Authentic & Pretty vs Beater & Unaltered

Would you prefer to have an authentic, but trimmed T206 card with sharp corners and no creases; or the same card with multiple creases but no alterations? I will always side with the creased card. For me, the card should reflect its natural state of progression from the factory. It should not have been prettied up by someone.

Don't get me wrong, I will permit some cleaning -- e.g., removing glue or gunk from the back of a card, or erasing a pencil mark -- but I draw the line at someone intentionally trying to pretty up a card. Light cleaning with water or an art eraser, on the other hand, is undoing, to some degree, the ugly alterations of gluing a card into a scrap book or writing in pencil on a card. It is not altering the factory issued card in any way, and it is not trying to improve the natural age of the card. The intent is not to remove creases or restore factory condition. The intent is to remove the subsequently added junk.

What about restored cards? In that case I'll also take the beater every time. Otherwise, all you have is a semi-reprint; a recycled paper card. Though it is interesting to note that restoration is common and accepted practice in the art world. How did we wind up with this dichotomy? Why are the Rembrandt collectors less "puritanical" than the Wagner collectors? Perhaps the answer lies in the condition factor of a multi-issued set. While each Rembrandt is an original single-print 1-of-1, there are usually many multiples of the same baseball card -- condition provides the scale by which to value the multi-prints.

If you've got any beater T206s to sell, feel free to drop me an email -- SignedT206@gmail.com. I'm making a low-condition / collector-grade run at the Monster.

Signed Cracker Jacks

I recently had the pleasure of adding a couple more signed Cracker Jacks to my website. While I do not own any of them, it is still rather exciting for me to unearth these treasures for the better enjoyment of the collecting public. Once upon a time, I only knew of Amos Strunk. But now I've got dupes of Marquard, a Rousch and a Hooper. Only time will tell how many more of these are out there. And in the meantime, I will continue to try to pry one example away from one of these lucky owners to add to my collection.

A is for Abbaticchio

Sometimes, when I am lying in bed at night and I can't sleep, I do the T206 version of counting sheep -- I go alphabetically through the set, one player per letter. With A, I always start with Abbaticchio. Without pondering too long you might think he comes first in all of Baseball with an AB beginning -- but let's not forget Hank Aaron. And, to be fair, current player David Aardsma deserves to be credited with the first name in the baseball alphabet -- beating Aaron by a "D" to an "O" in letter 4 of the name.

Anyway, back to Mr. Abbaticchio. No -- he does not share a nickname with a Swedish Rock Group (ABBA). His nickname was Batty. And not because he was a particularly good hitter (lifetime .254). He was probably just a bit loony. But Abbaticchio deserves some historical mention for the following reasons:

- He was the first Major League Baseball player and first professional football player of Italian ancestry.
- He played for Pittsburgh Pirates on their 1909 World Series team (though he struck out in his only at-bat).
- In 1895 he was a member of the first professional football team in the United States -- the Latrobe Athletic Association football team -- where he starred as a fullback and kicker. In this regard, he is often credited with developing the first spiral punt.

So everytime you organize your T206 cards with Mr. Abbaticchio on top, you'll have a little historic ammunition to enhance your appreciation.

The Thrill of the Hunt

I have noticed an interesting collecting phenomenon that I will refer to as the "Thrill of the Hunt." Basically, this applies to the feeling you get when you see -- maybe in an on-line auction or at a show or wherever -- a card you have been searching for. It refers to the moment in time between discovering the card is available and the actual moment of potential purchase. I have found that I enjoy card collecting quite a bit more than an average day during that period.

Since I began searching for signed T206 cards, the availability of ones I don't have has gotten to basically nil. So in the rare instance I see one come available, I really enjoy the process of putting together an offer or trade proposal and seeing if the card can be mine. But it is also a time of struggle, because I usually have to give up more money or cards than I really feel comfortable with. Still, the thrill is there and it is really one of the main reasons I collect.

Yard Sale

I had a yard sale over the weekend. I put out a table filled with boxes and boxes of new (1980-present) shiny baseball cards. I even had some 70's stuff and, for fun, a beat up 1940 Play Ball common. While my yard sale did rather well, I sold more beat up old comic books than baseball cards. But I did manage to sell a 1987 Donruss PSA 9 McGwire for $5.00; a 1996 Score Yankees Team Set for $5.00; and a 1994 Emotion Rookies ARod for $2.00. That was it -- $12.00 in baseball card sales. Even though I had a box of 3,000 commons priced for $15.00 -- nobody even made an offer on that. Anybody got any bright ideas of where to unload commons by the penny or even nano-penny?

I had a couple of T206 reprints on my table (Cobb Red Back and Young Throwing), which drew some eyes. One guy said he loved old tobacco cards, and so I showed him my autographed T201 Nap Rucker and T202 Davy Jones cards, which I had inside and easy to access (most of my "good stuff" resides in a safety deposit box). He was really impressed by those, but I ain't parting with them anytime soon -- let alone at a Yard Sale!

I know sometimes people talk about great Yard Sale finds. Anyone ever have any luck (or fun) selling pre-war cards at a Yard Sale? I'm not talking about setting up at the local flea market or church attic sale. I'm talking about a solo table in front of your house.

Raw Cards and Signed Cards

I am steadily adding to my raw T206 collection, with about 25 or so new examples over the past few months. It is refreshing to hold a pile of T206 cards, free to thumb through them over and over again -- as opposed to a clunky, heavy slab. Don't get be entirely wrong, I still love my slabbed cards -- hey, that's why I have held on to them. But the joy of quickly sifting or shuffling through a deck of T206 cards with one hand is hard to match with slabs.

I am also considering parting with some of my non-T206 signed cards in order to acquire a signed T206 signed card I own. This will be a hard decision, but my ultimate view may be that no stone should be left unturned when it comes to adding to a signed T206 card collection -- even if it means parting with a T201 or T202 of a favorite player. But I really don't know. I'm still mulling that one over. Stay tuned.....