Antique Roadshow Appraisals

I love Phil Mushnick. This guy gets it like no other. I’ve read every word he’s written for a decade or more. No one is more on top of the ways that sports and television is hurting our society and our kids. He’s so right about so many things that it was with some surprise that I read this piece in the Sunday paper and just couldn’t believe how wrong he could get it. Because he reads and answers (most times) his email, I shot him the email you see below.

Click here to open a new window to Phil Mushnick’s column on Antiques Roadshow and the Unitas Jacket

Click here to open a new window to UK Roadshow

Click here to open a new window to Roadshow’s site

Mr. M–

It has finally happened! After years of agreeing with you, I totally disagree with a column. The Roadshow column. You were not close to being fair. Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

Roadshow is one of the few places on TV today where there is no crotch-material; the kind of material that you rightly point out is rampant on TV. Not only that, but you actually LEARN things on Roadshow and now how many shows can you say THAT about? So for that alone, I’m giving them a wide berth. You didn’t.

The show has experts in their field doing the appraisals. That’s what these people do for a living and it is big business. You undercut all of them in one shot and really only gave the Unitas jacket as an example–even though you didn’t follow up on it. You cited the fact that you never see the appraiser offer to buy the item from the layman. Did it occur to you that that may be borderline unethical? And does the fact that you don’t see it in the final edit mean that it can not happen? I’ve no doubt that the appraisers are passing out cards like crazy and doing some business, but it would be gauche to show it that way.

Many times the appraisers are giving a value for insurance. You didn’t do your homework as there are three different numbers you can put on any antique: Insurance value or replacement value, which is typically market value. Auction value, which is more like wholesale because it is net of the hammer premium and seller’s premium. Also, an antique dealer would sell something for retail value, which is 30 to 100% over cost, as they have overhead.

When you go to an auction or follow auctions, you’ll see in the catalog, a minimum bid and a range. The low number, or minimum, is the number where bidding will begin at. If there is no interest, the auctioneer will oftentimes drop below that figure to get the bidding started. If there is no interest at that lower figure, he may withdraw it to protect his consigner.

The range is the proffessioanl estimate of the auctioneer as to where he thinks that hammer price will fall. After looking at this in the glass realm for years and years, I’ve found that one third of the items land in this range; one third above it and one third below it or withdrawn. There’s no way to tell. The batting average of a lifetime expert, is STILL only .333.

Now you say that sports memorabilia is lousy with bad actors and sports stars like Pete Rose who flood their own market with product and depress the demand for their products–and you’re right. It is all so true. But Johnny Unitas is in rarified air as a footballer. He’s a figure of Yogi/Musial type stature at least. And no matter how many things he signs to depress the signature market, he probably only had one of these jackets and it’s a highly personal, life-used item perhaps. So it is possible that in the right room, on a given day, it could be bid up to that figure. And more importantly, as a professional, that appraiser is willing to put that in writing so that the item can be scheduled on home owner’s insurance at that replacement figure. It’s not an exact science.

Do the figures they talk about on that show seem too good to be true? Sure. I get it. But you have to do more homework before ripping that guy and certainly the show. That show is one of the sanest, calmest and learned shows on TV. History, culture, craftsmanship, artistry, engineering and audience participation and learing! Geez, Mushnick, whattayawant!!??

–Fog

Last Call for Alfred Manuel (Billy) Martin

About 150 feet from Babe Ruth’s grave is another Yankee who liked a beverage now and then: Alfred Manuel Martin, or, as he is known, Billy. I did not know that his real name was Alfred Manuel. So I learned something.

 

 

As with Babe’s grave, there were many, odd, “left” items there. I actually expected marshmallows or a whiskey bottle or two but I have to admit that there were none. I suppose that if I were Dan Rather or CNN I’d have just planted them and taken my pictures, but I had “journalistic integrity” [laughter]. The towel that commemorated Jack Kaiser’s Stadium Dedication was the oddest. I have NO IDEA what significance it had to Billy. Just an ordinary bar rag? Hmm… possibly.

 

 

As with the Maharishi of Mash, they left the odd baseball cards on the grave. Why Juan Pierre? Why Edwin Encarncion? And, as with Ruth, you see the rocks and religious icons left. That one looks to me like ancient Babylonian.

 

 

This one was great. This person obviously had hit both Ruth’s grave and Martin’s, because they left the same Hall of Fame induction stub on each.  Ruth’s had the ball point pen inscription that he was better than Hank Aaron.  Martin’s says, “…you were one of the best”.  Well if that ain’t damning with faint praise.  “One” of the best.  And again with the baseball cards: What is with Julian Tavarez?  People do funny things.  Like watch and enjoy “The Bronx is Burning”.  Read Sparky’s book.  Skip the hokey drama.  –fog

 

Putin Shaves his Chest

It’s fun to stay at the… 

Wabbit Season. Duck Season. A-Rod Season.

