I was just thinking about the period in my life when I graded cards for SCD Authentic… ahhh, the good ol’ days. Actually, it was one of the most boring jobs I ever had:) Sure, I got to check out some of the best cards in the hobby, Hank Aaron rookies, Mickey Mantle rookies – I even got to grade Larry Fritsch’s Honus Wagner T206 and Freddie Lindstrom 1932 US Caramel cards.

But I am more of a people person and it makes me cringe to think that I once spent more than eight hours a day in a small, dark room looking at cards.

That said, I remember some of the phone calls we used to get and I would like to share some of the biggest misconceptions in the card-grading world.

-    Grading companies do not switch cards.

o    I don’t care if it’s SCDA, PSA, GAI or even CSA, the large grading companies do not switch cards… it makes no sense. Why would a multi-million dollar company like PSA put its business in jeopardy to steal a few grand? Not happening.

-    The serial numbers on graded-card labels don’t mean anything significant.

o    I remember the rumors that the first number on a PSA label meant you had a certain grader looking at your cards. No. 5 meant you had the more lenient grader and No. 7 meant you were in trouble and would get no higher than 7s. Give me a break. It makes for a great Oliver Stone movie plot, but really holds no bearing in trading-card reality. There is no significance to the serial number. None.

-    People accuse grading card companies of damaging their cards.

o    I am not going to say that it doesn’t happen, but I will say it is highly unlikely. At SCDA, I can only remember one instance when a card was damaged. We immediately called the customer to explain what happened and I believe gave the man an amount in cash that he was happy with.

o    I would like to think that the other grading companies would handle it in the same manor as we did, but there is no way I will ever know for sure.

-    People used to call us and ask how they knew the package would get there safe. Many people simply would not send packages through the mail.

o    I can totally understand this. If the postal service lost a package, it would basically mean they lost someone’s childhood and/or passion. That said, I will throw in the fact that I have personally shipped thousands of packages in my life and the USPS has never lost one. Not even one.

-    Lastly, people used to call SCDA all the time and tell us they had a T206 Honus Wagner card and that they wanted to get it graded.

o    Ok… there is a chance that the card is real. Probably a one-out-of-a-million chance.

o    That said, if the back of the card tells you that a Honus Wagner T206 card is worth thousands of dollars, then it has no chance.

Good day, I’m off to Dallas for the Heritage auction.

It’s intriguing to me that there are a select number of athletes, celebrities and historical figures who just plain don’t sign autographs. Of course, there are always a few examples from this fraternity, but when they actually show up you are going to pay through the nose.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the following sports personalities are known as infamous non-signers: Dr. Mike Marshall, Al Davis (I couldn't even find a past auction result to provide a link for Davis), Bill Russell (he used to be a non-signer until the late 90s), Sandy Koufax (used to be also, until he signed a deal last year with UDA).

Historical figures who won’t sign at all anymore is the famous moonwalker Neil Armstrong and author of Catcher and the Rye, J.D. Salinger.

Paul McCartney isn’t a “non-signer,” but is a “barely-ever signer,” so is Bruce Springsteen. McCartney actually had a book signing last year and The Boss will sign if you are extremely lucky.

I thought you would find it interesting to check out past auction results of the few autograph examples from these personalities. Click on their names and you will be redirected a result.

Scammers are in full force and they are hitting up people’s memorabilia, toys and anything else of value. About two years ago my friend’s grandmother, who lives in Green Bay, a junk man come to her home.

She let him in, and to my friend’s dismay, bought all of her antique sports collectibles. She probably had a few thousand dollars worth of programs, yearbooks and autographs from the Packers’ championship teams of the 1960s.
She wouldn’t tell my friend how much she sold the items for, probably because she knew she got ripped off.

Now I know it ultimately was her choice, but she was totally taken advantage of and she was way too trusting… Most elderly people are.
Another story of a scammer taking advantage of elderly people happened to my friend’s mother this past weekend.

She is in her 60s and beginning to forget things etc, so she is becoming an easy target.
My friend always told her not to sell any of his childhood toys. She vowed she never would.
Then, over the weekend she had a rummage sale and advertised it in her local newspaper. A man who must have seen the ad came to her home a day early and asked if she had anything else for sale. She said she had some furniture and invited the man inside.

According to my friend, she said the man showed a lot of interest in his childhood toys. She told him that the toys weren’t for sale.

My buddy arrived to his mom’s house the next day and some of his favorite toys were missing. The man who came in the house stole the toys!

