Cycleback's THE VINTAGE
COLLECTOR
by David Rudd
www.cycleback.com/newsletter.html
email: cycleback@cycleback.com
** The Vintage
Collector is an occasional email/online newsletter. Questions, comments and submissions are encouraged and welcome.
CONTENTS
* Random Drawing: Win
a Photograph
* Q & A
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FREE RANDOM DRAW
This newsletter will occasionally
have a random draw for a prize. The
winner of the last draw, for a Kellen Winslow Autographed card, was Don
Gitersonke of Las Vegas.
THE NEW PRIZE:
Original 1968 Ray Gora Photograph of Luis Aparicio and Luis Jr. Gora was a prominent photographer for the
Chicago Tribune. This sharp black and
white 8X10" photo shows the Venezuelan baseball great, Aparicio, in his
Chicago White Sox uniform before a game.
He is posing for the camera with his perhaps eight year old son, who
also has a White Sox cap and fielding glove.
An attractive, appealing and rare original photograph.
IMAGE:
http://www.cycleback.com/aparicio.JPG
HOW TO ENTER: Email to
say you wish to enter. Entering is
free. After a few days, a winner will be randomly picked and notified.
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Q & A
QUESTION: What is a
progression proof?
ANSWER: Progression
proofs were proofs, or test prints, that were used by the printers to test the
colors and color alignment before final printing. There was a series of progression proofs for a print, with each
proof testing a unique color combination.
For example, one proof was printed in black and white, the next black
and yellow, the next blue and red, and so on.
The set will show the prints in a variety, or progression, of
colors. Progression proofs are often
also called 'color separation proofs,' or 'color separation tests,' all which
are acceptable names.
The below link shows a
progression proof set for a baseball card.
http://www.cycleback.com/colors.JPG
QUESTION: Concerning
the Andy Warhol print in the last newsletter, how are Warhol's print
authenticated? Can a normal collector
authenticate one?
One other
question. I'm an Englishman, working in
Oslo. How come football isn't popular
in America?
ANSWER: A thorough discussion of Warhol's prints
wouldn't fit into the newsletter.
For the experienced
collector, the examination of Warhol's limited is straightforward. Warhol produced relatively few limited
prints. As he was famous at an early
age, had a recent career and was calculating (I don't meant that in a
derogatory sense), there are ample and useful public records on his prints. A key resource is the book 'Andy Warhol
Prints: A catalogue Raisonne 1962-87' by Frayda Feldman and Jorg Schellman,
published by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. It is an expensive but essential book for
the potential collector, dealer or historian.
It covers the details about the prints, including what type of paper or
board was used, size, how they were signed and numbered it. It is also fully and colorfully illustrated,
making it a worthy coffee table book.
I also recommend that
the collector get pictures of Warhol's signature (which I will provide upon
request). While most of us are not
autograph experts, I believe that the studios collector can get a feel for a
signature.
Lastly, it is prudent
to buy one of the prints from a respected and knowledgeable seller that provides
proper paper documentation. The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, in New York City, examines Warhol prints
and will provide a certificate of approval if a print is deemed authentic.
As far as soccer (as
we Americans call it) goes, I think it comes down to tradition and that US is
already a sports saturated society without much room for new sports. A sport will only gather a large audience
if the US is one of the top teams.
Obviously, the US is not a soccer power, but the recent World Cup step
is a good step in gaining fan support.
It is worth noting that the three most popular team sports in the U.S.
(American football, baseball and basketball) were either invented or developed
in the U.S. At the least, this fact
shows the long tradition of the sports here.
Though not as a
popular spectator sport, soccer is popular in the U.S. It's commonly played by kids, in high
schools and colleges. I played it as a
kid.
I saw a British coach
for a U.S. team say that Americans like team sports where, at any given moment,
the fan knows exactly what is going on.
I'm a baseball centric person, and baseball is structured in the
extreme, with frequent pauses and startups, things like pitch counts, and bags,
boxes and rubbers that the players have to stand on or in. Any baseball fan is familiar with the
extreme statistical analysis that goes on during and after a game. A sport for the anal retentive. This soccer coach said that soccer is more
free flowing and not natural to American audiences.
QUESTION: How rare are
original Ty Cobb photographs from his playing days? Who's the toughest to find if not him?
