Reassembling A Jersey

[BULBUS]

I think it is such a shame when jerseys and bats are cut up into small pieces and put into these cards. I am going to buy as many cards of one player as I can and see if I can put a jersey together. Is this possible, will I be wasting my time

[suave1477]

I am glad you brought that up that was going to be a next question of mine?

As mentioned before I am a strawberry collector!!
But there are tons of baseball cards on the market with peices of his Jersey in them and companies as far as I know have been doing since 2002 as far as i know maybe earlier?

Which means at this point there has to be or close too 50,000 game used pieces of his in these cards on the market.

Where do these jerseys come from and wouldn't that mean there is going to be less and less game used jerseys on the market?

[BULBUS]

i'm a big don mattingly fan. nice bats of his are rarely seen on the market anymore. there are thousands of those cards with bat peices. my guess would be that the card companies, with their deeper pockets than mine, win this stuff from the big auction houses. then they cut them up being there are sometimes questionable items, you probably arent always getting what is advertised. i guess it just increases the value of my bat.

[suave1477]

But if thats the case if there is a certain player you are interested in and is a semi star or a super star, the big comapanies could end up wiping out there game used collectibles.

I have seen the game used companies use for darryl strawberry cards.

Jerseys
Mets - Home and Batting Practice
Dodgers - Home and Away
Yankees - Home

Pants - Mets Away / Yankees - Home
Bats
Gloves
Cleats

[Spiezio23]

I'm quite a big Sportscard collector along with the Game Used, pieces of jersey were first intrduced into baseball cards in 1997, in Upper Deck packs. Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn & Rey Ordonez were the first 3 to appear. Upper Deck followed suit in their Hockey release and had even more players for that set. I'll have to look into it again but I think the first product to offer 1 game used card per pack was in 2001 with Pacific's Private Stock.

This was also around the time that I really stopped spending money on cards, it was then I realized that yea, I've got a little 1 inch square piece of Kazuhiro Sasaki's jersey on this card and a 1 inch square chip of Jay Buhner's Bat in this one.. why not try and find the whole thing? Well, i've accomplished that feat with the Buhner bat, for Sasaki I may never find one as many of his items were cut up as well as many of them finding ways into personal collections.

I can't unterstand why collectors feel the need to have a small piece of jersey/patch or bat in their cards. Many I know don't even bother to think about the items that are being cut up nor do they seem to really care when they are made aware. I am not trying to speak for all colletors, just the majority of those that I've talked with. People don't care if you're cutting up one of the seven remainng Ruth jerseys(I have no idea how many there are actually) it doesn't matter if it's a Josh Gibson bat or his only jersey known left in existance, they want to cut it up and put it into cardboard. Prime example is I think it was back in 2000-2001 Be A Player had acquired and cut up the ONLY pads known in existance for Georges Vezina. I could go on about his stats and his play style and everything but that can be found on the hockey hall of fame website, though he does have a trophy named after him that's given away every year. I haven't bought any cards they(BAP/ITG) made since(except for a select few single cards for my player collections).

I think that's one main reason why pretty much anything(jerseys, sticks) pre-90's in hockey is fairly desirable, and sold easier than the more recent jerseys. I think people realize the market is slowly getting smaller each year with more items being cut up and those that are avail. end up in personal collections forever. Could the same happen with baseball, is it already at this point? I can't answer that since my Game Used collection only goes back to the early 90's and that's certainly not vintage but I'd be curious to know from those that do collect older stuff, is it starting to dry up, prices are higher now?

In closing of my short novel, here are some pictures of cards I have of my favorite player. These cards do have some slight appeal to me but I of course would rather have the whole jersey that they came from.

[suave1477]

The problem is with the newr stuff as far as active players no one really thhinks about it as far as cutting up there jerseys bcuz everyone just thinks "oh well there active so theyll just jerseys so theres no crisis of running out" also with the game and players today there is more jerseys available per year to each player then there was years ago.

I have to be honest i am a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to me agreeing with what your saying about the older vintage jerseys, bcuz i own 3 baseball cards with peices of Rizzutos, billy martins and thurman munsons jersey in it, and the purpose was to have a peice of the game since i would never be able to afford an actual of item of theres ( this thought processs was before i realized just like you, that you actually can purchase on the open market there actual game used jerseys and/or bats ) So i collected those 3 thinking there was no other way. Now I realize you can!!!

[kylehess10]

WASTE OF TIME! Trust me, before I stated collecting game used memorabilia (which I have been doing for only about a month now), I had been collecting game used cards since like 2002. I know a lot about them and most jersey's are cut into a few thousand pieces, depending on how big the piece will be in the card. They are pretty nice cards though. I still kept mine in my collection. I only collected game used cards with really neat pieces like the laundy tags,logos,hat holes,button holes,etc. I do feel though sometimes that it is ruining history and stuff like that but once you see the card you think it's really cool. btw-An average game used card is worth $10 each so cutting up 5000 cards will cost you quite a lot of money.

My logo patch collection:
http://chipper10.myphotoalbum.com/vi...umName=album08

[suave1477]

Kyle I did not go through all your pictures but i did take a quick look.

I liked the Jay Payton one with the dirt on it, to me thats the coolest one. Even though I dislike Jay very much.

Is it worth more money with the dirt - just kidding!!!

[kylehess10]

haha, I wish they did. They never list premium prices for g/u cards with cool stuff like that on the card. They may for some patch cards but not stuff like button holes,dirt,etc.

[Spiezio23]

No need to feel like a hypocrite or anything like that. I mean I own fair amount of the game used cards, they're either Seattle Mariners players or of players I collect. I get them to more or less have a more completed player collection. Then again it doesn't bother me now that most of the game used cards I own are of current players that are still playing. with the amount of gear they go through each year there's tons of it around.

It gets to me when they cut up old vintage stuff. The only vintage game used card I have is of Orlando Cepeda, a player I like and we share the same birthday as well(sept. 17th), but it's a pants card. I may never own his pants, bat or a jersey of his but if I know that those items are in a private collection or in the HOF, I'm ok with that. They won't get cut up in either of those places.

I've been to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto twice, I could have spent a week in there I'm sure but just knowing some of those items they had will never go under the knife is heart warming. Items I would truely love to own but I never will, and now they're preserved for future generations is fine by me. Items like a Game worn Hockey sweater from the Seattle Metropolitans(who actually won a stanley cup!) or Wayne Gretzky's Game Worn Rangers jersey which was lettered wrong and said "Gretkzy".

I will have to give Upper Deck some credit however, think it was 2-3 years ago. In one of their baseball products, you could pull a redemption card for the full sized game used/worn item as well as tons of autographed jerseys and photos. I have no idea how much of it was actually claimed but it was nice to see some of the items escape from them unharmed. It wasn't all just common player stuff, there were some solid HOF material in there as well.