Game Worn Card Inserts

[xdrx]

This is obviously not a pre-80s topic, but I'm curious how this community views the newer cards with game used artifacts embedded in them?

I have not looked at new cards since sometime in the 90s, so I am very ignorant about these items, but at first glance I just scoffed at the game used stuff. I'm imagining semi-star players changing their shirts every inning to create a boatload of this stuff. Not interested.

But then I see that they have cards from "old timers". My first reaction, after wondering if they can really validate this stuff, is being appalled that they scrapped a Babe Ruth jersey to make these goofy cards. But then I see a Clemente card with a piece of game-worn jersey. Clemente was one of the few athletes I ever idolized, and the only one whom I still feel strongly about today. The idea of a card with a piece of his actual jersey is appealing to me. And at $35 or so it's doesn't seem like a completely foolish way to spend my money.

Am I a hypocrite for thinking that way? Sure seems so. I want to buy one of the Clemente cards, but I just feel like it is wrong. Very strange. It's only a baseball card. It really doesn't matter. Someone help me out with some psychoanalysis here please!

[steve B]

If you like the card get it.

I'm almost opposite you in thinking. For the current players I figure it's sort of cool, and like you said, they can just wear a jersey for an inning and there's the stuff to make the card.

The older stuff? I always look at it and start thinking " they cut up what?! "

I'd like to see the old stuff stay complete.


But, like it or not they do that and the cards are there. I'm hoping the bits cut up were in horrible condition, but probably not.

Steve B

[Exhibitman]

You're not a hypocrite at all, just a fan who would enjoy sharing a piece of an item that someone he respected once owned. Way I look at it is that for a 'regular' collector like me I will never be able to afford a Babe Ruth jersey, so an artifact card is the closest I will ever get to having something that Babe Ruth used in a baseball game.

Philosophically speaking, I don't really mind that a jersey that would otherwise hang on some wealthy guy's office wall until he dies or sells to another wealthy guy will instead bring happiness to hundreds of collectors. It would be different if they were de-accessioning museum pieces or taking items away from museums and putting them into commerce, but let's be honest and admit that the jerseys they are cutting up are being acquired from private owners in competition with other private owners where they would simply serve as personal trophy pieces for their new owners, and not as public trust items in museums. Now, I realize the foregoing is not a popular opinion with some who view the card mfgs as desecrating relics of the sport's history, and I respect that view; I just don't share it.