Hello:

We've just posted the poll for July. This month, we are asking about two related trading card items of note. One has already been discussed here on Card Talk and the other has not.

In a recent auction, Donruss paid $290K for a 1925 Babe Ruth N.Y. Yankees uniform, which it will cut into small swatches and include in 2004 baseball cards. The uniform is one of just a few in existence.

Upper Deck is rumored to be using a Ben Franklin signature cut from a document for use in an upcoming historical trading card series.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it's sacrilege as you feel these items have cultural and historical significance and should not be mutilated in this manner? Or do you think that it's ok as in the case of the Ruth card, it will give many, many fans the opportunity to own a piece of history where before, a jersey like this could only be owned by a museum or society's elite?

To vote, click here. Once you have voted, come back here and discuss it. Tell us your thoughts!

If you'd like to view results of our previous polls, click here.

Harris

Visit Non-Sport Update at www.nonsportupdate.com

[This message was edited by H_Toser on July 02, 2003 at 01:11 PM.]

I think they've hit upon a great concept. "Historical" items shouldn't be tucked away where few can see them. While I'm not a baseball fan, the Babe is still one of the most human heroes ever to come out of major league sports. He was for the kids, he was for his fans. How many times would he stop a train to go play catch with a group of kids waiving him on?!?

Taking such precious items and cutting them up is no worse than any costume or cut autograph cards from the modern era...these items just happen to be older and "worth more" based on the inflated estimates from auction houses (that shall remain nameless).

I'd rather have a thousand kids and sports card collectors own a piece of the Babe's uniform that some rich guy who will keep it locked up in his house because it's an "investment."

In the case of Ben Franklin, he's one of the greatest world diplomats in human history, not to mention an inventor and scholar. In this case, it's subjective because only one person will be lucky enough to get the cut auto (much like the Walt Disney cut auto). Still, it's a great treasure for one lucky person to find.

I'm of the opinion that history should be enjoyed and not be a source of boredom. Time has a way of turning men, albeit great men, into mythological versions of their earthly selves. History should be enjoyed, relished, and learned from. How many people will ever have the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian, in this case, the Baseball hall of fame? This brings the sport back down to a personal level...something baseball in particular has strayed away from in recent decades. And let's face it, sports card fan or not, who wouldn't want an actual piece of Babe Ruth's uniform? Perhaps the prospect of obtaining one of these items may propel someone to pick up a book and find out more... In this instance, I don't see any downside to it.

Regards,

Paul Russell

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with...molecular structures." -- Ash, Army of Darkness

I voted sacrilege. I love a good collectible as much as the next person, but some things have too much historical importance to chop up. The jersey and document belong intact in a museum not cut into itty bitty pieces and scattered to the four winds.

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

I don't know if I would go so far as to say sacrilege, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

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Paul Russell wrote:
Taking such precious items and cutting them up is no worse than any costume or cut autograph cards from the modern era

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One difference is that with most current costumes the show/film usually has several different copies of each costume so using one to makes cards with isn't such a loss. Something like a Babe Ruth uniform is virtually irrerplaceable. I can understand your argument about history for the masses, but, honestly, what percentage of the "kids" that will get one of these uniform cards is going to keep and treasure it instead of immediately putting it on eBay and selling it to one of the rich folks? It's more likely that it will end up in the hands of many rich folks instead of one.

-Bob-

"It's rumored that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez would like to remake 'Casablanca'. This is great news for those who love the film but wish it was terrible."

On the whole I went with slice 'em and dice 'em. In the case of the jersey it was tough since there's just 3 known but I think spreading one of them around to collectors isn't bad. How many people have ever seen it and when was the last time it was touched by any human hands before it was sold? In the case of Franklin there are hundreds, maybe thousands of his signatures out there. The ones on important documents should be left intact but those on more mundane items are open season in my opinion.

Willow : "A doodle. I do doodle. You too. You do doodle too."

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TheUberBob wrote:

One difference is that with most current costumes the show/film usually has several different copies of each costume so using one to makes cards with isn't such a loss.

