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Eric
11-09-2006, 12:03 PM
Hey everyone-

I don't collect bats. Never did and probably won't, but I'm learning a lot about them from all of you.

Here's a question I have which occurred to me based on the grading to the Tris Speaker bat and Mickey Mantle coaches bat.

How important is it to you that the items exactly match factory records?

In the two cases above, they were graded very high since even though they didn't match the numbers in the records, it was in essence close enough.

Close enough in this case means either the player could have ordered something of these specifications even though there's no record of it specifically.

As a jersey collector, if I knew in 2002 Peyton Manning always wore long sleeves and there was a short sleeved jersey for sale, close enough wouldn't cut it for me.

If someone told me that in 2001 Manning had short sleeves, but there is no evidence of him doing it in 2002, I would not buy the item.

Since I don't collect bats, I was wondering what your thoughts are. Is close enough good enough?

And while in my area of collecting, jerseys, the buyer can do more research on his own, with bats you have to rely on those who hold the rare bat records. Is it always clear how people interpret the reocrds, or can two people look at the same record, and reach two different conclusions?

Eric

TNTtoys
11-09-2006, 01:02 PM
My short answer is that "close enough" depends upon how risky the proposition is. Like you, my expertise is in jerseys, not bats, so I will try to make a parallel.
If I were making a large investment -- like, let's say, a game used Albert Pujols jersey, there must be ridiculously compelling evidence that he did wear the jersey.
However, judging by the price of the average jersey in my collection, I can afford to be a little loose with this as a rule. For example, let's take the classic "Scoreboard Jefferies"... Yes, we all know what they are, but I didn't some 4 or 5 years ago when I bought mine. I thought I might be getting the "deal of the century", only paying $85 or so for it...
So, no risk but the potential of a high reward.
Worst case -- if it is not authentic, I have bought myself a very nice looking authentic Rawlings Mets jersey with all correct lettering and numbering for a fraction of its value (if you could find a 1990 Mets home jersey out there, customized, etc. you would probably pay anywhere from $100 to $250).
So...years gone by, and I realize that my "game used" jersey is not a $500 jersey, but instead a $100-200 retail authentic (thank guu for this knowledge). I now have the choice -- sell it on ebay and get my $100 back, or keep to wear to games, etc. Either way, no loss... but I didn't take much of a chance either.
Recently, a "game used" Strawberry jersey came & went on ebay for something like $350. There were too many questions about this one to make it a risk worth taking (course if I would have bid too, the price would have probably gone beyond $400). Risk was not worth the reward. I would rather not take the chance of paying $400 for something that might be worth $500-700 BUT could also be worth less than half...
My 2 cents for whatever they are worth...

mr.miracle
11-09-2006, 07:08 PM
Hello Eric:

As an avid Ripken collector I can tell you I have made several purchases of bats that were reportedly game used Ripken's but after checking with Mike Specht realized that they did not match factory shipping records. The irony of this is that I have now owned three Ripken's that did not match factory records and recently uncovered two additional bats as well that I did not purchase. The bats in question all did not match in one area, the finish. The model numbers and years ordered all matched, the finish did not on all five of the bats I am familiar with. This seems to be a problem that I have seen with early career Ripken bats particularly from the 1980-83 labeling periods. In any case as I know most collectors across the board want their bats to match factory shipping records perfectly, I will no longer buy any bats that don't no matter the condition, game usage, player use characteristics etc. Unfortunately, this disqualifies a number of fine looking game used bats but due to the fact that Ripken bats have been selling for $2500 and up I don't want to get stuck with bats that if and when the need arises, I cannot resell for full value.

That is just my take for what it is worth. The one thing that I suspect but ultimately will never be able to prove is that probably the bat shipments were mislabeled as to finish at the factory as this seems to involve the shipping records right before they were computerized. Not that someone could not have made a data entry mistake on the finish on the computer but it seems like this is the logical conclusion unless a number of Ripken early career bats are being manipulated to resemble game use. (Certainly possible given the price range but then again, where do all these bats come from that don't match factory finish records but match in every other way?) Anyway, that is my take.

