Premature celebrations and collectors

[coxfan]

The book "The Yankee Years" says that a number of t-shirts and hats marked "New York Yankees-2004 ALCS Champions" were brought to the Yankee clubhouse near the end of game 4. Of course, they were never distributed, but they'd have made interesting collectibles for Red Sox fans celebrating the end of their 86-year drought.

Are there other examples of premature-celebration items becoming collectibles?

[OaklandAsFan]

they print shirts for both teams in the post season just in case, from what I understand the team that loses, the shirts just get shipped overseas to be sold or given out. I believe I read that somewhere but could be wrong.

[otismalibu]

[gnishiyama]

I had this for sale in the classified for $35 shipped but there were no
takers. I would accept best offer. I wasn't sure if it was rare or not.

[TNTtoys]

I own one of these bad boys... A 1973 Mets pennant that declares them the "World Champs."

[coxfan]

Although not a premature celebration, the 1904 NY Giants displayed a banner calling themselves "World Champions" after refusing to play the World Series against the AL Champions.

By the way, the term "World Series" comes from the 1880's, when the NL Champions played the Champions of the American Association ( a second major league with no connection with the modern AL or AA.) For a while in the late 1890's, the NL was the only major league after the AA was gone. They tried to replace the World Series with a postseason series between the first and second-place clubs in the NL, but there was little fan interest.

[Skizzick]

I know this will fetch some dough if you can find one:

[sox83cubs84]

The Cubs had a phantom patch in 1984. For the NLCS, they wore a Divison Champs patch on their right sleeve. If they had made it to the World Series, that patch would have been replaced with a NL Champs patch. San Diego, unfortunately, spoiled that for Cubs fans, although the patches do exist.

Dave Miedema

[gnishiyama]

I know this will fetch some dough if you can find one:

Funny you mentioned this but it was just on Pawn Stars the other day.
I think the seller wanted a couple grand and Corey offered like $50 or
something like that

[David]

I've seen the Truman newspaper sell for around $400 at major auction. Somewhere between the 2 pawn star guys.

Phantom Playoff and World Series tickets are not uncommon. Printed in expectation of a team going.