Tagging on a Manny Ramirez 2004 jersey....

[kylehess10]

I have a question about a Manny Ramirez 2004 game worn jersey (from HR #32) which is on eBay. The outer tag looks very confusing and new to me. "2004" looks to be stitched on instead of the printed type that I have always seen. I tried looking for another 2004 Red Sox jersey to compare to and I did with a Curt Shilling 2004 jersey in an American Memorabilia auction. And as I thought, "2004" was printed on and not stitched on. Would anybody happen to know if the Red Sox had the year stitched in like the Ramirez jersey?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Manny-Ramirez-2004-Red-Sox-HR-32-Game-Used-Worn-Jersey_W0QQitemZ290101236156QQihZ019QQcategoryZ605 97QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


The first picture below is the Ramirez jersey tagging. The second picture is of a Curt Schilling 2004 game worn jersey with different tagging

[kingjammy24]

it's manny's "homemade" tagging. as has been thoroughly discussed on this forum and the old one, manny marketed literally dozens of his jerseys. these jerseys had these bizarre, atypical tags. i am still unclear as to why manny needed to make these tags up instead of just ordering as many properly-tagged jerseys as he wanted. at any rate, this is what you see here; a manny ramirez marketed jersey with a manny ramirez homemade tag.

while many other players such as arod, griffey, and bonds have marketed their own items, i've never seen another player create their own style of year tag meant to mimic the standard.

rudy.

[kingjammy24]

here is a 2004 ramirez with "standard" tagging:

http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=30780

here is a 2004 ramirez with homemade tagging:

http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=27081

rudy.

[kylehess10]

here is a 2004 ramirez with "standard" tagging:

http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=30780

here is a 2004 ramirez with homemade tagging:

http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auction_Item.asp?Auction_ID=27081

rudy.


Thanks for all that info!!

[WHAlers]

I am a little unclear on this post. are both styles legit game worn jerseys or are the ones with the sewn tags fakes? Are you saying that Manny ordered his own additional jerseys from the supplier and they arrived without year tags which Manny had made up and had attached and then he actually wore the special order jerseys?

I am in no way comfortable with modern day Red Sox jerseys because it seems to me that everywhere you look, on eBNay, in auctions etc. there are always Red Sox star players jerseys from the past few years. How many jerseys could there be for each player during a season? Is there a population report somewhere that can confirm the number of jerseys ordered and used by a player each year?

I prefer vintage stuff because the newer jerseys are becoming like baseball cards in so much as years ago Topps put out one set of cards and that was it, now there are 10 companies each cranking out multiple sets every year and flooding the market which drives the price down. It's a simple law of supply and demand at work. In my opinion, I would rather have one nice flannel jersey of Tony Conigliaro from 1969 than 5 Manny Ramirez jerseys from 2004.

I look forward to the information about my questions at the top of my post and I would love to here others opinions about vintage vs modern jerseys.

Thanks,
John

[kingjammy24]

"are both styles legit game worn jerseys or are the ones with the sewn tags fakes?"

not sure. i guess it all comes down to which ones he actually wore. manny may be the only one who knows for certain. for one reason or another, the ones with the homemade tags are covered in dirt whereas the ones with the standard tags are not. several people have commented that the use on the dirty jerseys is unrealistic (the dirt is in the oddest places - inside the neck, on the tagging, etc, almost as if it was added artificially). other people feel the use is realistic.

"Are you saying that Manny ordered his own additional jerseys from the supplier and they arrived without year tags which Manny had made up and had attached.."

yes

"..and then he actually wore the special order jerseys?"

who knows. whether he actually wore these special order jerseys is ultimately conjecture. the only thing you can say for certain is that there are a ton of them out there and the tagging is atypical.

"How many jerseys could there be for each player during a season?"

as many as the player wants. as well, it's been reported that team staff are able to order pro-spec jerseys from any player they want. eg: the tampa bay equipment manager can order 20 pro-spec ramirez jerseys if he wants.

"Is there a population report somewhere that can confirm the number of jerseys ordered and used by a player each year?"

the closest thing to what you're talking about would be the jersey order forms submitted by teams to the manufacturer. these are not made public and i'm unaware of anyone who has them. they would the closest thing to a holy grail in this hobby. these would only confirm the jerseys ordered though, not the ones used. the teams and players would have to get involved in noting the ones ordered and the ones actually used. something tells me they wouldn't be willing to help us out on that.

re: vintage vs modern jerseys. what you say is true regarding the relative scarcity of older jerseys compared to modern ones. there are various reasons for this. you're also correct in saying that increased supply drives prices down. for some this is good, for others it's bad. if you look at jerseys as a financial investment, then obviously you'd want supply limited. on the other hand, if you, like me, couldn't care less about their investment value, then you'd welcome a drop in prices. one forum member commented that, as a ramirez fan, he likes the huge supply of ramirez jerseys because it drives the prices down and therefore makes them more affordable. if there were only a couple on the market then he may not be able to afford one. this is true. however, the flipside of this huge supply is the reduced wear you see on jerseys. you get 100 ramirez jerseys pumped out in a year (assuming they're all legit) and although you can now afford one, they hardly show any wear at all. i prefer older jerseys from when players would only wear 2-4 in an entire season. the jerseys would really have some beautiful use on them. the road jerseys would've travelled all over the country and seen action in many stadiums. nowadays, you can get a player wearing a jersey twice and then it goes to market. if the jersey is washed, then it's difficult to tell it from a game-issued jersey. look at most of the jerseys on grey flannel; crisp tags, crisp numbers, stiff fabric. you can't even tell game-issued from game-used anymore because the supply is insane. prices may be down but so is the quality of use.

as for wanting a conigliaro over ramirez, i see what you're saying but ultimately you ought to collect for sentimental, not financial, reasons. you can't really help who captures your sentiments. if you're a big fan of manny ramirez, then tony conigliaro is meaningless and you'd still rather have a ramirez jersey over some guy you don't care about, regardless of how many are out there. i collect early 90s jays jerseys because thats where my sentiments lay. telling me that 50s yankees jerseys are rarer, a better investment and were a better team is all going to fall on deaf ears. what's a person supposed to do; force themselves to be a fan based on rarity and investment value? i'm not a yankees fan and i can't pretend to be. i like those early 90s jays. i'd rather have a 1991 john olerud jersey than a 2006 pujols world series shirt because the pujols holds absolutely no meaning for me. conigliaro may be rarer and a better investment but if you spent your summers watching ramirez at fenway then a conigliaro jersey will never be as good as a ramirez jersey even if there are 400 of them out there. ramirez fans just have to deal with the situation. to me, it's not a matter of vintage vs modern because ultimately, you collect whoever you end up liking on a sentimental level.

rudy.