Thanks

scottanservitz
11-09-2006, 09:57 PM
My take as is probably the majority is that if you are a collector of anything game used is it has to match factory records, period. What ifs don't cut it for me in this hobby. I have been in the position of purchasing what I believed to be a gamer when the bat did not meet the factory specs. Boy did I lose a bit of sleep over it. In the end it worked out for me due to the fact I bought from a very reputable and trustworthy source. If it hadn't been for that fact, I was pretty much out a fair amount of money. If I had to sell the bat I would have taken a good hit on what I had into it. When a bat matches the factory records, then I could sell it for either what I had into it or for a profit. I would not ever sell a bat that I made a mistake on and try to pull one over on somebody. This is just morally the right thing to do. But there are many sellers who would try and recoup their money and run. I have read on these boards so many times that people bought something they thought it was and it ended up being bogus. Many of these individuals said they would destroy the items before they let somebody else be taken. This is a very noble gesture that most of us would hate to have to do. Now I am not saying every bat that meets factory specs are actually game used. There are those bats that never made it into a game but end up being sold as game used anyways due to somebody either doctoring them or just selling to unsuspecting buyers. I see this alot on eBay. Bats meet the specs but show absolutely no use whatsoever. People on the Bay many times have no clue what they are doing. They don't know about this site or of the many books and knowledgable bat collectors that will give advice for free. They rely on the authenticating companies and what they say and take it as gospel. Sometimes that is ok and sometimes that isn't good enough either. So for me, factory specs are the first of several factors that I need to ensure that what I am buying is the real deal. Thanks for listening.
Scott

Eric
11-10-2006, 01:27 AM
But if you have factory records there is no need for interpretation- it's either there or it's not.

I don't understand how something can not be present for a certain year but get credit for being in the records because a player ordered it with similar specs in another year. Seems like a stretch.

Am I missing something?
Eric

Vintagedeputy
11-10-2006, 07:45 AM
I really think the records need to be looked at on a case by case basis.

I've posted this here before but for example, I have a Bill Madlock gamer from 77-79. I'm sure that its legit. Everything is perfect and inline with what should be except the model number. The model number on the bat is C253. Louisville Slugger records say that he used C235 and C263.

A LS rep said that "I guess the brander that day transposed the numbers".

So would you say that its no good because it doesnt exactly match factory records?

mr.miracle
11-10-2006, 10:40 AM
I really think the records need to be looked at on a case by case basis.

I've posted this here before but for example, I have a Bill Madlock gamer from 77-79. I'm sure that its legit. Everything is perfect and inline with what should be except the model number. The model number on the bat is C253. Louisville Slugger records say that he used C235 and C263.

A LS rep said that "I guess the brander that day transposed the numbers".

So would you say that its no good because it doesnt exactly match factory records?

Vintage makes an excellent point. The same is true with a Ripken M110 model bat that shows in Cal's order records only 17 ever ordered during Cal's entire career at the very earliest stages of his career in 1978 and 1980. This bat matches Cal's use characteristics perfectly except LS says that this model was only ever shipped to Cal in a natural finish not the hickory finish which I have. No model M110 was ever shipped anywhere else with Cal's name on it and since this was during his time in either Charlotte or Rochester it is doubtful that anyone would be ordering promotional models at this stage of Cal's career. Is this bat no good never used by Cal because this finish according to LS does not match their hand written records? In this case at least there seems to be no other plausible explanation other than someone incorrectly made a journal entry with the wrong finish. Because this bat does not perfectly match factory records, a $4000 plus gamer now would sell for a fraction of that price.

Ultimately, I wonder how many bats get thrown to the woodpile that are legit gamers of star players because someone at LS never paid close attention when entering the bat ordering info. into the computer? Nobody at LS would have ever thought I am going to venture that anybody would so closely scrutinize player bat order records as we do today. Perhaps nobody really spent the time to perfectly enter this data and now we have the mess that we have today with various bats that appear perfect in every other way not matching factory records. Unfortunately, there is no way to ever prove any of this so ultimately, it is a mute point.

Eric
11-10-2006, 11:02 AM
In another thread about a Mickey Mantle coaches bat which does not match a specific bat order, the following information came out

"Based on MEARS criteria, a bat does not need to be traced to a specific order to earn a grade of A7. It needs to match known exemplars/records which this one does."

Again, I'm not a bat collector, and I did not realize this is how things were judged. Wanted to re-post it here in case other people had the same misconception I had.

I was under the assumption that "matches factory records" referred to a specific order found in the records.
Eric

Vintagedeputy
11-10-2006, 03:14 PM
Eric - I think that its safe to say that "matches factory records" is the desired goal but with any business, quality control is never 100%

DGRROSEN
11-10-2006, 04:56 PM
This has been a very interesting discussion about "factory records". My understanding, however, is that there are only records available for Louisville Slugger.

Given that some collectors are uncomfortable if bats do not match these records, then do these collectors buy any other brand of bat for which there are no records at all?