As a young girl, baseball cards constantly surrounded me.
With an older brother and a father who played and watched the game, I could
never get away from the topic of baseball. I never understood the concept of baseball cards,
why some of them became so costly. Though, I couldn’t really argue with my
brother and father because at that time I was collecting beanie babies. But the
day that my dad pulled out a Ted Williams baseball card he bought for my
brother and told us it was worth a lot, I became perplexed. Finding
out now it was worth 900 dollars, I am still confused. Looking at
the card then, it was a card, a small rectangular piece of paperboard with a
picture on it. How could it be worth so much?
Looking at it now, the same question still arises in my
mind. The only conclusion that suffices is how the world we live in makes
meaning out of material items. There is an actual value in a dollar bill,
however, in baseball cards, we make value, hence the value is nothing more than
fake, yes there is a price tag attached to a baseball card, but the card’s
price is truly not what the actual piece of paperboard is worth.
Take
the Honus Wagner T-206 baseball card. Recently, in 2007, one of these baseball
cards sold for 2.8 million dollars. Honus Wagner is known as one of the best
shortstops that have ever played baseball (Venturo). Even if this is true, how can a piece of paperboard be worth
2.8 million dollars? This is due to the materialistic world we live in today.
People make value in material items, a value that is not truly the value of
the actual object; it is the value of the idea confined to it.
David
F. Venturo also talks about baseball and material culture in his essay, Baseball and material culture, where he
discusses baseball and “how things are made, used, and valued (economically,
morally, aesthetically, and culturally)” (138). Baseball memorabilia in our material world today can
become costly when the sentimental value of the memorabilia is the reason it’s
so expensive, not the cost of it being manufactured. For example, Mark
McGwire’s record-setting seventieth home-run ball from his 1998 sold at an
auction for more than 3 million dollars in 1999. Its obvious that this baseball did not cost 3 million dollars to make, therefore the baseball sold for 3 million dollars because it was Mark McGwire's record-setting seventieth home-run ball.
Andy
Dolich delves into this subject of baseball memorabilia, specifically cards, in
his article, Mourning
the death of baseball cards. He talks first about how the popularity of
baseball cards has been declining lately and the reasoning to this decline. He
then discusses how baseball has the deepest and richest tradition of all
sports, how even with all of the technological advances today, people still
indulge and spend money on baseball cards. Dolich writes also of the Honus T
Wagner card being sold recently, “The card was sold again that same year for
$2.8 million” (Dolich). A baseball
card selling for 2.8 million dollars exemplifies how insane the power of
nostalgia is on our society today. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that our nostalgia
for baseball can lead some people to spending 2.8 million dollars on a piece of
paperboard?
Nostalgia is a costly feeling. Like your brother and father, I grew up collecting baseball cards as well. My peak was the '98 season- I had been collecting for long enough that I knew the best sets- I nearly completed the Donruss, Upper Deck, Topps, and Fleer sets from that year (including inserts (which is a very strange concept)). Unfortunately, that year they added "game used" cards (well, to be technical, it came at the end of the second series of the '97 set, which no one was really aware of; they gained notoriety in the '98 expansion set). So, the completed set no longer meant anything- the jersey and bat cards meant all.
ReplyDeleteSo, where am I going with this? Suddenly there was a reason to attach value to modern baseball cards. I mean, a game-used swatch of fabric- must be worth so much! But it isn't. Magazines like Beckett ascribed value to these cards, but they weren't worth it.
This will sound redundant, but, cards are only worth something if they're worth something. The second most valuable card in the world, to me, will always be the 'Andruw Jones '98 Upper Deck series 2 "A Piece of the Action" with both jersey swatch and bat cutting.' My sister pulled it at a store in our town when I was just a kid. So much nostalgia comes with it. Honestly, I will remember Princess Di's death, that card being drawn, and 9/11. And, oddly, this pull is the most memorable of the three.
So my point is that baseball cards- and memorabilia of all types- gain value based on what can be constructed from it. The Andruw Jones card is the construction of unforgettable luck for me- and therefore very valuable.
If I had twenty million dollars, here's what I would do: a helluvalot of fun stuff, buy the AJ card I just mentioned- and buy a Honus Wagner card. Why? Ultimately, I guess just because it exists. It is worth something to me because at one point, baseball cards mattered a lot to me. The T206 Wagner is the pinnacle of baseball cards. If I had all of the money in the world, then the Honus Wagner card would be attainable. And that is why it sells for so much- because someone has enough nostalgia to attach ungodly sums to it, and the money to match it. I mean, it is a great piece.
Nostalgia is a costly feeling. Like your brother and father, I grew up collecting baseball cards as well. My peak was the '98 season- I had been collecting for long enough that I knew the best sets- I nearly completed the Donruss, Upper Deck, Topps, and Fleer sets from that year (including inserts (which is a very strange concept)). Unfortunately, that year they added "game used" cards (well, to be technical, it came at the end of the second series of the '97 set, which no one was really aware of; they gained notoriety in the '98 expansion set). So, the completed set no longer meant anything- the jersey and bat cards meant all.
ReplyDeleteSo, where am I going with this? Suddenly there was a reason to attach value to modern baseball cards. I mean, a game-used swatch of fabric- must be worth so much! But it isn't. Magazines like Beckett ascribed value to these cards, but they weren't worth it.
This will sound redundant, but, cards are only worth something if they're worth something. The second most valuable card in the world, to me, will always be the 'Andruw Jones '98 Upper Deck series 2 "A Piece of the Action" with both jersey swatch and bat cutting.' My sister pulled it at a store in our town when I was just a kid. So much nostalgia comes with it. Honestly, I will remember Princess Di's death, that card being drawn, and 9/11. And, oddly, this pull is the most memorable of the three.
So my point is that baseball cards- and memorabilia of all types- gain value based on what can be constructed from it. The Andruw Jones card is the construction of unforgettable luck for me- and therefore very valuable.
If I had twenty million dollars, here's what I would do: a helluvalot of fun stuff, buy the AJ card I just mentioned- and buy a Honus Wagner card. Why? Ultimately, I guess just because it exists. It is worth something to me because at one point, baseball cards mattered a lot to me. The T206 Wagner is the pinnacle of baseball cards. If I had all of the money in the world, then the Honus Wagner card would be attainable. And that is why it sells for so much- because someone has enough nostalgia to attach ungodly sums to it, and the money to match it. I mean, it is a great piece.
This form of value is based very similarly to the value Nick seems to place on the ball. Yes there is game worn jersey cards and game worn cleats, gloves; hell you can even bid on game chewed gum, but is the value really coming from the fact that it was worn during a game? I think there is something to be said for the nostalgia of history in fandom. Is it possible we collect because our brothers collect? our fathers collect? I think it may still only be so important and engaging to collect baseball memorabilia because people before us did. Or maybe we just like the feel of game worn items.
ReplyDelete