Sort of Ethical Question Re Baseball Signed W-2 Forms

[Mr. Zipper]

SSNs for deceased is a moot point because they are easily found online at the Social Security Death Index. Anyone with bad intent could easily harvest millions of SSNs from that site alone.

I would not physically alter a document whether the player was alive or not. It seems that digitally obscuring it for any online display would mitigate any real risk of ID theft.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Mr. Zipper

SSNs for deceased is a moot point because they are easily found online at the Social Security Death Index. Anyone with bad intent could easily harvest millions of SSNs from that site alone.

I would not physically alter a document whether the player was alive or not. It seems that digitally obscuring it for any online display would mitigate any real risk of ID theft.

+1

[thecatspajamas]

Another question to consider is that, if you had not already told us that the SSN's are not blacked out, would any of us have expected them to be visible if offered a player's signed W-2 form? As several others have said, it's common knowledge that contracts are often available with the SSN showing, so a collector might be disappointed or less enthusiastic about obtaining one that had it blacked out, assuming that it was some collector who had done it rather than the player or whoever in the club handled the old contract documents.

In this case though, if the collector had never seen any players' W-2 forms offered, would they know that it was ever available with the SSN showing, or just assume that it was blacked out when the document was released to the general collecting public? In other words, if they're not expecting to see the SSN still visible, how would that have any effect on its value to a collector?

Maybe I'm wrong and there's some sort of W-2 Collecting Community that I'm not aware of. Just offering a little more food for thought on the subject.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Another question to consider is that, if you had not already told us that the SSN's are not blacked out, would any of us have expected them to be visible if offered a player's signed W-2 form? As several others have said, it's common knowledge that contracts are often available with the SSN showing, so a collector might be disappointed or less enthusiastic about obtaining one that had it blacked out, assuming that it was some collector who had done it rather than the player or whoever in the club handled the old contract documents.

In this case though, if the collector had never seen any players' W-2 forms offered, would they know that it was ever available with the SSN showing, or just assume that it was blacked out when the document was released to the general collecting public? In other words, if they're not expecting to see the SSN still visible, how would that have any effect on its value to a collector?

Maybe I'm wrong and there's some sort of W-2 Collecting Community that I'm not aware of. Just offering a little more food for thought on the subject.

Lance,
FWIW, I don't think that you are wrong in assuming that there is not a W-2 collecting community lurking in the weeds.

As an advanced baseball player collector of sorts (Nolan Ryan, Johnny Vander Meer, Bob Feller, Walter Johnson, to name a few), finding an oddball item like a W-2 form from one of my focus players would be something that I would be thrilled to add to my collection. I have other friends that are player specialists (Ryan, Cal Ripken, Carlton Fisk, Mark McGwire, Sandy Koufax, etc.) that would be all over an item like this if it became available in the hobby.

It's weird, but believe it or not, I have a few fellow Ryan collector friends that are after a 1979 Nolan Ryan signed gas station receipt and paper route receipt (Nolan age 15) that I own in my collection. Sometimes the most oddball items are the one's that are the most interesting to an advanced collector.

One way of looking at this is that there is probably someone out there that collects everything. It's just a matter of finding the collector that wants what you're peddling as a seller. When you have two or more people interested in the same thing, then it becomes an auction with sometimes interesting results. As a long time seller, you know this way better than most.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

Lance,
FWIW, I don't think that you are wrong in assuming that there is not a W-2 collecting community lurking in the weeds.

One way of looking at this is that there is probably someone out there that collects everything. It's just a matter of finding the collector that wants what you're peddling as a seller. When you have two or more people interested in the same thing, then it becomes an auction with sometimes interesting results. As a long time seller, you know this better than most.

Scott, I wasn't implying that nobody collects such things and therefore nobody would care if the SSN was blacked out or not. What I was trying to suggest was that, when you find that collector of oddball items related to their favorite player, not only will they not care if the SSN is blacked out, but will they even expect it to be otherwise?

I just can't picture a Nolan Ryan collector finding one of his old W-2's with a blacked out SSN and deciding to hold out for one without the black mark, or even assuming that such an unmarred document exists.

Indeed, as a seller, I have learned not to question the whims of collectors. Many a time have I thrown something up for auction hoping to get a single bid and been surprised by two bidders duking it out, and probably just as many times have I started something low that I thought would draw lots of bids and wound up selling it for the opening bid price. You just never know with auctions, and that anticipation as the lots are ending and the final bids are coming in is one of the things that keeps me in the game! (Well, that, and bills to pay )

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Scott, I wasn't implying that nobody collects such things and therefore nobody would care if the SSN was blacked out or not. What I was trying to suggest was that, when you find that collector of oddball items related to their favorite player, not only will they not care if the SSN is blacked out, but will they even expect it to be otherwise?

I just can't picture a Nolan Ryan collector finding one of his old W-2's with a blacked out SSN and deciding to hold out for one without the black mark, or even assuming that such an unmarred document exists.

Indeed, as a seller, I have learned not to question the whims of collectors. Many a time have I thrown something up for auction hoping to get a single bid and been surprised by two bidders duking it out, and probably just as many times have I started something low that I thought would draw lots of bids and wound up selling it for the opening bid price. You just never know with auctions, and that anticipation as the lots are ending and the final bids are coming in is one of the things that keeps me in the game! (Well, that, and bills to pay )

Lance,
Gotcha. I understand what you are saying.

BTW, I actually polled a few collector friends on the topic earlier today because I thought that it would be interesting to find out if I was not alone in the thought that I'd be likely to be more spirited in the bidding on an item if personal info (address, phone #, SS #) was not blacked out. Amongst my friends it was unanimous that they would pay more for such an item, FWIW.

Anyway, before I get someone posting the moving avatar with the horse being beaten to death, I am signing off on commenting any more.

I thought that this was a cool thread to comment on.

[JimStinson]

I recently sold a large collection of Florida Senior League contracts (1989-1990) that had SS numbers , I simply whited out the numbers before listing them on e-bay. Its possible that the eventual owner could scratch off the white out. But listing signed items by living persons with socials is a NO NO , If deceased I do the same thing BUT as mentioned in a previous post , deceased SS numbers are easily accessed online by way of death certificates.
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