Leading Off with Tom Bartsch

Cards still backbone of hobby
Posted by Tuff Stuff

When all is said and done, this hobby is still all about the cards. Granted, there are some great autographed items, game-used memorabilia, publications, tickets, trophies, etc., but true hobbyists are still all about the cards.

In the latest Collect.com Auctions sale, now live on www.collect.com/auctions, the items that attracted bids on the first day were almost all cards. Included in that group are a few lots that use the word “hoard” in the description.

I’m not a huge card collector, so when I see the word hoard, I envision someone’s house so full of stuff to the point you can barely walk through any of the rooms. I envision clutter and not something I want to deal with.
However, a lot of people do want to sift through 1,000 cards or more that span several years. I guess it’s like a treasure hunt, trying to find missing pieces to a collection, singles that are gradable to the point they could pay for the entire lot or just the chance to grab a bunch of vintage cards in one swoop.

The other beauty with these lots is that if you are connected with several other collectors in a trading forum or otherwise, it would be great fun to crack through a “hoard” and divide up the cards as needed for the group.
It’s just fun to see that in a hobby where high grades, single entities and provenance seem to be all the rage, the cards remain the big draw.
Perhaps it’s like a box lot at an estate sale or what Forrest Gump used to say about a box of chocolates – you just never know what you’re going to get.

Near-sets and complete sets are also getting good play. These I understand to be draws since it’s not so easy to pick up a complete set from 30 years ago. And, heck, it saves from trying to piece together a set from scratch or reading through auction lots for the remaining 10 cards you need.

Time and again, I’m reminded that cards are the backbone of the hobby, something nearly all sports hobbyists have at least dabbled in at some point in their lives and an easily accessible piece to some of the greats of the game.

And going back to those hoards, have you ever noticed where some of the backups are at shows? It’s collectors sitting on stools and chairs, poring over binders of cards, through shoeboxes and display cases for missing pieces to collections. People still want to simply flip through cards. Now if those unopened packs weren’t so costly to open.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 5:50:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Upgrade Your Autographs, too?
Posted by Tuff Stuff

You often hear about collectors upgrading pieces in their sports memorabilia treasure trove. Many times that involves trading cards.

That doesn’t mean they are dumping their 1989 Upper Deck Baseball for 1959 Topps, it means they are taking cards they own, such as a 1960 Stan Musial and getting a different card that is in better condition. It’s a common practice and it usually comes into play as collectors age and have more discretionary income to pursue such items.

But does that also happen with autographs – be it signed baseballs or jerseys? As a youngster, do you buy that Mickey Mantle signed ball with a faded signature on an unofficial baseball just to get one in your possession and then later opt for a clean, sweet-spot signed version? Do you go even further and buy a third-party entombed version?

The reason I ask is because some of the signed jerseys I’ve seen recently would be excellent pieces of memorabilia even without the signature – and that’s without looking at the price tag.

I’ll admit I’m not on top of all of the fancy replica jerseys you can purchase these days. For instance, you can buy a 1966 Brooks Robinson Baltimore Orioles jersey from Mitchell & Ness as part of the company’s Cooperstown Collection. The jersey is gorgeous – throw some dirt on it and Brooks could have worn it himself. The price tag for the jersey is about $250. And then I see versions where it’s signed by Brooks or even signed by the members of the 1970 team, for instance.

That takes a some bit of financial commitment, and adding the signature may at times cost just about the same as the jersey.

So when you are starting out collecting autographs, do you graduate from mail-order photos to getting items signed in person? Do you go from cards to balls to bats to jerseys? Do you get a mass-market retail jersey and then move up to a Mitchell & Ness variety? The choices are endless, and manufacturers, dealers, etc., will no doubt offer as many choices as possible to grab a larger share of your wallet.

For me, I’d love to have the top-of-the-line of everything, but that’s just not going to happen. I’ll be content with my Robin Yount signature on a cool collage my wife created and will keep my generic jerseys and hopefully get them signed at some point. Upgrading will probably be kept to the carpet in my house.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:26:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Sunday, November 01, 2009

When a Glove is More Than a Tool of the Trade
Posted by Tuff Stuff

A few years ago, we here at Krause Publications managed to assemble enough crippled bodies to cobble together a softball team, lower-tier if there was any doubt.

We had a great time, even won a few games in a local league where the social aspect is by far the greater goal than what happened on the field.
After the last game of the season, I wandered home and forgot all about softball until the following spring when I couldn’t find my glove anywhere. It was nothing special, except that I had used it since early high school and I believe it had Willie Wilson as the facsimile signature on it. Anyway, it shagged a lot of fly balls in its day. The model I used to replace it was actually used by my mother, who had taught me the game while using that glove. It didn’t have any player signature in it and is probably past its prime in usefulness. However, I will keep it because of the details I just mentioned.

What I’ve come to realize of late is a lot of collectors have player signature gloves as part of their collections – and they have a lot of them. I guess it’s something I never really considered collecting. I think of a glove as a tool of the trade. Oil it up, throw it in the oven, slap it on your knee and you’re good to go until the laces break and you need a new one. I never though about hunting down Robin Yount, George Brett or Ozzie Smith models just to keep around as keepsakes when I was younger.

And perhaps that’s not how it works. You want player gloves from a bygone era – something you can’t grab off the sporting goods shelf. I’ve seen a lot of gloves roll into the offices of late, from Pee Wee Reese to Ted Williams to Joe DiMaggio. It’s fun to see the style of gloves from the 1970s back through the 1950s, and I might try using one for the next softball season. I’m kidding, of course – don’t you know the size of those model gloves is way too small to grab a softball?

Why it is that outfield gloves are now big enough to catch a watermelon? Is it like tennis racquets, where bigger is better to “capture” a greater area?
It’s a lot of fun to see some of these gloves. You can see how they’ve been kept around, as I’m sure many little leaguers used these as their first gloves and they were later handed out at secondhand store before being deemed collectible. Heck, it’s a cheaper route to go to grab the Hall of Famers versus cards, autographs or jerseys.

Sunday, November 01, 2009 6:38:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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