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Collector 1: "This card looks fake."

Collector 2: "Of course it's fake. Goudey didn't use the Big League Chewing Gum brand until 1933."

Collector 3: "How do you know it's fake? Are you a paper expert? We need to get the paper tested."

Collector 2: "No you don't. There was no such thing as Big League Chewing Gum in 1930."

Collector 4: "Testing the paper won't prove anything. Anybody can get 1930 paper. You need to test the ink."

Collector 2: "You don't need to test the paper or the ink. Just read the words on the card. It can't be possible."

Collector 5: "All the hobby experts who looked at the card say it's fake."

Collector 6: "Yeah, but how would they know? They've never seen the card before. Somebody OUTSIDE the hobby needs to authenticate it."

Collector 2: "THE CARD IS FAKE. THE BRAND NAME ON THE CARD DIDN'T EXIST WHEN THE CARD WAS ALLEGEDLY PRINTED."

Collector 7: "Send it to a paper expert outside the hobby. They can date the paper and the ink. If it dates back to 1930, there's a chance it's real. Then let the courts decide."

Collector 2: "What are you TALKING about? If you saw a baseball card dated 1897, and it said 'Amazon.com' on it, you'd know it was fake without having to test the paper..."

Collector 8: "It's pretty easy to get 1930 paper and 1930 ink. Just because the ink was from the period, doesn't mean it's real."

Collector 2: "Are my words being written in some kind of invisible typeface? Can you see what I'm writing? Is there something wrong with my computer?!"

Collector 9: "I vote we put the money in escrow and then pull together a panel of leading paper and ink experts, do a thorough forensic analysis, and then have a secret ballot vote on the issue."

Collector 2: "Hello? Hello?"

Collector 10: "That sounds great. Maybe we can also do some radiocarbon dating if we can get a large enough core sample of the paper fibers. Sometimes card doctors use enhanced robotic equipment and nanotechnology to do sophisticated paper fiber stitching, to make new paper appear old, and then they artificially age the card in a hyperbaric chamber, and then laser print the image utilizing ink taken directly from the Shroud of Turin, so paper analysis might not be conclusive."

Collector 2: "I have a Coca-Cola ad from 1492..."

Collector 11: "Wait - I just thought of something. What if PART of the card came from 1930, but not the WHOLE thing? What if the image was created in 1930, but the Goudey name was printed onto the card later, like in 1950, utilizing some sophisticated printing process that's since become obsolete?"

Collector 2: "I have all the receipts from George Washington's stay at the Holiday Inn in Hoboken, plus his Taco Bell wrappers..."

Collector 12: "I hadn't thought of that. Has SGC looked at the card? What did they say?"

Collector 2: "THERE WAS NO BIG LEAGUE CHEWING GUM IN 1930!!!!!"

Collector 13: "I think it's fake. But if the paper test proves that it's real, I'll give you $25K for it."

Collector 14: "It's not worth $25K"

Collector 15: "Sure it is. It's the first Goudey baseball card. It's a piece of history."

Collector 16: "Sure, I acknowledge that - but $25K is a lot of money."

Collector 17: "Dude, it's Babe Ruth. I'll bet it's worth TWICE that. It's the first Goudey Ruth!"

Collector 18: "Yeah, but is it really a baseball card? I mean, there's only one in existence. It was clearly not mass-produced and distributed as a means of promoting a product, which is the definition of a baseball card. This is more of a postcard, I think."

Collector 19: "Nah, it's not a postcard. It couldn't be mailed. It's more of an advertising display piece."

Collector 20: "Can it be graded?"

Collector 21: "I don't think so. PSA wouldn't grade it because they'd never seen one before."

Collector 22: "I have a CDV of George Wright that they'd never seen before, and they wouldn't grade that, either. They suck."

Collector 23: "I agree. Anybody who collects graded cards is a fool."

Collector 1: "What were we talking about?"

Collector 23: "I can't remember. PSA, I think."

I respect anyone who is older than me, and who has been doing something I like to do for a longer period of time than I have.

But you know what makes me crazy? Absolutely batshit crazy?

Reading hobby message boards and having old-school collectors not only reject the way I choose to collect, but ridicule it.

I've been reading it for months now. Every couple of days, the same discussion. A handful of old-school guys reject the concept of grading, and will do whatever they can do to jump in and criticize it. Even if the thread has nothing to do with grading, they'll find an angle. Jump right in and slam the grading company.

Then they'll make comments like "I wish we could go back to just talking about the cards."

