[frankbmd]

The State of the Hobby - What I've learned in 3,999 posts

I was going to make this a poll, but I have never created a poll on the forum, but I bet I could. The results of this poll would be ambiguous though so I have decided against it.
It would have been a simple poll though requiring one answer from each member.
If you choose to answer the poll, please do it in the form of a post, which you may embellish as you please.

(A) - I am crazy, but you guys are all nuts.

(B) - I am nuts, but you guys are all crazy.

99.9 % or more of the population do not collect prewar cards, photos, autographs or memorabilia. What must they imagine when they look at eBay and see 27 bidders on
an auction for an obscure player on a tiny piece of cardboard with a high bid of $787. I would venture to say the majority of them would pat themselves on the back for not being (crazy, nuts) enough to even consider placing a bid, but we do it all the time.

Recently I placed a winning bid on an SGC 50 T206 card featuring (Ed, Steve) Reagan of the (1910,1909) New Orleans Pelicans, a Class A minor league team. My winning bid was over $100. How could I possibly justify this? (Ed,Steve) Reagan had a (seven,eight) year career all in the minor leagues. In fact, their brief tenure in New Orleans was the pinnacle of their careers. (Ed,Steve) were in New Orleans for less than a full year before being shuttled to another minor league franchise. So what did they accomplish as Pelicans. Well, both batted a little over .200. Before you scoff at this record, it should be noted that after Ed returned to the Sally League for the majority of the 1910 season he batted a whopping .189. In 1909 Steve did a little better. (Ed, Steve) had no power or other redeeming equalities. While with the Pelicans however, Ed did have one notable teammate, a fellow named Joe Jackson, who did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the set. Steve on the other hand supposedly played for Montgomery in 1908, but is not listed on their roster. Go figure, I am clearly (crazy, nuts).

We all have collections, but do the majority of our friends care? I think not. I share the fact that I have a hobby with most of my friends, both casual and close. When they come to my home, not a single one has looked at any of my displays or asked a single question. I think my collection is safe in plain sight. They don’t even fake interest. They don’t openly call me (crazy,nuts) but I’m sure some of them think it.

So what do you do. Do you collect old photographs of men, who may be an old baseball team and then wonder who they are? Is this Nap Lajoie, sorry wishful thinking? You’re just (crazy, nuts). Or are you one of the experts who can spot Nap’s ear from 20 paces. There may only be a few “ear guys” on the forum and they do provide a service to members who buy unknown men in old photos, but what else can you do? I suppose you could stump the panel on the old “What’s My Line?” show.

Or maybe you collect autographs. Are they real? Are they authenticated? By whom?
Can you tell who signed it yourself? Certainly this has become more difficult if you collect autographs from living people as legibility has suffered, presumably from climate change or some such. Authenticators make both real money and real mistakes, so as Johnny Carson used to say “Whom Do you Trust?”. His show was actually “Who Do You Trust?” and I am not sure he ever said either, but I would guess the “incorrect” latter. If Mickey Mantle signed baseballs from dawn to dusk every day, only one half of the Mantle balls out there would be accounted for. Is this Mantle good? Yes we have heard this more than once. And fortunately we have autograph guys who try to fill a niche like the ear guys. Serving the crazy and nuts among us is often a thankless task.

So we have cards of players that were only going through the motions, we have pictures of anonymous young men who may have gone through the motions, and we have autographs, many of which were created by men going through the motions, to capitalize on us, the (crazy, nuts) collectors.

But we know how to protect ourselves. For twenty-five years we have supported an industry that deals in plastic encapsulation. Would I have paid $100 whatever dollars for (Ed, Steve) Reagan if he wasn’t encapsulated in an (SGC 50, PSA 4) plastic slab? Does the plastic slab justify the value or atone for Ed's & Steve’s inability to hit a baseball? No, but it creates an opportunity for us to compete against each other in the vaunted (PSA,SGC) Registry. And while we try to outbuy each other to climb to the top of a Registry, what do we do? We inflate the value of the better and best cards. Yes we are (crazy, nuts). And (PSA ,SGC) just laughs on the way to the bank.

And because the market values of the higher end cards increase exponentially between grades, the “flippers” will resubmit cards, often more than once, in hopes of a grade bump. This sometimes works for the “flipper", but always works for the TPG. Chi-ching.

But some of us are smarter than that. We eschew the Registry game and act like real collectors. When we buy cards in slabs, we crack them open so we can see, feel and smell our cards, even though they are likely devalued without their armor. But alas, we ultimately tire of smelling our collections and there comes a time to sell, so what do we do? Yup, we send it back in to be reslabbed before we sell. Yes we are (crazy, nuts) and (PSA,SGC) laughs some more.

As a whole though we constitute enough of a body to attract the interest of those who are not (crazy, nuts) and merely want to “help” us move our cards around among ourselves. The auction (not casino gambling, but gambling none the less) gives we hobbyists yet another opportunity to lose money, while enriching the entities who facilitate the auction, whether it be eBay or a plethora of auction houses we all know.
We tend to rant and rail about all of them, about excessive buyer’s premiums, about excessive shipping and handling fees, about shilling, and about untimely auctions that last until the sun comes up and so on. Nevertheless occasionally there is a big score in an auction and the beat goes on and we are not deterred in continuing our support. We rant and complain, but are we not just (crazy, nuts)?

I could go on and on about the hobby that has made me (crazy, nuts), about the faith sellers put in Pop Reports, which are probably less reliable than your local weather report, about fraudulently tampered slabs that do not contain the graded card on the flip, about game-used bats and balls, about baseballs that were manufactured after the player who signed it died, and so forth. But If you haven’t gotten the idea yet, you probably never will, and you’re just stupid, but that doesn’t mean you’re not crazy or nuts.

So what is it?

Are you crazy or are you nuts? If you believe you are neither, share this post with your shrink. Like Home Depot, you can do it, he can help. Fess up.