As part of my collecting, I collect some game used cards of some Hall of Famers. In particular, I am focusing on Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb because they have a decent amount of different types of game used cards out there, and to buy a whole bat or jersey would obviously be too expensive for myself or most people. In this thread, I am focusing on Ruth, but I want to know what are the best Ruth game used cards to purchase. Specifically, here are my questions.
(1) How do we know how "genuine" the pieces are? First, there are always articles in the news on that some trading companies may have purchased fake game used articles such as here: http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-ugly-picture/
However, let's assume the trading companies were as honest as possible, and they still tried to buy genuine pieces. However, would some of them still be more authentic than others, and do collectors know which cards these went into? For example, PSA/DNA (and Mears does the same) grades bats from Authentic to PSA 10, where a PSA 10 bat is a bat that was supported by the bat shipment records, provenance, and other bat indicators such as inch marks. A bat that is much lower grade may have a weight that is not in the batting records and so forth. This lower grade bat may have just been a Babe Ruth pro model bat that was used in the minor leagues by some other player during that time period. So ideally, I would like a bat and jersey piece that came from as high a grade a bat or jersey as possible. Has anyone studied this? The only thing that I can say is that from this, I prefer the game used cards that has a picture of the whole bat or jersey that the piece came from. It's not much, but at least it is something.
(2) On a related note for jersey cards, has anyone looked into categorizing the different jersey cards into cards that came from home jersey, away jersey and pants? Obviously pant cards are the least favorable "jersey" cards. However, ideally, I would like to have a home jersey, away jersey and pant card for Ruth. I know that some cards already have all of these pieces for you (e.g., I have seen a Donruss TOTT card with this). However, these cards tend to be very expensive with small pieces. If I knew which cards had which pieces, I could get larger pieces for a better price.
(3) Finally, in general, what are the opinions of the best Ruth game used cards? For reality sake, let us not include the bat knob and bat barrel cards since these would obviously be the best, but these are not affordable to most folks. I would say the best jersey card is the TOTT Ruth Jumbo jersey card which seems to run around $2-3K, which is still very expensive. The best bat card seems to be the 1999 Upper Deck Ruth bat card, which seems to have a decent size bat piece and has a picture of the bat on back. Unfortunately, I do not own either of these cards. If anyone else knows of other really nice game used cards for Ruth let me know.
If this thread gets decent responses, I would like to open similar threads for Gehrig, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner, also. I do own a few game used Ruth cards already, so I've attached a picture of a couple of them. Thanks again!
(1) How do we know how "genuine" the pieces are? First, there are always articles in the news on that some trading companies may have purchased fake game used articles such as here: http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-ugly-picture/
However, let's assume the trading companies were as honest as possible, and they still tried to buy genuine pieces. However, would some of them still be more authentic than others, and do collectors know which cards these went into? For example, PSA/DNA (and Mears does the same) grades bats from Authentic to PSA 10, where a PSA 10 bat is a bat that was supported by the bat shipment records, provenance, and other bat indicators such as inch marks. A bat that is much lower grade may have a weight that is not in the batting records and so forth. This lower grade bat may have just been a Babe Ruth pro model bat that was used in the minor leagues by some other player during that time period. So ideally, I would like a bat and jersey piece that came from as high a grade a bat or jersey as possible. Has anyone studied this? The only thing that I can say is that from this, I prefer the game used cards that has a picture of the whole bat or jersey that the piece came from. It's not much, but at least it is something.
(2) On a related note for jersey cards, has anyone looked into categorizing the different jersey cards into cards that came from home jersey, away jersey and pants? Obviously pant cards are the least favorable "jersey" cards. However, ideally, I would like to have a home jersey, away jersey and pant card for Ruth. I know that some cards already have all of these pieces for you (e.g., I have seen a Donruss TOTT card with this). However, these cards tend to be very expensive with small pieces. If I knew which cards had which pieces, I could get larger pieces for a better price.
(3) Finally, in general, what are the opinions of the best Ruth game used cards? For reality sake, let us not include the bat knob and bat barrel cards since these would obviously be the best, but these are not affordable to most folks. I would say the best jersey card is the TOTT Ruth Jumbo jersey card which seems to run around $2-3K, which is still very expensive. The best bat card seems to be the 1999 Upper Deck Ruth bat card, which seems to have a decent size bat piece and has a picture of the bat on back. Unfortunately, I do not own either of these cards. If anyone else knows of other really nice game used cards for Ruth let me know.
If this thread gets decent responses, I would like to open similar threads for Gehrig, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner, also. I do own a few game used Ruth cards already, so I've attached a picture of a couple of them. Thanks again!
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