Thoughts on this 1925 Gehrig

FrankWakefield · #1 01-28-2023, 09:01 PM

Buy the card, not the player?

Let's get back to that card. Are you able to hit that card with a black light?

I understand that it's in a holder, professionally graded. All of those corners look uniformly rounded. That uniformity is a bit of a flag for me. I'd want to illuminate it with uv light and see if it fluoresces.

So that is foremost among my "thoughts about that 1925 Gehrig"

oldjudge · #2 01-28-2023, 11:22 PM

Joe�I think the comparison is a lot closer than you think. Foxx had 133 more ABs for his career than Gehrig but hit 41 more HRs. He won three MVPs vs Gehrig�s two, he was a better fielder. Gehrig had a slightly higher batting average and more RBI�s, but he played for a lot better team. I agree Gehrig was better but it was pretty close. If Foxx was a Yankee and Gehrig was an Athletic the comparison would probably flip in Fox�s favor.
I was reading a list that was put together in 1994 of the greatest hitters of all time. Here it is:

10. Willie Mays
9. Hank Aaron
8. Joe Jackson
7. Stan Musial
6. Ty Cobb
5. Joe DiMaggio
4. Rogers Hornsby
3. Jimmie Foxx
2. Lou Gehrig
1. Babe Ruth

Oh, there is a reason Williams is not on the list�he put it together.

Exhibitman · #3 01-29-2023, 02:02 AM

Setting aside the PEDs the list of the ten most productive hitters in history is incomplete without Barry Bonds.

162.8 WAR (4th all time; 1st all time for position players)
6th all time on base %
8th all time slugging %
5th all time OPS
3rd runs scored
5th total bases
1st walks
1st home runs

But I digress...

The Gehrig is the perfect storm of adverse issues.

--The initial price is a PWCC price so who knows if it is legit
--The card is grossly overgraded. The card corners look to me like they were rounded intentionally. The card should have gotten an A. Buyers with $100K to spend aren't going to be fooled by an overgrade of this magnitude.
--There was a reserve. I agree that reserves depress bidding.

The card Scott posted is typical of my experience with SGC grading Exhibit cards: they knock the snot out of them. Between the full bleed image and the size, a 5 on a prewar Exhibit is a very strong grade. At the 2006 National I purchased a small grouo of really nice fresh-to-the-hobby 1928s and i think the best grade I got out of the lot was a 5.5.

robertsmithnocure · #4 01-29-2023, 02:24 AM

Also Foxx benefited greatly by playing in his home ballparks while Gehrig was actually better on the road.

Gehrig had a lifetime road batting average of .351 and an OPS of 1.103 while Foxx batted .306 with an OPS of .966. That is a huge difference.

IMHO, Gehrig was a much better player.

Vintageclout · #5 01-29-2023, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Setting aside the PEDs the list of the ten most productive hitters in history is incomplete without Barry Bonds.

162.8 WAR (4th all time; 1st all time for position players)
6th all time on base %
8th all time slugging %
5th all time OPS
3rd runs scored
5th total bases
1st walks
1st home runs

But I digress...

The Gehrig is the perfect storm of adverse issues.

--The initial price is a PWCC price so who knows if it is legit
--The card is grossly overgraded. The card corners look to me like they were rounded intentionally. The card should have gotten an A. Buyers with $100K to spend aren't going to be fooled by an overgrade of this magnitude.
--There was a reserve. I agree that reserves depress bidding.

The card Scott posted is typical of my experience with SGC grading Exhibit cards: they knock the snot out of them. Between the full bleed image and the size, a 5 on a prewar Exhibit is a very strong grade. At the 2006 National I purchased a small grouo of really nice fresh-to-the-hobby 1928s and i think the best grade I got out of the lot was a 5.5.

Unfortunately, you cannot set aside PEDs. Like Clemens when he went to Toronto, Bonds career took off in staggering proportions when he started taking PEDs. Cheating, and there�s no way around it. While both Clemens & Bonds were already future HOFers before PEDs, their extraordinary lifetime numbers are seriously tainted by steroids. For that reason alone, both of them cannot be placed in the top 10 as a pitcher & hitter.

mrreality68 · #6 01-29-2023, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

Unfortunately, you cannot set aside PEDs. Like Clemens when he went to Toronto, Bonds career took off in staggering proportions when he started taking PEDs. Cheating, and there�s no way around it. While both Clemens & Bonds were already future HOFers before PEDs, their extraordinary lifetime numbers are seriously tainted by steroids. For that reason alone, both of them cannot be placed in the top 10 as a pitcher & hitter.

+1 agree

FrankWakefield · #7 01-29-2023, 05:49 PM

+1 for Adam, seeing that the corners of the card are suspect. And while I have sometimes bid on PWCC stuff, I share and concur with his concern.

