I WAS SCROLLING THE INTERNET RECENTLY, and on one of the hobby forums I came across a discussion I found interesting: someone had posted a graded card that carried a pedigree from Charles Bray, and asked whether the pedigree added any value to the card. A few opinions were tossed back and forth, and then one collector chimed in, stating “I’ve been collecting 30 years and I’ve never heard of Charles Bray.” This letter is not intended to criticize any individual collector. It is, however, to suggest that perhaps we as hobbyists are beginning to lose sight of some of the research and care that some of its early curators invested in the hobby in its earliest days. Often, I peruse auctions and sale listings and find very little attention being paid to the origin or true significance of the items being sold. It’s easy to become seduced by the big money transactions that seem to happen every week in our hobby, and to forget the scholarly approach to collecting. The detective work that goes into learning about a set, or researching a player or team, is often the most fun part of the hobby – and I fear it’s becoming a lost art. Nearly a year ago, I wrote an editorial: “The hobby needs a Standard Catalog!” The publication that used to be the Bible of collecting has not been published since 2017, after a string of annual or semi-annual updates. New hobby discoveries, new research, variations and finds seem to have fallen by the wayside – disseminating that knowledge seems to be unimportant in today’s fast-paced, high-dollar world. And yet there are collectors who are keen on
digging into these mysteries and unraveling them. Sadly, though, among the large corporations currently pouring money into the hobby, acquiring businesses and adding to their portfolios, there seems to be little interest in reinforcing the foundation of the hobby by educating collectors, especially new ones. I would love to see one of the hobby’s new, well-funded entrants take the bull by the horns and create a scholarly hobby publication. I’d love to see whoever owns the Standard Catalog turn it over to the SABR Baseball Cards committee so that they can continue publishing it. I’d love to see one of these well-funded corporations make a huge donation to SABR – to ensure that they have the resources necessary to do their work. But until that happens, it’s our responsibility as hobbyists to preserve these names and share our knowledge. Which brings us to Charles Bray. As you read through this catalog, you’ll find names of early hobby pioneers that we discuss with the same reverence we use with individual players. Bray, Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter, Richard Merkin, the American Card Catalog, Card Collectors Bulletin – all featured in these pages. Each had an important role in building the hobby we love today. There are many more. As collectors, we owe it to the folks who’ll own our cards some day in the future, to preserve these names, and to share these discoveries, to help keep this hobby alive. What an honor it is to write those names into these pages. We’ve got lots of historically important items in this auction, and undoubtedly, some will sell for a lot of money. But it’s the history that brought us all here, which is easy to forget sometimes. I invite you to spend some time reading – and maybe bidding on that lot of old Card Collectors Bulletin publications. Let’s be sure to revere and preserve the foundation that made this the best hobby in the world.
Happy Holidays, Al Crisafulli Auction Director
FALL 2024 PREMIER AUCTION − CLOSES NOVEMBER 30, 2024 1
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