered runs out of a bat or jersey) but because it encourages collectors to buy packs/boxes/crates of the stuff in search of these special pieces. In this way, the hype for the memorabilia cards funds the production and sale of the singles that cost nix to create and disseminate but brings good dollars in return.
And without this advent, I have a strong feeling collecting would never have had the resurgence it's experienced with new generations and with luck their subsequent interest in the older gear we enjoy.

The fear so many have about provenance is simply an excuse based on snobbery and the search for that excuse to smear the activity.
Collectors who don't like it - much like they don't like kids playing on their lawn - love to create the fearmongering to explain why they don't think it should be happening.
Others moan about slabbing as unholy.

It's all good in my opinion, it's a fun interesting hobby and should take whatever form it needs to maintain relevancy to ongoing collector interest.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by 68Hawk

Not quite sure what the distress is about?. These memorabilia cards haven't been destroyed,

Taking a Babe Ruth jersey and cutting it into 500 pieces isn't destroying?

Seriously?

[68Hawk]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

Taking a Babe Ruth jersey and cutting it into 500 pieces isn't destroying?

Seriously?

I was pretty full in my description of why I didn't think it was destroyed.
So, tell me how it is?
What purpose are you keeping it in it's un-separated state for, that you are losing?

The jersey still exists, it's atoms haven't been d-nucleii'd, you can still see it, it just resides in hundreds of cards.
Now, if you're telling me the Jersey needs to come out on Yankee throwback night to be worn before adoring crowds, then yes that opportunity is destroyed.

But how else?

[bbcard1]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

Taking a Babe Ruth jersey and cutting it into 500 pieces isn't destroying?

Seriously?

I would submit that a pair of Babe Ruth pants made into a many dozen of attractive cards for collectors to enjoy is a sum that is greater than the whole. I wouldn't probably want to wear Babe Ruth pants even if I had the opportunity to do so.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 68Hawk

Not quite sure what the distress is about? I mean, if were talking about more than one existing of anything of course.....

You want that bat whole so you can swing it one day? Think you'll get the chance? Or so that you can own it one day in your man-cave privacy...are you one of the very few who have the pockets to do so?
Or maybe it's so that you or others can visit it at a museum in the unlikely event it becomes owned by one? Because, you know, museums never sell off their stuff privately when they don't have the money because of low patronage...

What's all the wa wa-ing for?
Nothing else in life gets parsed in time for others to enjoy?
Autographs in books or other never get separated so that they can be framed alone for an owner to enjoy?
Sheets or folios from ancient Bibles haven't been unbound and given as gifts to other clergy members or sold to collectors to enjoy?
Audubon plates of birds aren't removed from original massive collations to be framed and hung on walls to be enjoyed by the many?
Massive 12 chair dining sets aren't broken up among family members so that more can enjoy their grace?
Cars aren't cannibalized so that 'original' parts can be put frankenstein style into other survivors to keep that new amalgam on the road?
How come sports cards that are never originally meant to be inked over but that collectors get signed haven't been 'ruined' and desecrated?
That can't be undone either.

Mate, it's only 'stuff'. Things that break down molecule by molecule over time just like our own bodies and should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. These memorabilia cards haven't been destroyed, or removed from existence the pieces used to create them, but have simply transformed their form so that many more people can be connected to them.
And often, in my opinion, the resultant cards become works of art that are every bit as special to behold:



Or maybe you just wanna sit around in you lounge room in a mothball smelling jersey Earl Averill wore just for kicks?

And you want the bat cut up because....

You don't like the idea that one person could own it?
Or that someone has that much money?

Have you ever been around one? Not as some little sliver of Ash, but as a whole bat? Ruths bats are really pretty big.
Come to think of it have you had a chance to actually handle an older major league bat? I'm not sure why, but most of the ones I've held from the bigger sluggers seemed to swing better than a smaller store model bat.

Even if that experience becomes less common, I wouldn't like to exclude it as a possibility for future generations. And with proper care, wood can last a LONG time. Most of King Tuts stuff looked very usable, and that's over 3000 years old. Wool too.


While you may like those cards, aesthetically my opinion is.... different, lets just leave it there.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Zero interest. Would guess 95% of them are bogus. Human nature being what it is, I'm sure numerous Babe Ruth jersey and pants swatches were located in a nearby Goodwill store.

If you are trying to find the corner of the hobby most likely rife with fraud you've no doubt found it. And there's ample competition.

Zero provenance to any of this crap. Could be anything. Piece of a Babe Ruth bat? Yeah sure it is.

And I don't want a miniscule slice of wood even it it was was they are saying it is.

