Jerry Spillman Passing

[oaks1912]

Definitely a rough week for the hobby. A very knowledgeable collector and willing to share that knowledge. We had not communicated in over a year, but a big loss to many. My condolences to his family

[bdecsports]

When I hear W600's, I immediately think of Jerry, Scott & Kevin. Jerry was a wealth of hobby knowledge, and Kevin summed up Jerry’s personality perfectly! In the last few years, I would see Jerry at some of the FL gulf-coast shows, and he would tell me how the show was horrible because he didn’t find a single W600, Rose Company Postcard, Scrapp, Kalamazoo Bat or any Baseball Currency! Thoughts & Prayers to the Spillman family – RIP Jerry

[h2oya311]

Hobby legend. He will be missed. RIP Jerry.

[Robert_Lifson]

Terrible news to hear of Jerry’s passing. He was truly a “gentleman and a scholar”. His knowledge about our shared interests such as W600 and Rose Postcards and Baseball Currency was unparalleled and not just helpful but amazing to me. I always learned from him about the sets in his focus, and he was always thrilled to help with information for auction writeups.

Jerry was very amusing about his approach to dealings at times. I remember when the “make-your-own” Rose Postcards of the Springfield Ponies Team of the Connecticut State League surfaced. Some were auctioned by me and they wound up on checklists not noted as being different from traditional Rose Postcards (Rose also sold the cards with photos and identification plates “blank” so non-Major League teams could order kits to make their own cards.) The checklisting confusion was like a dagger in Jerry’s heart! He wanted this noted, corrected, emphasized...if he could have had a plane flying with banners over the National Convention about this he would have...he was on a mission to fix this checklisting injustice! (as the “make-your-own” style cards truly were made totally differently and deserved to be distinguished from traditional Rose postcards featuring Major Leaguers as printed by the company). No one - and I mean no one! - cared about this in quite the same way as Jerry! As usual, he was right. It was part of his charm and (for me) part of the fun in communicating with him that he expected everyone else to be as outraged.


Another classic Jerry Spillman story I will always remember: Once, years ago (2013), we were reviewing items he was thinking of auctioning. One group he had at that time he was thinking of selling was a “set” of baseball currencies: One each of the eight different basic known styles. Included were a couple REALLY rare ones (1888 St. Louis and the 1893 All Stars currency).

Jerry wanted them all to be auctioned individually but I said “No, Jerry! This is incredible! No one has EVER auctioned a set of these before. They’ll go wild!” The common styles were not a hot commodity - currencies were just not on the radar of most collectors because they are not “cards”. And the rare ones - who had ‘em? No one! My thinking was that collectors who never gave this set any thought would realize the “error of their ways” and trip over themselves to bid. “We’ll give it a two page spread, Jerry. No one will miss it! And we’ll put a minimum bid of $5000 on them.” A $5000 minimum, I explained, would show great respect for them in terms of value but be low enough that anyone with even a passing interest - even just for resale - could bid away with reckless abandon. WITH GREAT RESERVATION Jerry went along with me on this. Kicking and screaming but he was on board.

I don’t have to tell you what happened...the lot practically died. The collecting world at this particular time wasn’t ready for a set of nineteenth century baseball currencies. I was stunned. I remember trying to point these out to serious collectors and this particular week all anyone wanted was cards. Normal cards! Cards yes. Currencies no.

Here’s the lot listing. The set sold for $7110. And that included the buyers premium.

https://robertedwardauctions.com/auc...ncy-collection

After the auction I wasn’t really looking forward to talking to Jerry about this result.

Usually auction results are great. But not this time, not this lot! When Jerry got me on the phone you could have heard a pin drop. Now, Jerry was a “big boy” and this was minor in the context of his many more significant successes in our many other dealings. But every time I talked to him for the next year, the currencies and their poor auction performance came up..and had to be discussed. Every time! Finally one day he asks me if now I think it was a mistake to auction the currencies as a set. I told him “Yes, I wish I had known they would do so poorly offered as a set. I was wrong on that one, Jerry. I meant well but I’d have to call my approach to the currencies, in retrospect, a mistake.” He then said “OK, that’s what I wanted to hear. I appreciate you saying that.” And he never mentioned them again!

RIP Jerry. Deepest condolences to Jerry’s friends and family.

[Vintagecatcher]

Very sad news regarding Jerry's passing. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting Jerry, I always looked forward to his posts on Rose Company Postcards and W600 Sporting Life Cabinets. Another great loss to the board.

Patrick

[sb1]

Rob is spot on with his memories of Jerry.

Once he got his mind set one on something, he NEVER let it go. He would cover the same ground over and over on his latest peeve(which might well be 5 years past), every time we would talk. Or he would email me and want me to speak up on the issue as well.

I had so many dealings with him, several of which were standoff's, as Jerry would really dig his heals in most of the time on a deal. He knew what he had, he knew what you needed and he leveraged it for all it was worth. But after every deal we were as friendly as before. Just part of the art of the deal and the hobby.

He was one of the old school collectors where sets were meant to be collected, studied and appreciated.

He will be missed by many!

[1880nonsports]

although I have some. I met Jerry around 30 years ago (?) when he was still teaching as was I. I was just getting into 19th century baseball cards after getting my first - an N43 large Ginter Champions card from Rich Galasso that had appeared in an auction in SCD :-) We were to meet to talk about Goodwin, Kimball, Ginter issues and I think we did so at a library (his idea) followed by a visit to his house. He brought down xerox copies of his N43's to look at! We bonded as an odd couple - he could be unrelenting and I can be a pain in the ass - we both loved the art and content of the "N" cards and we were always willing to discuss the nuances including the packs even when Jerry was wrong . We'd meet for an occasional breakfast or for something at one of the National's - when he bought that recording camera and went around taking pictures and interviews - he never lost his focus despite his failing hearing :-0
I have on my wall a triangular Old Judge banner with flying cherubs I first saw on Jerry's wall on that very first day we met. He said he wanted to sell it but guess it was a pricing thing (CRS) and I didn't buy it. Few years later while thumbing through an Oser auction catalog I spy a lot with a tiny pic (old style flimsy magazine auction catalog-each lot picture was like 1" square) - it's the banner! You could not tell what it was if you didn't know in advance. I "won" it - might have been only bidder. Oh boy. I didn't tell him right away - held off a bit - he went on a rant about auctions and devil's incarnate but of course it wasn't my fault.
He was stubborn with a big heart. RIP Jerry......