What is the best way to "harvest" cuts?

[btcarfagno]

I have recently bought several autograph albums and multi signed "scraps" and am wondering what the best way to handle them is for turn around sale. I have a few questions regarding this, again keeping in mind my goal of making them as marketable as possible.

1. If the cut is alone on an album page, should I keep the entire page intact?

2. Do I try to mount the cuts onto anything, such as an unlined index card, using archival glue or should I leave the cut as is and allow the eventual buyer to mount as desired?

3. Are there times to leave a group of signatures on a page together, such as when they bleed into one another or have a common theme together such as a group of 3 Yankees versus 3 individual Yankees?

4. What is the best way to handle the "front/back" signed album page situation?

5. Are there times when leaving the entire page intact would make it more valuable (I have a Jackie Robionson/Branch Rickey/Harold Parrott sheet that I am not going to break apart...but are there other reasons such as "too much bleeding into the other autographs" to keep the entire sheet together)?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Tom C

[mr2686]

Tom, just my opinion as a collector and someone who puts together cuts for matted team projects:

1. Why cut it if it's alone on the page. Leave it in tact.
2. Leave it alone and let the collector mount it. Why put any doubt in their head that you used archival products.
3. Common themes and close proximity of sigs are all good reasons to not cut them. The only reason I would cut a multi signed page was if two sigs on there were rare or worth much more seperated. There are times when this can't be done especially when there are important sigs on the front and back and cutting for one would destroy the other. Again, there's all kinds of ways to display sigs so let a collector decide.
4. See #3.
5. Personally, I think it's more valuable if left alone because it's like a snapshot in time when these players were together...especially if it's dated.

Finally, my philosophy is this - if there are multiple sigs on a page, as a collector, I can always matt out the sigs I don't need, but I can never put them back together if I cut them.
Just my .02.

[travrosty]

leave alone if possible,

the only exception is if there are stars on an album page that dont have anything to do with each other, no theme, and you think you can get more if you sell each one individually, and they can be cut cleanly, then it would be up to you. dont adhere the sigs to anything, let the collector display it the way they want.

[thenavarro]

Don't cut that Cobb, Thorpe, Warner, Dempsey signed sheet cause if you still have it next month I might take it off your hands

mike