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Posted By: davidcycleback

A question to ask is how does the item stand alone as a piece of furniture to be displayed in the home. If it's good looking piece of furniture, there should be no qualms about purchasing it. I used to buy a few large baseball paintings as pieces of memorabilia. A question I would ask about a large and bulky ('can't stick it in a drawer') painting was, would I be willing to proudly hang it on a wall or would I hide it before company came for fear they'd question my taste. If I would be embarrassed to show it, or wouldn't want to look at it myself, I wouldn't purchase it.

A similar question for a baseball chair would be, "Is it comfortable to sit in?" I know a guy who bought a game used coach's warmup jacket for $100. The jacket was his size and he bought it to wear as a winter jacket. Irrelevant to the collectibility of the item (and he is a baseball memorabilia collector), he figured $100 was a good price for a jacket to wear.

I gave my dad a little silver trinket box (essentially a man's version of a jewelry box) that was given as an award to early NBA player George Senesky-- Senesky's name, year, etc was engraved on the top. Some time later, I stopped by and saw my dad had the box on his desk and was using the box to store his keys, change and similar. I thought it great that the box was being used as intended. Much better than if it was empty in the back of a drawer. I gave my dad the box about five years ago and it's still on his desk holding his keys and loose change.

I often envisioned an antique furniture dealer who stored his furniture in his house, as his furniture. He ate his cereal on an 1800s oak table, read the paper in an antique British chair, combed his hair in a 1920 Chicago Cubs advertising mirror, guests drank from a coffee cup once owned by Cary Grant-- everything for sale and listed on his website. Sound business foundation too, as he never has to buy his own furniture! He thinks about all those sucker baseball card dealers who have to buy cards plus furniture for their homes-- how do they stay in business?