OT: New low for cards??

[earlywynnfan]

Does anyone but me find this extremely lazy? Card companies are now cutting up cards to make new cards?? Where is the bottom of this barrel?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130191380253&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

Ken

[kylehess10]

This isn't the first time....I remember back in like 2003 when I used to collect cards, Donruss re-purchased tons of it's autographs from the 1997 set and cut them up to make new cards. It's stupid

[frikativ54]

I love photography, so baseball cards are naturally "where it's at" for me. I love some of the inserts that were put together in the late-1990s. I even love the 1993 Topps Finest Refractor set, and own a couple Bagwell PSA 9s of my own. But I am so sick and tired of the game used craze.

They are destroying pieces of history and equipment all in the name of consumerism. You should see some of the Mantle jerseys and bat barrels that they whack in smithereens. It's ridiculous. I like baseball cards, but it's gone way too far.

I've got my Biggio 1989 UD BGS 10 rookie, as well as a Bagwell BGS 9.5 1991 Topps Traded Tiffany, but beyond that, it's hard to care much anymore. They put out way too many cards for them to have much value nowadays. I can just see people of the future laughing when they dig through our junk and see chunks of wood on cardboard.

[BoneRubbedBat]

I'm waiting for them to sweep up the shavings from cutting the cardboard and package them up in little airtights.

[bscott]

This isn't completely off topic.

What is happening in baseball cards (game used swatches, bat pieces) must be having some effect on the game used collecting.

The question is: what precisely is that effect?

Ultimately, does the chopping up of bats and jerseys (to make baseball cards) raise collector awareness of and interest in game used items, or does it just destroy bats and jerseys?

Further, I wonder about quality control at Topps and Upper Deck, the two biggest baseball card producers. Am I the only one who questions their definitions of "game used"? If this forum has taught me anything, it is that it can be very difficult to authenticate a game used bat or jersey, especially vintage items. I can't help but wonder if any falsely-verified items have ended up in/on a baseball card as "game used."

Also, has any "expert" on this forum ever been contacted by a baseball card company to assist in verifying the authenticity of a game used item?

In baseball cards, is it a situation where game-used items are game used because they say so?

-bscott.

[Jags Fan Dan]

This isn't completely off topic.

What is happening in baseball cards (game used swatches, bat pieces) must be having some effect on the game used collecting.

The question is: what precisely is that effect?

Ultimately, does the chopping up of bats and jerseys (to make baseball cards) raise collector awareness of and interest in game used items, or does it just destroy bats and jerseys?

Further, I wonder about quality control at Topps and Upper Deck, the two biggest baseball card producers. Am I the only one who questions their definitions of "game used"? If this forum has taught me anything, it is that it can be very difficult to authenticate a game used bat or jersey, especially vintage items. I can't help but wonder if any falsely-verified items have ended up in/on a baseball card as "game used."

Also, has any "expert" on this forum ever been contacted by a baseball card company to assist in verifying the authenticity of a game used item?

In baseball cards, is it a situation where game-used items are game used because they say so?

-bscott.
I agree that more and more, almost entirely because of what I have learned on this site, I question the game used cards out there. I used to buy them, blindly accepting that if Topps (or Upper Deck or whoever else) said it was a piece of game used equipment, then certainly it must be true. No longer. It seems that most players keep their Pro bowl jerseys. Then how does Topps (Bowman, etc.) have game used Pro Bowl jersey cards of nearly every player? Granted, some say "player worn", not game worn, so who knows what that is, but I just don't believe a lot of what I see now, especially since I once saw a Jimmy Smith patch card and the patch was from a Patriots jersey! If they can goof that up, then all of the generic white jersey swatches of Marino, Elway, Favre, etc. are no more than random pieces of fabric stuck to a piece of cardboard.