Anyone else think season passes are a little over blown?

[packs]

I don't know if I've seen an uptick of season passes lately, but I have definitely noticed an almost automatic increase in assumptions and flowery descriptions when it comes to seeing them for sale.

While it is true that a season pass was good for any game that season, it isn't true that it was used to see every game that season.

Am I alone in thinking it's pretty presumptuous for an auction description to say something like "this 1941 season pass could have been used to see the final hit of DiMaggio's streak".

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by packs

I don't know if I've seen an uptick of season passes lately, but I have definitely noticed an almost automatic increase in assumptions and flowery descriptions when it comes to seeing them for sale.

While it is true that a season pass was good for any game that season, it isn't true that it was used to see every game that season.

Am I alone in thinking it's pretty presumptuous for an auction description to say something like "this 1941 season pass could have been used to see the final hit of DiMaggio's streak".

Yes, I have always thought that hyping them in that fashion is a stretch (or better yet, a leap of faith).

Without proper documentation, there is simply no way to determine which games were attended. The value should be based on the Season Pass itself (who owned it, its rarity, it's aesthetic attributes, etc.) But not on the presumption of which games may have been attended. That's just pure conjecture.

[D. Bergin]

"could have been" is the operative phrase.

It's not false, but it is open to speculation.

It's up to prospective bidders what to do with that information.

Recounting milestones that happened throughout the course of that season pass, is simply information to be taken or left by the reader of the flowery prose.

[packs]

I get that and I understand it's not "false" to say something COULD have happened, but I also feel like it can be disingenuous and maybe even irrelevant.

If there was a Sweet Cap backed T206 without an image printed on the front, would it sit it right with people if it were sold as "could have featured Honus Wagner"?

[Snapolit1]

Agree. See a lot of that. Having said that, I have a few from the 20s that are very cool. And I'm suprised there isn't more demand.

[jethrod3]

I think the same argument applies to full single-game tickets before the bar-coding days. Some were actually at the games, but it's likely that some were not. For some tickets in my collection, I'm reasonably sure that some full tickets were at the game, because a few years ago, I purchased a large group of tickets (via a small auction house) from someone who was a ticket-taker at games in the early to mid-70s. Some tickets were just stubs, but on some nights, he/she must have had a single-hole puncher available for use, because a lot of tickets had punches in them. (Don't get me started about how punched tickets are automatically be rendered grades much, much lower than unpunched tickets even if they don't affect the beauty of the ticket--that would be a topic for a completely different thread!!)

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by jethrod3

I think the same argument applies to full single-game tickets before the bar-coding days. Some were actually at the games, but it's likely that some were not. For some tickets in my collection, I'm reasonably sure that some full tickets were at the game, because a few years ago, I purchased a large group of tickets (via a small auction house) from someone who was a ticket-taker at games in the early to mid-70s. Some tickets were just stubs, but on some nights, he/she must have had a single-hole puncher available for use, because a lot of tickets had punches in them. (Don't get me started about how punched tickets are automatically be rendered grades much, much lower than unpunched tickets even if they don't affect the beauty of the ticket--that would be a topic for a completely different thread!!)

FYI, a hole punched ticket = a complimentary ticket

[Smarti5051]

I think with modern technology, what constitutes a "ticket" for collecting purposes gets a little murky (and will get even murkier as time passes). Sure, in 1940, there were only a couple ways to get into a ballpark legally, and both utilized some sort of physical ticket or season pass. For the past 20 years, however, tickets that were printed also have an electronic counterpart, that enabled the ticket holder to convert their physical ticket to either a PDF format ticket, or now a QR code that you display on your phone. Granted, this really only applies to modern ticket collecting for now. But, it seems most collectors of modern tickets are interested in the physically generated ticket, regardless of the history of whether that physical ticket/barcode was the one actually used for entry to the event (or, in fact, whether the corresponding seat was used at all for the game).

So, in 30 years, as the ticket collecting industry evolves, I suspect the question of whether a ticket or pass was actually physically used for entry to a game will not be a question most collectors ask or are concerned about. I appreciate current collectors of vintage tickets can have different concerns.

[icollectDCsports]

Depends upon the specific wording of the description. If it’s mere speculation, I view it as harmless puffery, even if off-putting.

[Gary Dunaier]

Originally Posted by Smarti5051

I think with modern technology, what constitutes a "ticket" for collecting purposes gets a little murky (and will get even murkier as time passes)

Let's not forget "print-at-home" tickets. The problem with those, from a collecting standpoint, is that if you had one from a milestone game such as a no-hitter, or a notable player's Major League Debut, as long as you had the file you could always print up more after the fact and sell them to unsuspecting collectors.