My buddy was so upset over the fact that part of his childhood was stolen, and I don’t blame him.
Now to the unfortunate story of hobby pioneer Lionel Carter. Listen to this interview. Very sad that there are horrible people there doing this to innocent people.

It’s always a good thing when our beloved hobby gets national media attention. Today on ESPN.com, and I would assume other media outlets as well, the 1951 Mickey Mantle Bowman SGC 96 rookie card that sold in Mastro’s recent auction was featured in a story.
The price of $160K was the most ever for a Mint example of Mantle’s true rookie card.
I am not going lie; I was very baffled when I saw the final price. Granted it was graded by SGC, and not PSA, but PSA has graded 9 1951 Bowman Mantles with a grade of a Mint 9, so it’s not like cards similar to this one don’t exist.

Also, the ones that have previously sold went for only about a third as this one did.
Was this because the card was once owned by hobby veteran Lionel Carter? Was it just a better example than all the previously-sold 9s? I have no clue.

That raises an important question. Does it make a big difference if a notable person once owned a particular item? I remember when SCD Authentic graded cards from Larry Fritsch’s collection, and they did rather well, but three times the normal price? That is very surprising.
I wonder if it will end up in a PSA Gem 10 holder some day.

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Now on to the NFL Draft. If you read my post last Friday you could probably sense the excitement I felt from the Packers’ potential on really improving the team. Instead, they made no significant trades and drafted a bunch of players I never heard of.

I am not one to doubt a General Manager of a pro football team, but I will admit that Ted Thompson’s strategy is very baffling at times.

There are people in Wisconsin that are calling for his head right now. I will wait and see how this all plays out before I go looking for him.

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I will be headed to Dallas this Friday and I am very excited to tell everyone that I will be covering Heritage’s live auction. I will be writing a story covering the event for the pages of Sports Collectors Digest and also will be taking some video and doing some audio interviews with the hobby’s key players.

I am going to most likely be talking to Heritage’s auction director Chris Ivy and Heritage’s jersey authenticator and hobby pioneer Lou Lampson.

Should be very interesting content to say the least.

As I mentioned yesterday, two nights ago a notable game-worn jersey dealer gave me a ring out of the blue. He was just checking to see how everything was going, but also wanted to touch on some very important issues in the hobby.

The topic of pro-cut jerseys made its way into the conversation, and pretty much consumed the rest of our one-hour chat. It turns out that my dealer friend sold a batch of pro-cut baseball jerseys, which he suspects were later sold as “game-worn” jerseys. We both agreed that this has been going on for years and that it is a major problem in the hobby.

Then our conversation changed to the question of whether an honest person should ever sell a pro-cut jersey. I am not going to call anyone dishonest for stating a jersey for sale is a pro-cut shirt and not game-worn, but I am willing to bet that the majority of jerseys sold as pro-cut will be sold as game-worn at some point.

So, what am I getting at? Well, I am not exactly sure. Maybe if you ever sell a pro-cut jersey it would be a good idea to mark it in some fashion to make sure you know that it was never game-used. Invisible ink is a procedure that comes to mind.

I don’t know how many times I have seen a pro-cut signed jersey, which sold in an  sale and it ended up on eBay or somewhere else with dirt and other artificial wear.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but how many pro-cut jerseys you have seen sold on eBay are later sold again as pro-cuts? Probably very few. I am sure some end up in collections, but my gut tells me that a bunch of them are sold fraudulently as game-used.
Many people are being fooled and it really is a shame.

Hello all. You will be happy to know that my Paypal account was restored to full power last night. After I made a phone call to its customer service line a representative asked me a few questions and restored the account.

I asked the lady why I was never sent my confirmation code through the mail. She said "sometimes it takes up to three weeks, sometimes it comes right away." Thanks... that's nice to know. If I wouldn't have called last night I could be waiting through the good part of May to receive the code.

Well, that's done at least.

I am sorry that this is going to be a short entry today. I was out of the office and am home now, but just wanted to touch base with everyone.

However, in closing, I will offer you this teaser for tomorrow's blog entry. After I received a call from a notable game-worn jersey dealer last night, I came up with a very disturbing angle on game-worn and game-cut jerseys.

Be sure to check out Gavel Chat tomorrow.

Good night.

If you haven’t already checked it out, there is a picture of Keith Olbermann on the sportscollectorsdigest.com home page linking you to an archive of stories written by the host of MSNBC’s Countdown, regular participant of the Dan Patrick Show and columnist of SCD.
Keith is an avid collector and quite the historian. I think you will find his stories entertaining and equally informative.