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I couldn't agree with you more. But answer me this, what's the difference between a baseball uniform (of which there were dozen, if not more) and a costume from a "star"? The only difference is time. In 80 or 90 years people may be asking why companies hacked up pieces of clothing from screen-legends and or icons (the people who we currently consider relative newcomers. It's all a matter of perspective. I think it should always depend on the person. The Babe had a lot of flaws but charity wasn't one of them. The only real value is what we put on these items. A uniform or a costume is that someone famous wore it. It's not the person - it neither represents them or what they believe in and stood for. Does it make the Babe any less of a sports, some say cultural, super star if a piece of cloth he wore is in tact? No. Does it make him more tangible to all the generations that came after him? Yes. So let the hall of fame and "the house that Ruth built" keep one on display. I'm certainly not saying cut them all into itty-bitty pieces. But to consider this sacrilege, as has been stated above, is going a little bit too far towards the extreme. If we were talking about cutting up the Babe's tombstone I'd agree. This is a piece of irreplaceable clothing, not really that much different than what we see every day with modern card releases (except for the age of the garment, of course).

And I do agree with you about the ebay issue. That's a problem I have no matter what the collectable. It's become all too common for people, in general, to see items as dollar signs instead of something special, to be held onto for years.

Regards,

Paul Russell

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with...molecular structures." -- Ash, Army of Darkness

I voted sacrilege - but not for the costume.
I have several costume cards, all (admittedly, modern) and, as Bob said, on these it doesn't matter so much as they are replaced frequently by the studi costume dept. I suspect the same thing applies to the Babe Ruth thing - he probably wore a great many in his lifetime, and there are probably other shitrs or whatever in museums or attics all over Amrica (if not the world!)
However, I draw the line at historical documents being cut up in this way, just to get an autograph card. Signed documents (letters, petitions etc) are usually one-off's, and to cut one of them up is to destroy the uniqueness of the document - what, I have to ask, will happen to the rest of the document?
Imagine someone taking the "Declaration of Independence" and cutting out all the signatures to make a set of "Independence Signatories" trading cards - or someone cutting up a letter from The Bard of Avon just to make a 'Skhakespere' set?
If the document is just a signed piece of card or paper, then ok - at a pinch. But if it's an actual docum,ent, such as a letter from the signatory, there may well be historical and academic interest in the letter as a whole, and with the context of the signature. Cutting it up deprives future scholars of the possibility to examine that context. It's almost as bad as the archaeologists and explorers who, finding a unique monument, took it with them (e.g. the Elgin MArbles in the British Museum) Yes, far more people get to see them now, but they are almost tottally devoid of historical context - they are not in the place they were intended for.
If a card company want to offer a unique historical signature, why not offer the whole document via a Redemption card?

Sorry, but I'm a history buff, and I feel strongly about this sort of thing.
Au Res.,
Paul

Sometimes, one pack is not enough...
http://www.users.waitrose.com/~paulbines

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In the case of Franklin there are hundreds, maybe thousands of his signatures out there. The ones on important documents should be left intact but those on more mundane items are open season in my opinion.

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I've got to agree. I think it's more a case of apples & oranges. Costumes from TV/movies often have duplicates - there's the costume for the "star" then the costume for the double (and in the case of the Lord of the Rings - costume for Frodo, costume for Frodo double, costume for Frodo scale double, costume for Frodo scale double double). And over the course of a show's history you have THOUSANDS of costumes from various characters.

HISTORICAL documents shouldn't be touched, documents with no historical value are fair game (I'll leave the distinguishing of what is sacrosant to the learned historians).

Lessa
http://members.fortunecity.com/smithsonian/

cutting up a unique uniform of a baseball and cultural legend such as Babe Ruth is horrible. If there were 100 uniforms, no big deal. But 3? No way! it belongs in the Smithsonian or Cooperstown or in a travelling museum display that everyone can get to see.

Whats next?
Would you buy a set of dinosaur cards that had actual pieces of fossil in it? Will you say "If there is only one fossil and its an important one, then they shoudlnt do it" or will you say "Why are they destroying a scientific treasure?"

The question is one of morality and culture.

http://mtlhddoc2.8m.com


"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick butt; and I'm all out of bubblegum" - "Rowdy" Roddy Piper

. . . there is no question in my mind about that one.