ANSWER: Cobb played
from about 1907-1928 and original photographs of all Hall of Famers from that
period is scarce, especially if you're comparing it to baseball cards. From my experience Cobb photos are the
second most common player photos from this time, with Babe Ruth being #1 by
far. From this time period, managers
John McGraw and Connie Mack are also common.
Original Cobb photos,
especially attractive ones, are still scarce and, due to his great popularity
with collectors, expensive.
From this early 1900s,
original Christy Matheson photos are the rarest for big name players. Though my guess is more examples will hit
the market some day.
QUESTION: I read that
a dealer cut up complete sheets of 1957 Topps baseball cards into singles and
had them graded in high grade. Is this
good or bad?
ANSWER: I'm not quite sure what you mean by good or
bad. It is a matter of prevailing taste
and honesty.
Many collectors are
against cutting up old sheets like this.
The first reason is that original, unusual material like this shouldn't
be destroyed. It is true uncut sheets
that old are rare and there's no going back once you've applied the paper
cutter. While I appreciate the
sentiments, this first argument more often than not is a crock argument. It is often the people who demand that the
material be 'preserved' who were
unwilling to buy the original material unless it's offered at bargain basement
prices. In other words, they have no
problem preserving something with someone else's pocket book.
The second reason
against cutting up sheets would be these collectors do not consider a 1957
Topps card 'official' unless it was cut in 1957. They might buy the modern cut card, but at a discount. As a collector, I hold the same sentiments,
which is not to suggest that these sentiments are entirely rational. Most collecting sentiments and fashions are
not meant for rational analysis.
As a rule, there is
nothing inherently wrong with alteration, whether it's cutting a card from a
sheet or restoring a print, as long as the potential buyer is made aware of the
alteration. I don't know how these 1957
Topps cards were represented upon sale, but it would seem best that be
represented as modern cut cards. The
potential buyer should be the one to decide whether or not that is important,
not the seller.
I am familiar with the
1957 Topps sheets you talk about. For
those unfamiliar with the story, people restoring a house in Philadelphia
discovered the complete sheets of 1957 Topps baseball cards were being used as
insulation within the walls. These
sheets were about 3X2 feet, and had over 100 cards per sheet. 1957 is one of the most popular years for
Topps cards, and the sheets contain the usual run of stars, including Mickey
Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax and Hank Aaron. As you might expect, the sheets were in
varying degrees of decrepitude. On a
typical sheet, parts were clean, while other areas were torn and water
damaged. As a matter of practical ness,
some of the problematic sheets were cut down into partial sheets and large
panels.
I bought several of
the panels and partial sheets. While I
didn't cut out any cards (I promise!), I found little interest in them upon
resale. It is the dealer who I bought
my panels from who eventually cut up some of his sheet and submitted them to a
well known grader. Considering the lack
of interest in the panels/partial sheets I understand his reasoning for cutting
them down into cards. According to this
dealer, he asked the grader if the cards would be graded if he cut them off the
sheets and to the correct size, and the grader said that was okay.
QUESTION: What's a
'gold tone tintype'? I saw someone
selling one.
ANSWER: Without having
seen it, I suspect that the person was selling a gold tone, or orotone
photograph. There was a brief article
about the goldtone and related photographs in the newsletter's archives. See http://cycleback.com/solidtypes.htm. In
short the gold tone photograph has the image on a pane of glass backed in
gold. A tintype is something else,
with the image on iron.
One significant point
is that, with unusual exceptions, a tintype is a one of a kind, while there can
be more than one copy of a particular gold tone.
QUESTION: How does
infrared photography related to the infrared stuff you talked about in the last
newsletter?
ANSWER: Infrared photography is same thing but in a
different application. Many hobby and
art photographers take infrared photographs using infrared film that only is
receptive to infrared light. Some
digital cameras can be made to do the same thing with a special screw on
filter. As said in the last newsletter,
different things, whether they are paints or animals or trees, absorb and emit
infrared light differently. The
resulting photographs have a dream/nightmare-like quality. Plants, including grass and tree leaves,
appear like snow. Large bodies of water
often appear black. Cold blooded
animals, like alligators, often appear dark.
Warm blooded animals often appear light.
QUESTION: Do the card
grading companies use infrared equipment to detect alterations?
ANSWER: I don't know,
you would have to ask them.
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That's it, thanks for
reading
The Vintage Collector's Archives can be viewed at http://www.cycleback.com/newsletter.html