This is where I am at. No veracity other than words printed on the back of a card.

[Exhibitman]

On occasion. Depends on the item and the design, mostly. I find a lot of them to be ugly. I also tend to buy these for modern players, usually with autographs. I like having a signed item with a jersey or bat swatch from a player as my item for a HOF collection:



I also bought this one:



From a robe Bruce Lee wore on the set of Enter The Dragon. I am never going to be able to afford a Lee autograph or owned item so this is the closest I will get to something personal of Bruce Lee.

[68Hawk]

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

This is where I am at. No veracity other than words printed on the back of a card.

Yup, same problem I run in to with Stickley furniture, Lalique perfume bottles, first edition books with so called first page publishing dates, corvette stingrays with matching number chasis/engine numbers (I mean, HTF would I know if someone hadn't ground down a plate and substituted with fakery?), the food at French Laundry 'supposedly' cooked by some well known chef, yada yada.

I mean, if you don't want to believe shit, you just don't want to believe.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by 68Hawk

Yup, same problem I run in to with Stickley furniture, Lalique perfume bottles, first edition books with so called first page publishing dates, corvette stingray with matching number chasis/engine numbers (I mean, HTF would I know if someone hadn't ground down a plate and substituted with fakery?), the food at French Laundry 'supposedly' cooked by some well known chef, yada yada.

I mean, if you don't want to believe shit, you just don't want to believe.

Oh I believe, I believe there is a likelihood that a lot of it is sh*t as you say. The same as with your other examples I assume.

I could be very wrong and I really hope I am.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Zero interest. Would guess 95% of them are bogus. Human nature being what it is, I'm sure numerous Babe Ruth jersey and pants swatches were located in a nearby Goodwill store.

If you are trying to find the corner of the hobby most likely rife with fraud you've no doubt found it. And there's ample competition.

Zero provenance to any of this crap. Could be anything. Piece of a Babe Ruth bat? Yeah sure it is.

And I don't want a miniscule slice of wood even it it was was they are saying it is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Cross

[68Hawk]

Maybe there's something unique about sports cards / memorabilia and it's collectors that shape what should and shouldn't be a rule for collecting...it's devotees seem to believe that a set of rules exist, have always existed, and it's a crime to see the paradigm differently.

Funny, I don't remember too many of the posters that have been on knife's edge in this thread, feeling similarly about collectors from the early 1900's cutting down their cards to fit in whatever holder they were working with...
From needing to fit albums, or their wallets, or sections of wall that they pinned whatever formation they desired.
I wonder if anyone walked by and called them selfish, or monstrous for their actions? Oh go on, now you're going to tell me they just didn't know better, that collecting then was different...
No shit. And it's different today, and will be different in 30 years time.
What about presentational bats cut down to a certain dimension before being adorned with silver and other ornate encumberances. Destroyed, or altered to fit a desired memorabilia design? Ahh, but if only ALL bats of ALL time had been kept, we could ALL be swinging and feeling their weight.

Sword collectors don't all just collect entire swords. Japanese Tsuba are enormously popular and seen as art themselves even though they form just one part of the sword.
Similarly do we condemn a family who break down the diamond tiara that some exceptionally wealthy member once owned, but which now forms rings given to daughters and bracelets and necklesses that so very many can enjoy.
Surely a Tiara is much more magnificent. It also has less relevance to today.

That Ruth bats and Gehrig gloves should exist is wonderful, and I fully hope that a number survive intact for eternity. I'd be interested to know out of an entire American generation of kids how many ask to go view them in a museum in their lifetimes.....could we guess less than 1 tenth of 1 percent.
What if 10 times that number owned a piece of history themselves and that they shared that feeling, that connection, to their next generation?
Maybe that doesn't matter to some here, that people don't know what's good for them and thus we should just do some things because it's the right way to do it.
I'd answer that by saying this.
Most collectors of today who grew up in the 50's - 70's never once stopped to think that they were doing something awful by folding their cards in half to fit a pocket, that watching them tear into pieces in their bike spokes was some sort of assassination, that drawing glasses on the faces of hated rivals or ones own name or other designation would somehow be a besmirching of the sanctity of the paper.
Oh those precious millimeters of border to each card - what have you done to me elastic band, what have you done!!!
They've only grown to treat this stuff so incredibly deferentially over the last 40 years. That's a damn new phenomena in the history of all things collecting and surely not the last word, no matter how big an expert or devotee you might think you are.

Only a precious few collected with any great long term holding plan for the first 80 years of sportscards production, and condition was no barrier to the enjoyment of them nor was passing judgement on how previous owners had kept their own collections alive at all important.