I think it is easy for us to say that this is a good thing because these are coming into our hobby. But who are we as trading card collectors to take a historical item away from the masses?

How would people be voting if we were questioning embedding these things into a coin, stamp, postcard, plaque or any other format that they aren't interested in collecting.

The only exception I would give would be to something that has no historical significance -- and I mean none. . . Ben Franklin's Grocery list -- historical. Franklin's doodles -- historical. Franklin's signed kleenex -- historical. About the only thing that wouldn't be historical would be a plain autographed card signed explicitly to be an autograph for someone.

Jon

box breakdowns, show reviews, rare autograph gallery and more: www.webjon.com/index.html

they should just leave them alone

if the companies want to give them out then have a one of a kind redemption card for the item in question

"Is it suppost to be stupid?"
"It's not stupid, it's advanced."

I just have this image of card companies running wild through the Smithsonian looking for things to cut up and put in card form. It's not a pretty picture.

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

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The Mouseketeer wrote:
I just have this image of card companies running wild through the Smithsonian looking for things to cut up and put in card form. It's not a pretty picture.

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That's certainly a frightening thought! But the items in question were bought from private sales and not museums. We're not talking about taking something from a historical display, but rather from someone's personal collection. It's a fine line to walk, to be sure...

Regards,

Paul Russell

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with...molecular structures." -- Ash, Army of Darkness

Paul,

You've got a point that the costumes were bought from private sales and I'm resigned to the fact that nothing I do or say can stop this. It just makes me a little sad. I'm not particularly into sports, but I am a movie/TV buff and the thought of someone taking, oh, one of Dorothy's dresses or the Cowardly Lion's skin from "The Wizard of Oz" or one of Scarlet O'Hara's dresses from "Gone with the Wind" and cutting them up for costume cards seems just, I don't know, kind of mercenary, perhaps? I mean, the reason these things are done isn't for such a laudable goal as making a piece of history accessible to the masses, it's to move product, plain and simple.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to be argumentative; I'm just trying to express my feelings about this in some sort of cogent manner.

-Bob-

"It's rumored that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez would like to remake 'Casablanca'. This is great news for those who love the film but wish it was terrible."

You're absolutely right Bob, no company puts any extra special products out simply for the sake of doing something good. It is, after all, a business. How many extra thousands of boxes will Dunruss sell? Obviously they think it'll be a lot if they were willing to drop down close to 300-large! Looking at it from a purely capitalistic viewpoint, I have to agree with you. It's not for the masses, as I put it, it's for the $$.

Regards,

Paul Russell

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with...molecular structures." -- Ash, Army of Darkness

The problem with private sales is that they usually come from private collections - and there's no telling just what sort of thng you'll find in a private collection! Some collectors have REALLY nice things - and just because it's a private collectrion, doesn't mean it's not historically significant!

The (authenticated) origin noes not matter - it's the item itself that is important. As Jon said, if Benjamin Franklin had signed a number of index cards (or 18th century equivalent!) for the purpose of giving fans his autograph, then cutting them up would be less of a problem than cutting up a letter (which may have useful background information on Franklin or the person he was writing to), a shopping list - (ditto).

Au Res.,
Paul

Sometimes, one pack is not enough...
http://www.users.waitrose.com/~paulbines

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But the items in question were bought from private sales and not museums. We're not talking about taking something from a historical display, but rather from someone's personal collection.

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Excellent point, Paul. These items are private property and the law states that the owners can do with them as they please. But my father has a saying - just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

An interesting point...to which I will counter with a

Seriously though, it is a good point. Mankind is capable of doing anything and most of the time they are things that should not be done...

Regards,

Paul Russell

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with...molecular structures." -- Ash, Army of Darkness

there should be a happy medium. You know that sports celebrities don't just own one jersey...so sell one to use for cards another in a museum, same with costumes, very famous costume maybe should be in a museum but another for cards. Just a thought

I tend to agree with Wendi on this. The card companies wouldn't use the last uniform or the last historical document for the inserts. I'm sure there are other uniforms and documents on the museums.

On the other hand, if this was the only item in existence that is being cut up for a card insert then I would consider is a sacrilige.