Ty Cobb 1905 Reach Montage

[daves_resale_shop]

Gents,

I recently picked this up and thought it was pretty cool. Its actually a 1905 Detroit Tigers Montage that was cut out of a 1906 Reach Guide. The montage has an extremely young cobb portrait (I believe he was sent back down in 1906). The photo measures 3.75" wide by 5.35" high and displays pretty well


I picked it up for a couple of bucks, so what the heck! but I wanted to see if these things hold any value???

THanks,
David

[Leon]

My guess is it is worth approximately what you paid for it. (maybe just a bit more as it is an exact replica of the card and premium it is associated with, which are both worth considerable money)

[bcbgcbrcb]

David:

I have handled a bunch of those types of items over the past couple of years. Not super valuable but Cobb's earliest piece, it could bring $50, maybe a little more or a little less if you find the right collector. I have seen the 1914 Ruths sell for around $100 on occasion.

[daves_resale_shop]

Thanks for the feedback guys... I thought it was cool, and worth every bit of the $8 I paid for it... It looks a lot better framed & Matted & will make a good conversation piece.

[Big Six]

I did the same thing, David. Here's 1904 (w/ Chesbro, Griffith & Keeler) as well as 1905 (Chesbro, Griffith, Keeler and a rookie Chase) Yankee squads (sorry for the crappy pix). For $5 for the pair, they look great framed/matted and hanging on my wall.

[daves_resale_shop]

Very Cool indeed, and for the price you can't go wrong!!!

Originally Posted by Big Six

I did the same thing, David. Here's 1904 (w/ Chesbro, Griffith & Keeler) as well as 1905 (Chesbro, Griffith, Keeler and a rookie Chase) Yankee squads (sorry for the crappy pix). For $5 for the pair, they look great framed/matted and hanging on my wall.

[Runscott]

If you really like this sort of thing, buy the book that they come out of - in many cases it will cost far less than the page cut from it. You will enjoy the book in its intended form, and you can make a nice scan of the page you are interested in, have it printed on high-quality paper, enlarged as you need, and then you can mat and frame it. The pictures are generally not of that high of quality, and are very small. Collectability is next to nothing for the cut out pages, but the books have value - more and more as people with no respect for publications or history continue to tear out the pictures and sell them, taking whole copies that are irreplaceable out of the market forever.

If you buy the book instead, I would have no problem with scanning the image for you and creating a nice copy on high-quality paper, for the cost of shipping each way. I've created quite a few displays with such items and can walk you through how to do it.

[barrysloate]

I'm with Scott 100% on this one. I hate to see these guides torn apart for the pictures. There are only so many left and it's a pity to see people yanking out the plates to make a few extra dollars. Buying and selling individual plates should be discouraged.

[Big Six]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

I'm with Scott 100% on this one. I hate to see these guides torn apart for the pictures. There are only so many left and it's a pity to see people yanking out the plates to make a few extra dollars. Buying and selling individual plates should be discouraged.

Hey Barry & Scott...I don't disagree with you at all. However, the seller I purchased these from claims they are from damaged Spalding/Reach guides...frankly, I would love to own a vintage guide in it's complete form, but from the perspective of displaying some of the early team plates, I look at this more like recycling...turning something damaged in to something that will be around for a LONG time now...just don't want you thinking I'm running around with a pair of scissors hacking apart old guides willy-nilly. I can't speak for Dave, though...

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Big Six

Hey Barry & Scott...I don't disagree with you at all. However, the seller I purchased these from claims they are from damaged Spalding/Reach guides...frankly, I would love to own a vintage guide in it's complete form, but from the perspective of displaying some of the early team plates, I look at this more like recycling...turning something damaged in to something that will be around for a LONG time now...just don't want you thinking I'm running around with a pair of scissors hacking apart old guides willy-nilly. I can't speak for Dave, though...

Yes, the sellers figured out that if they put "came from damaged guide" in their descriptions, people are more likely to buy them; however, that is not what the sellers are actually doing all of the time. I have seen sellers who use the "came from damaged guide" disclaimer, win perfectly good reading copies and then the bits and pieces show up as 'montages'.

If you watch the bidding on the lower-grade copies on ebay, you'll be able to easily figure out what these sellers are willing to pay. I have a few searches for the guides, and I bid them up accordingly, winning one every now and then. It's worth it to me, and you can see by Phil's recent guide sales in the B/S/T section that they are easy enough to re-sell right here on the board to people who will appreciate them.

So the short message is that you are probably unwittingly encouraging the destruction of these guides each time you buy a cut out page.

As I said, I'll make you nice copies. No, you won't be hanging an original page cut out of a book on your wall, but who wants to do that anyway?

As a side note, I would also recommend that anyone who is interested begin building up their library runs of these now while you still can. For the most part, the Spalding Guide, Spalding Record, and Reach Guide, are similar enough in content that you could build a mixed run and have all the early 1900's info on baseball that you could ever want.

[chaddurbin]

if there are peeps out there willing to pay for the individual pages, sellers will continue hacking these books up. send them into beckett to be slabbed and suddenly the value 10x because now they're legitimized in a way...like the recent slabbed joe jackson that cost multiples what you can buy the whole guide for.