Would an LOA be of value here

[sylbry]

I have a Kansas City Blues fitted hat. Inside the hat, written on the leather band is "Dick Bartell 1948." This is written in Dick Bartell's handwriting as I have a half dozen Dick Bartell signatures to compare it with. I also have a 1949 American Association program which has a headshot of Dick Bartell as the manager wearing that same style hat.

I believe this hat to be game worn based on the signature and wear.

My question is would sending this item to an authenticator be worthwhile? Would they be able to tell me more about the hat than I don't already know? How do they verify that a hat is indeed game worn, especially being that it is from a low minor league team?

Any and all comments/thoughts would be appreciated.

Bryan

[trsent]

I have a Kansas City Blues fitted hat. Inside the hat, written on the leather band is "Dick Bartell 1948." This is written in Dick Bartell's handwriting as I have a half dozen Dick Bartell signatures to compare it with. I also have a 1949 American Association program which has a headshot of Dick Bartell as the manager wearing that same style hat.

I believe this hat to be game worn based on the signature and wear.

My question is would sending this item to an authenticator be worthwhile? Would they be able to tell me more about the hat than I don't already know? How do they verify that a hat is indeed game worn, especially being that it is from a low minor league team?

Any and all comments/thoughts would be appreciated.

Bryan

Bryan, if you are keeping the hat in your personal collection, the letter will just add confort to you as a collector.

If you do indeed intend to sell the cap, then the letter will help give confort to the next owner and buyer. If you do sell it, generally your consigment to an auction house will include them having the outside letter written. If you decide to sell it on eBay or another marketplace yourself, you may have to pay the fees to have it written yourself.

It would be neat if you could publish pictures of the cap on the forum.

[sylbry]

As it turns out my American Association program is from 1948, not 1949 like I originally wrote. Also, 1948 was the only year Dick Bartell managed the Kansas City Blues. So chances are the hat he is wearing in the picture is the hat I own. That year was also the first year of the new style logo. They changed from a round "C" to a square "C" in "KC."

[sylbry]

I take that back. After closely reviewing both hats you can tell by the logo they are not the same hat.

[MSpecht]

Here's an interesting thing ---

In the write-up about Dick taking over as Manager, they list his actual, off season, home address... I hope he had a winning season for sure.

Mike Jackitout7@aol.com

[sylbry]

Actually most of the player's home address is listed for all 8 American Association teams including the home address for Roy Campanella (who played with the St Paul Saints). However Al Lopez and Walter Alston, who were both managers for other teams, did not list their addresses.

I find it interesting that they list each player's nationality.

Bryan