But geeze were precious these days.
Better slab everything up boys, the PSA / SGC / BGS baseball bat boxes that will survive being shot into space are only around the corner.
Perhaps there's time for a few to buy everything up so they can save collectors like myself, from myself.
Here's hoping.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 68Hawk

Maybe there's something unique about sports cards / memorabilia and it's collectors that shape what should and shouldn't be a rule for collecting...it's devotees seem to believe that a set of rules exist, have always existed, and it's a crime to see the paradigm differently.

Funny, I don't remember too many of the posters that have been on knife's edge in this thread, feeling similarly about collectors from the early 1900's cutting down their cards to fit in whatever holder they were working with...
From needing to fit albums, or their wallets, or sections of wall that they pinned whatever formation they desired.
I wonder if anyone walked by and called them selfish, or monstrous for their actions? Oh go on, now you're going to tell me they just didn't know better, that collecting then was different...
No shit. And it's different today, and will be different in 30 years time.
What about presentational bats cut down to a certain dimension before being adorned with silver and other ornate encumberances. Destroyed, or altered to fit a desired memorabilia design? Ahh, but if only ALL bats of ALL time had been kept, we could ALL be swinging and feeling their weight.

Sword collectors don't all just collect entire swords. Japanese Tsuba are enormously popular and seen as art themselves even though they form just one part of the sword.
Similarly do we condemn a family who break down the diamond tiara that some exceptionally wealthy member once owned, but which now forms rings given to daughters and bracelets and necklesses that so very many can enjoy.
Surely a Tiara is much more magnificent. It also has less relevance to today.

That Ruth bats and Gehrig gloves should exist is wonderful, and I fully hope that a number survive intact for eternity. I'd be interested to know out of an entire American generation of kids how many ask to go view them in a museum in their lifetimes.....could we guess less than 1 tenth of 1 percent.
What if 10 times that number owned a piece of history themselves and that they shared that feeling, that connection, to their next generation?
Maybe that doesn't matter to some here, that people don't know what's good for them and thus we should just do some things because it's the right way to do it.
I'd answer that by saying this.
Most collectors of today who grew up in the 50's - 70's never once stopped to think that they were doing something awful by folding their cards in half to fit a pocket, that watching them tear into pieces in their bike spokes was some sort of assassination, that drawing glasses on the faces of hated rivals or ones own name or other designation would somehow be a besmirching of the sanctity of the paper.
Oh those precious millimeters of border to each card - what have you done to me elastic band, what have you done!!!
They've only grown to treat this stuff so incredibly deferentially over the last 40 years. That's a damn new phenomena in the history of all things collecting and surely not the last word, no matter how big an expert or devotee you might think you are.

Only a precious few collected with any great long term holding plan for the first 80 years of sportscards production, and condition was no barrier to the enjoyment of them nor was passing judgement on how previous owners had kept their own collections alive at all important.

But geeze were precious these days.
Better slab everything up boys, the PSA / SGC / BGS baseball bat boxes that will survive being shot into space are only around the corner.
Perhaps there's time for a few to buy everything up so they can save collectors like myself, from myself.
Here's hoping.

It may be the woodworker in me, but I don't get any "connection" from some tiny scrap of wood. And I find it hard to imagine getting that.

I do find some connection with complete objects. I don't have much for baseball stuff, one 80's jersey, a couple game used bats, and maybe one 1900-1910 era game used bat.
I got the early bat because friends of my brother were playing softball with it and cracked it. I traded a usable bat for the cracked and glued one. Would I have preferred to find it uncracked? Sure, but it was only available after it cracked.
I do get some connection from riding the pro and national team racing bikes I collect. You read opinions from the time about how they handled etc, and getting to feel it firsthand is pretty special. (I also have the special helmets, but not a full uniform so far. There may not be any that fit me. )
I can't imagine cutting them into slices of tubing or bits of seatcover or whatever.

Likewise with cards cut from banners etc. I see them the same as hostess cards cut from the box. Would I prefer the whole banner/box? Of course. The same goes for the couple T206s I have where the top got trimmed off to fit the pages they had.

But, while I'm ok with the trimmed card, I probably wouldn't have any interest in the piece that was trimmed off. (Probably, I do have a piece I got in a classic draft pack that is the bit cut from between the cards during production)

I don't like the cut signature cards either. The original document would be so much more interesting that the card with the cut in it. (That Stanley card is incredibly ugly. ) Especially the ones where they cut the thing so only one name is on the new card, or half the name is hidden.
But the autograph is still an autograph.

Cut up equipment isn't still equipment anymore.

I'm working on a project using Ash, who do you want a bat card of?