It’s Helmar Tuesday. More than 100 hand-made cards up for auction!!
 

This is a paid advertisement.


It’s Helmar Tuesday. More than 100 hand-made cards up for auction!!

Auctions closes Tonight, 9pm, Eastern.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_nkw=...affles&_sop=16


HELMAR: NEW CARDS IN LOVE WITH THE PAST

Please unwrap your cards and hold them close! We spend a lot of time creating each evocative texture and aroma!

The Current Helmar Auction Closes Tuesday

Our team of artists creates baseball cards that bring you closer to the greatest players in the game than any other contemporary baseball card maker.

We create just 6 of each card per year, maximum.

Our cards are THICK, they are ANTIQUED BY HAND, they have special TEXTURES and SCENTS that will delight your eyes, hand, nose, and mind.

https://helmarbrewing.com/artwork/

HELMAR SUBSCRIBERS:

BASEBALL HISTORY & ART MAGAZINE
DIGITAL EDITION
AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW

For Helmar subscribers, the digital edition of the winter 2015 magazine is available right now. Amazing Helmar art and articles on Three Finger Brown, Johnny Evers, collecting the PCL, and Charles Ebbets, amongst a visual smorgasbord of great baseball articles and anecdotes. The paper magazine will be available soon, but if you have a strong computer and big screen, you can read it now. Click here to log in or subscribe to Helmar.
https://helmarbrewing.com/subscription/



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Those are pretty cool! :)

Seems I'm in the wrong business.

These are modern made cards. Yet people send 110 plus on them?

I need to focus on that group of buyers.

LL - I understand a Paid Advertisement.

But wow. Makes me think of Danbury Mint Collector Plates and such.

I've never bought them, but I've always admired them. They're just cool.

I guess I get why a player collector would be into them but I 100% don't understand this stuff. Why would anybody pay $350 for a photoshopped image of Mickey Mantle in the form of a T206 card? Just not my cup of tea I suppose but calling something art doesn't mean it is. At least at the beginning they tried to market these Helmar things with beer or something, now they just churn out a few hundred "art" cards a week and people spend more on them than an actual vintage card of the player depicted!

I bought one of the 6 player die cut cards at a card show and I will say that they are nice looking cards and great for displaying.

After reading Rhett's comment I wanted to add that I got my Helmar card for less than a T206 PSA 1 common. :)

Yeah I thought they were like $20 items, not $300. Unless they're actually hand drawn/painted (and then they at least have a claim to "art" status) I ain't paying $300.

Blech.

One of the artists for Helmar is Monty Sheldon who is quite the hobbyist himself and a really good guy

RIch

I thought it was Soylent Green day...

Probably not.

Rich...Monty Sheldon is no longer working with Helmar. He was involved for a few years at the beginning of the project around 2006. Helmar does produce some interesting products and features some interesting / obscure players. They have found a niche for themselves...... Adam...TUESDAY is soylent green day, not Wednesday !! :)

I've never gotten into buying Helmars; mostly because there are too many real cards I want to spend my money on.

That being said, I 100% support Leon's right to advertise these types of things on the main board and I appreciate his restraint in not overdoing it.

Agreed, if the original art was available it would be actually a collectible. Just buying beat up unsigned prints of it seems like burning money.

I was a very critical opponent of Helmar in the past, but I will say they have improved by dating many of their products. Still would like to see that at 100%, but improvement is improvement.

Justin now & then original Helmar art is available.
Here's my original Goudey style Eddie Plank w/ regular card.

http://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/helmarplank.jpg

http://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/helmarplankb.jpg

Helmar r319
 

Love these cards. Been buying them for a few months now. Also, no need to get them graded!

To each his own. No interest here. Not saying they aren't pretty, but frankly, I'll do my own if I wanted such things.

I wonder how they get around using images of people who are legally protected such as Ruth, Mantle and Cobb.

I have bought a few. I personally think they are inexpensive compared to other limited quantity collectibles and they depict images in the arena I like. I especially like the images of baseball folks that can't be found elsewhere in a card format. Like Gus greenlee. I believe these will appreciate in value, and if they don't I'm not out too much anyway and I will have something I enjoy regardless of value. Just my .02

Mark Medlin

As they are unlicensed and frankly, likely contractually illegal prints of protected rights of licensed figures I see absolutely no possibility of actual true appreciation as no grader or catalog will ever touch these with a 10 foot pole.

However, to each their own and actual worth is really just determined on who is in the room at the time. As I tell people who are upset at home appraisal values, if I have a dollar bill I have to sell and no one in the room will offer more than 25 cents...it's really worth 25 cents at that time. If they all will pay 10 bucks, then it's ten bucks. Just depends on the day and the room.

Charles does a good job selling these at good returns with his marketing, however the ones I see come up on the secondary market often seem to go at a loss. I believe REA tried auctioning off a large collection of Helmars a few years ago and they averaged about 10 bucks a card, I imagine at the crazy prices some of these get the seller lost his shirt.

Well, the originals like Jay has are very nice little paintings. The cards are Broders as far as I am concerned. That said, I collect some unlicensed cards, especially from the 1970s. They can be quite interesting additions to a collection. Not sure how these Helmar thingies will fare. I've bid on a few of the Joe Louis ones but don't want to spend any real money on what I view as a novelty item.

The right of publicity varies from state to state in terms of protection of deceased persons. Most places have a cap on it. Cali, for example, caps the heirs' control at 70 years post-death and I think that is one of the longest, so odds are the Helmar pics of guys who've been dead for more than that time are immune to lawsuits on publicity issues in nearly all states. I think Tennessee has a perpetual law (Elvis).

Cards aside for the moment, I think each of you would enjoy the latest issue of my magazine, Baseball History & Art. In this issue we have stories about the 1928 Philadelphia Athletics (think Cobb, Speaker, Collins, Mack), Sam Rice and his 1912 tornado that killed his young family, there's a story on the Baker Bowl... Oh, two stories on 19th century stars John Clarkson and Charlie Bennett (including his life after his horrific accident)... Billy Southworth, more "Players We Ought to Know"... a story on making art cards...

In short, there's plenty to read about the guys on the cards you own (or want to own). And it is a pretty magazine on substantial paper. Each copy weighs about a pound and costs me a small fortune to mail. But I digress.

Oh, I also took the advice of this board and include a hand-made Lou Gehrig card with each Internet order. The newsstand copies do not come with the card. Anyway, here is a link to this issue on eBay. There are more photos and details there: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Baseball-His...e=STRK:MESE:IT

Thanks, Charles