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I hate to keep bringing it up, but my Paypal account is still down. I really am getting tired of waiting for Paypal to send me a confirmation code via U.S. mail. Today I emailed them to find out what was taking so long. I have many items I have won recently off eBay and need to pay for them ASAP. You would think that Paypal would splurge for Express Mail on something this important, but I guess not.

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If anyone missed it, the NBA Playoffs have started and last night I forced myself to watch some of the games. Is it me or does nobody really care about the first round of these games? About ten years ago I would watch every single game of the playoffs that was televised. Now, I am more interested in the winner of The Apprentice than how many points Rip Hamilton scored last night.

I still would rather watch the NBA Playoffs than Deal of No Deal. What a stupid show! What is so exciting about watching a hyperactive contestant jump up and down, trying to win prizes with no talent or real strategy? I heard that it’s one of the highest-rated shows on television. If that’s true, we have truly sunk to the bottom of the barrel.

Right now I count at least 12 auctions that are live online. Kevin Savage, Premier, Mastro, AMI, Bricol, Robert Edward, EAC, Heritage, Grey Flannel and Lelands are all offering treasures that we’ve been saving our money for all winter and spring. With this many auctions going on right now, and so many fantastic items offered, how will these auction houses keep prices up? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense if they would space them out more?

I guess I’m probably not correct in my assumption because this has been going on for a while. I remember when I would be working on auction night for American Memorabilia and our bidders would be calling until around 3am, and they used to tell us that Lelands, or whoever, was still open (Lelands usually closed on the same night).


Speaking of auctions. I will be traveling to Heritage Auction Galleries’ live sports auction in Dallas, along with Steve Bloedow next month. The auction, which is a live event on May 5, should be very interesting. I have never been to a live major auction, so I am very excited.
I plan on covering the auction in the pages of SCD and will also have some Internet content prepared, including video or audio.
Heritage’s auction features some killer football material and a great selection of baseball autographs and memorabilia, including pieces from the Cy Young museum.


Here is an awesome clipping I swiped from the Vintage Card Forum boys… In case you didn’t see it on their website here it is.


Judging from the amount of hits on my blog it appears that a lot of people are reading. I wish we could get more people emailing or posting comments. Tell me about some of your similar experiences. Praise or criticism relating to memorabilia, cards or auctions will be greatly appreciated. I love reading things from our readers because I know I can get very boring at times.:)


Well, off to Sin City. Have a good weekend everyone!
-chris

    Just an FYI for all my loyal readers, I will be headed to Las Vegas this Thursday to celebrate my birthday, so unfortunately I will probably not be posting any blog entries after Wednesday of this week. I will be hanging out with some employees from the Upper Deck card company and from American Memorabilia, so I may have some breaking news that I can chime in with, but I wouldn’t bet on it (even if I am in Vegas… Get it?)

    Leland’s preview is online right now and the auction will be going live tonight and it is gonna be a dandy.
The auction even had an item in it that prompted me to give my boy Al Rosen a call. I’m not sure how many of you remember this, but in 1989 Mr. Mint toured the country with an uncut strip of T206 cards that included a Honus Wagner and two other Hall of Famers (Cy Young and Mordecai Brown).
    Well, this same sheet is lot No. 1 in Leland’s May 18th sale.
Al told me that the sheet originally belonged to Barry Halper and that he was trying to sell it for Halper in the two or three million dollar range. That didn’t happen, but it did sell in Halper’s 1999     sale. Since then, it changed hands one more time.
    Despite the strip’s creased nature, I still think that this Honus example is probably second most famous, only less popular than the PSA8 that just sold for $2.35 million.
Will it hit $500,000? $1 million?? Not sure, but I will be watching this one like a hawk.

    If you’re not interested in the Wagner card, maybe you will want to buy his house! Yep, you read that right. Now, I am not going to lie. I don’t really consider cars and houses, which were once owned by an athlete, that much of a collectible. But if I had the chance to buy the home that Vince Lombardi once lived in, I would at least have to consider it.

    There will be a killer boxing offering in Leland’s sale as well, including the earliest known pair of Cassius Clay fight-worn boxing gloves and Sugar Ray Robinson’s first pro fight-worn robe.


    As an off-topic note, I rented the new Rocky Balboa DVD over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. I knew it would be a little cheesy, but it wasn’t too bad and I really enjoyed it. After I was through with that, I watched United 93 and I don’t know if I ever watched something that depressing. It was really well done and I couldn’t help but tear up.