That is responsive to what I thought the initial post was about.

But so many want to contrast Gehrig with Foxx, or discuss PEDs, or both. So on PEDs... I see a distinction between using something that isn't prohibited with something that is prohibited. Seems for some folks the line blurs where the substance initially isn't banned, but later on it is. My possibly faulty recollection was that what McGuire and Sosa (for example) used were not banned at the time of use, and that use stopped slightly before or contemporaneously with prohibition. That wouldn't be true for Clemmons and A-Rod (again, for example), because what they were using was banned prior to and during use.

Exhibitman · #8 01-29-2023, 08:38 PM

It's a weird netherworld, Frank. Steroids weren't banned but they were illegal w/o a prescription, so McGwire and Sosa and the rest of them never should have had them at all. I guess in a sense they were banned before they were banned.

Yes, I am a lawyer.

But I digress.

The first thing I thought when I saw that Gehrig (esp the LL corner) was that it was intentionally rounded, maybe to aid in flipping it or doing something else with it, like this O'Doul:

If I submit that card I get an "A" 99% of the time a "1" the other 1%.

rhettyeakley · #9 01-30-2023, 01:48 AM

Massively overgraded! That is a 1.5 at best, one of the worst looking 3�s you will ever see!

Popcorn · #10 01-30-2023, 07:51 PM

I went the poor man’s rout and picked up a 27’ exhibit and 25’ w590. Would love to know if the w590 was actually printed in 25’

Lorewalker · #11 01-30-2023, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popcorn

I went the poor man�s rout and picked up a 27� exhibit and 25� w590. Would love to know if the w590 was actually printed in 25�

I recently read two good threads on here about the W590 issue. I think even the guys who seemed to have some pretty good theories about the issue were not 100% convinced that the Gehrig could be pinned down as only a 1925 printing.

bcbgcbrcb · #12 01-31-2023, 01:49 PM

From the independent research that I have done based on the printing font, and it’s been a while now, there was no reason why the Gehrig W590 would not have been printed in 1925 considering the player/team identifications of the other 9 cards from the Gehrig strip of 10 that I have seen. Could these have continued to have been printed beyond 1925, sure, but the same can be said for numerous other vintage issues. You kind of have to draw the line somewhere with this kind of stuff or you will drive yourself crazy. Could the Gehrig also have been printed on a different panel of 10? Maybe, I have never seen another different one though.

To me the W590 has an upside and a downside when compared to the 1925 Exhibit. It obviously fits the definition of a card (although strip cards may not be as popular as caramel, tobacco, etc.) much more precisely than the Exhibit, which is essentially a blank backed postcard. The downside is that it is categorized as a 1925-31 issue, for what that’s worth, and I think it can be pretty safely assumed that cards from this series were issued at least over multiple years so the date can never be as definitive as the ‘25 Exhibit. (But who’s to say that the Exhibit Supply Co. didn’t have leftover cards from 1925 and refilled their vending machines with them in 1926?) Anyone willing to bet their life on that not happening? You get the picture.

MACollector · #13 07-21-2023, 04:43 PM

Seems like the rookie prices are alive and well for nice looking ones! His PSA 3.5 sold for $206k this week at Goldin. Night and day nicer looking than the original 3 that started this thread.

BeanTown · #14 07-21-2023, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MACollector

Seems like the rookie prices are alive and well for nice looking ones! His PSA 3.5 sold for $206k this week at Goldin. Night and day nicer looking than the original 3 that started this thread.

Great looking card and under valued where someone got a great deal. Some folks just don�t give Gehrig or Exibits much love. I am not one of those people.

raulus · #15 07-21-2023, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeanTown

Great looking card and under valued where someone got a great deal. Some folks just don�t give Gehrig or Exibits much love. I am not one of those people.

Hi Jay - Pardon my widespread ignorance of Gehrig cards in general and this Exhibit specifically, but I'm not used to hearing the figure of $200k+ and the words "under valued" used in the same sentence. If I had been consuming a beverage while reading your post, I probably would have achieved some impressive spray.

Is the value here primarily based on this exhibit being Gehrig's rookie?

ricktmd · #16 07-23-2023, 02:47 PM

A somewhat overlooked mistake here is the " new holder" . If it were in an old PSA holder getting it in a current PSA holder definitely adds value. Not the case with SGC and for sure not in this situation. It looks like a somewhat typical, older overgraded SGC card. For sure SGC and PSA are grading much tougher than they use to. While I also agree demand has softened, a new holder is a good stategy before auctioning a PSA card but probably not with SGC

rjackson44 · #17 07-23-2023, 09:48 PM

Love. Mine

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