Game Used Bats: PSA vs Mears

[Jobu]

Can you offer a bit more info on what the Vince Malta system is and how there can be dating differences?

Originally Posted by Mark

...MEARS doesn't follow the Vince Malta system, as PSA does, and this means that there may be differences about dating, and thus about use...

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Jobu

Can you offer a bit more info on what the Vince Malta system is and how there can be dating differences?

Long-time collector Vince Malta examined thousands of game used bats, and he devised a method for classifying when they were made. He provides a number of clues for determining, more or less precisely, which year or years a Louisville Slugger bat could have been manufactured. His methods are explained in his now standard book A Complete Reference to Louisville Slugger Professional Bats.. The book is indispensible because it also contains records of the bats that were ordered from Hillerich and Bradsby by hall of fame players. Records are pretty much non-existent before 1920, but by the early-mid 20's, there are records that tell us about the weight, length, and style of bats each HoF player actually ordered from LS.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Refer.../dp/0979137004

How can experts differ about the dates of manufacture? As I understand it, Malta studied when players returned certain bat models to the factory to be duplicated (or modified slightly) by H&B, and he dates the manufacture of the bat to the year it was returned to the factory. At MEARS, they hypothesize that a given bat model could have been used for a year or more before examples started being returned to the factory for duplictation/ modification. I'm sure others know more about it than I do.

[Jobu]

Thanks Mark, that is helpful. I bought Malta's book last year but have yet to seriously study it. So, his system is for Louisville Slugger and then for other companies people assume players would at a minimum have been likely to order bats with similar specs?

Thanks everyone for the feedback on PSA v Mears. It seems like everyone likes PSA and that some trust full letters from Mears even if they may not be quite what they once were.

[MEARSAUCTIONS]

Just want to explain why MEARS doesn't support the Malta dating system and ask for feedback from the collectors community as to the validity of my research.

For some background, our bat dating system was by Dave Bushing and incorporated into the MEARS dating criteria. Bushing had access to the Louisville Slugger vaults where 1,000's of side written bats were stored.

For those not familiar with side writing, in the era approximately pre 1940, when a player wanted duplicate bats made, he often returned a bat he favored back to the factory. That bat was then "side written" or the player, team, and date the bat was returned was written on the bat in grease pencil.

So, the 1,000's of bats in the vault all had a date of when the bat was last used (or returned to the factory shortly after last being used). It is my understanding that Vince Malta would then use the marking on the bat and correspond it with the side written return date. That date became the dating used for bats.

I had a problem with that methodology since the dating was when the bat was last used, not manufactured. The manufacturing of the bat may have been done prior to the year of the side writing on the bat. Or, the bat was manufactured with parts (centerbrand, powerized logo, player name) which was made and used before the date of the side writing. Meaning, the parts used to make the bat were laying around the factory. In order for the side writing to match the markings of the bat, the parts used to make the bat would have had to be known to have been produced in the same year of the side writing. That link has not be established. Often, the bat may have been produced years in advance. Per the actual bat dyes used for stampings of the bats (auction by Hunt Auctions), the centerbrand, powerized, and player autograph were interchangable. They came in sections that could be put together like a puzzle when being used to turn the bat to create the stampings. The pieces, used to stamp the markings into the bat, were all made prior to the side written date. The problem being, we didn't know how much earlier. A centerbrand may have been designed and first used 1, 2, 3, 4, or more years earlier than the side written return date.

In my opinion, the data was too incomplete to use for dating. For example, lets take a 1930s bat for example. The bat was manufactured using a centerbrand, a powerized stamp, a facsimile barrel stamping of the player, and Genuine or other barrel stampings.

If the bat was side written 1936, Vince documented the centerbrand, powerzied stamp, and barrel end as 1936. The problem with that is, during the manufaturing process, the lathe hands used various, inter-changable centerbrands and powerized stampings. The combinations were endless.

MEARS did not feel that the sidewriting, applied once the bat was retired, could accurately reflect an accurate dating point. The Malta book would date the combination of the centerbrand and powerzied to 1936 (per my example), but the bat may have had parts used in 1930-1936. Hunt Auctions sold many of the dyes used to produce the bats, and this supported our position that there were too many combinations to be so specific.

Back to Bushing, when looking at the bats in the vault, studying the side writing, and understanding when model number were first introduced (1938 circa) we were able to create a more general dating period. Now with 30+ years using Bushing's initial overall broad range dating, it has held up as being accurate. Taube still acknowledges the accuracy of the broad range dating used by MEARS, he just used the Malta book to fine tune and provide what he feels is a more pinpointed dating. The dating was introduced to our initial worksheet back in 2004, and after 16+ years of review, we have not found any concrete evidence to change.

Regarding a bat that was recently sold via our auction, yes, there was a discrepancy between the MEARS dating and the PSA dating. I do not consider it a mistake by MEARS though. When the winning bidder brought it to my attention, he was refunded the money.

My final thoughts on the Malta book is that it is very confusing. When examining the images in the book, reviewing the 44 centerbrand pictures posted, which represent the years 1890-1940, a 50 year time span, that is referencing less than 1 centerbrand per year. There were most likely dozens, if not hundreds, of centerbrands used at the factory during that time span for each year. The representative sample was too incomplete for me to adopt for the MEARS company.

In my experience when trying to make sense of the dating, I was comparing my bat, (centerbrand and powerized) to the picture in the book. In many instances the centerbrand of the bat was "close" to the picture in the book, but never exact. I routinely found small deviations of the centerbrand to the picture and dating in the book. I concluded that "this" is not "that".

I would encourage collectors to compare the dated images to the book, see if both centerbrand and powerized are an exact match. From my experience, there were most always some deviation.

Respectfully,


Troy R Kinunen, MEARS Evaluations, LLC

[Duluth Eskimo]

Thanks for coming on and addressing the discrepancy in dating.

[MEARSAUCTIONS]

I just want collectors to come away understanding that PSA and MEARS have two distinct methodologies with respect to dating bats. When there is a difference, it is not because MEARS was "wrong", we are just adhering to a system that we have designed and used since our inception of which we believe in and feel is backed by research and experience. Knowing that, collectors can decide for themselves which company they want to use and are most comfortable with. Troy

[doug.goodman]

All of which seems to add up to dating bats from the early days is more guess work than many would like to admit.

[yanks12025]

Nevermind

[murphusa]

working with bats for over 50 years and I learned something today. Thanks Troy for your analysis.