Except they don't WANT to talk about the cards. They want to bitch about the grading. Post a thread about cards, they'l trip over it while they're looking for another opportunity to insult a collector of graded cards. I know, I've tried it. Multiple times.

Funny how the truly knowledgeable old-school guys don't get involved in the debate. Somehow, they manage to just talk about the cards.

Just as an FYI, I'm selling ALL my postwar HOFers. Check my HOF pages - any card released after 1954 is on the proverbial block. There's a list with pricing on the B/S/T over at 54. I didn't update the "Sale" page on this site - I'm trying to do this quickly, before I change my mind.

Anyway, when this is done, expect some major surgery on this site. All the postwar HOFers will be gone. I'll have to change the way the whole HOF section is laid out. I may even change the design.

At least my Packard-Bell Gil Hodges has found a good home. The guy who took it off my hands really deserves to have such a cool card.

It occurred to me that by the time I'm done with this purge, I'll only have 7 postwar cards in my active collection.

I collect some other stuff too, besides what's on this website. Sooner or later, I'll get them all up here.

I collect 1936 R311 premiums. I have 17 of 'em, and all I care about is what the fronts look like. I had a couple and then I had Mickey Cochrane slabbed by SGC in the new oversized holder, and I fell in love. Eventually I'm going to have them all slabbed, and then I may hang them all on shelves in my office.

I collect 1973 Topps 1953 Reprints. Reluctantly. I used to be a '53 Topps guy. I bought a few of these as a companion piece, and then I let them go. Thanks to my friends Anthony and Bruce, who keep giving me the cards, I'm one card short of having a complete set, despite only having bought two of the cards.

I collect 1939 R303s and 1936 R344s. Mostly because I think the R303s are gorgeous, and both those and the R344s are related to the 1938 Goudeys.

And then I have another thing I collect, sort of in secret. I'm afraid to talk too much about them, because I pretty much scarf them up whenever I see them. They're fairly obscure - not TOO obscure, but obscure enough that people don't chase them. I know a few type collectors who have one or two, but none that actively chase them like I do. Each time I find another one is like a small victory for me - and I've found four new ones in the last month.

And no, I'm not telling what they are.

It may be just me, but I've noticed a definite trend AGAINST Paypal payments.

I've sold about 30 lots or so on eBay over the past two weeks, and thus far not a single winner has paid by Paypal. Prices all over the place, too, from $25 for an off-grade T205 common to $2000 for a 1938 Goudey HOFer.

I wonder why that is? It's kinda weird.

Anyone?

Over on the CU forums this week there was a brutally ugly exposure of a guy who had been organizing pack rips for a bunch of guys on the board. He would purchase unopened "vintage" (mostly 1980s) cases from BBCE, collect the money from all the participants, and then ship out unopened boxes. He started threads for the CU forum members where they could share scans with their best pulls as they were ripping their packs. It seemed like a lot of fun - from experience, it's definitely a lot of fun to share scans on message boards, and is a great way to build excitement about a set. I've been participating in a thread like that for two years, and it's shaped my entire collection.

Anyway, after a couple cases of off-center stars, bad collation, suspicious wrappers and few big-name cards, some guys got suspicious enough to do some detective work. Seems that the guy was buying wrappers and large lots of commons from the years of the pack rips, and re-sealing commons into packs, dropping them in boxes, and shipping them out. Then he was, I guess, keeping the unopened material to himself. You can read the whole thing over at CU.

Reading the thread made for great drama but I couldn't help but think that this guy bilked a lot of people out of a decent amount of money. But more importantly than that, he betrayed a lot of people.

I guess if you're a scumbag you're a scumbag, and you don't care who you betray. So this note is for the NON-scumbags who get to know other people on message boards: before you trust someone you've never looked in the eye, be really, really sure. If something seems fishy - like if a guy insists on shipping the individual boxes of unopened packs out to you rather than having them ship from the seller's warehouse - it probably is.


On a related note, last night I got together with a bunch of guys who I know from message boards at the Reading show. In light of all the above, it would have been pretty easy to be suspicious and wary of each other, but not so. I've been pretty lucky to have met a bunch of outstanding collectors and friends, and it was great to see them. I drove all the way to Reading and spent $35 on a Henry Johnson common that I already had (which I didn't realize when I bought it - gotta start carrying lists around again), but had a great time anyway because I spent it with friends.

One interesting point related to tie together my last blog post and this one - word at the show was that cards in Global holders were being submitted to PSA and SGC in large quantities for crossover, accompanied by comments like "I don't care how the cards grade - just get them out of those holders."

Really.