Hard to post with Tommy now so you do what you can. Emailing Cincinnati Bill on the game he attended last night at Cincy and the hotdogs I consumed last time there reminded me of a story from another game in Philly: Story: We are leaving Citizen’s bank park in Philly and Kranepooligans and I hit the men’s room before the long drive home. On the way into the men’s room, there was a slight line. A guy put a big tote of hotdogs next to the line by the door and said, “free hotdogs”. I did not take one but I p’d next to many men who had their ****s in one hand and a frank in the other, happily chomping away at the “free”, old, raggety dogs….mmmmm…ambiance.

Chipper Jones has opened the season on A-Rod by being the first fairly credible guy (Canseco has said some ominous things) to speculate that A-Rod may break the record but get ready for the same speculation as to his “legitimacy” as well. I agree. He played in the rampant era of only a few years ago and as far as I’m concerned, once you take HGH, you are forever tainted, because your body fundamentally changes after that. I’m NOT SAYING that I know anything or that he did anything; just that the speculation will be increasing and it has to be entertained on he and really, all others. What they’re doing is superhuman so you wonder. That’s all.

Tony LaRussa is batting the pitcher 8th. Hooray! I agree, Tone. I used to do it in Strat-O-Matic and I used to do it in Earl Weaver Baseball. Of course in Earl Weaver, I was batting Christy Mathewson 8th and Frank Frisch 9th. It makes for an around-the-corner lineup. The first time through, the cleanup hitter is cleanup. Subsequently, there is another good hitter in front of the #3 hitter, who is really your team’s best hitter, power and average considered. Leadoff is over rated. The leadoff hitter is only guaranteed to hit leadoff, ONCE per game.

The difference between 8th and 9th isn’t going to amount to anything: perhaps a handful of AB’s lost per season. And in later innings, in the NATIONAL LEAGUE (real baseball), you are typically hitting for the pitcher after 6 anyhow. So for 2 or 3 cycles, you are putting a better hitter in front of your lineup meat. What’s wrong with that? Baseball is amazing in the stodginess and slowness to deal with new ideas. It has taken baseball 125 years to start playing the 2nd baseman in the outfield with no one on base. WHY? It makes too much sense? Look at Moneyball. Moneyball threatens so much of the baseball hokum that most just curse it rather than realize that it is sound. You know, it’s funny, because we laugh at ancient civilazations for doing dopey things like blaming the weather on the “gods” and throwing young girls into the volcano to “appease” the “gods”, but really, for many things today there is as much hooey as ever. Look at Al Gore. He won the popular vote for US Pres and he is mad as a hatter with the dopey, anti-West, anti-USA global warming nonsense that has more holes in it than Carlos DelGado’s swing. We are not immune to dopiness, is my point. Good job Tony LaRussa on the pitcher in the 8 hole. Wow. Long way around on that one, eh?

Luis Castillo was a great pickup for the Mets. The more I see of this man, the more I like. This guy has an IDEA out there. This man is a PRO. And maybe I can forget Jose Valentin, who looks like Snidely Whiplash of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It has passed Valentin by mostly, and it was clear in the playoffs last year. Go Luis.

(Whiplash)

Great piece on some breathtaking “news creation” by the liberal, hate-Bush, hate-America media. Have a look. It is blatant. It is unabashed. It is sad. It is happening all the time. Click here to read

Dood, Nice Ensemble

 

I’m still cleaning out the files. Mrs. Pinetar and I went to a few ballgames in Florida this Spring. As some may know, I’ve been to almost all of the parks (38 and counting, only missing 2: St. Louis and Denver). Here we are in Miami at Joe Robbie Stadium that is now Dolphin Stadium, I think (who cares what they’re calling it this week?).

While looking at the photos, I really had to blanch when I saw my outfit.

Cortez the Killer

I thought of titling this piece: How kids learn. Then I thought of “How liberals teach”. Anyway, this is part of how really bad liberal revisionist history ends up being taken quite seriously. Have a look:

“Cortez The Killer”

Sgt. York

Click here to read the article on locating Sgt York’s stomping ground

(Addendum to post: I found a photo from the Verdun Ossuary inside and the outside.  Not really where I wanted to take my wife on vacation–I’ve read enough books on this stuff, I didn’t have to go here although I’m sure, like the Anne Frank house that we visited in Amsterdam, it leaves you speechless.) 

IrishEagle, I didnt realize you wrote so much and was randomly clicking through your old archives and found this story on Sgt. York. Mrs. Pinetar and I went to Europe this summer (trying to get it done before any baby) and since I had read many books on WWI, I thought it might be neat to see a WWI battle field. Then I googled up Verdun and it just was so grim that I thought better of it. The room full of bones at Verdun is what did it. What do they call it? The Oci..Oci..I forget but it means room of bones, basically.

We travelled by train back from Brussels to Paris and had to go right through the Hindenburg Line and the countryside looked a lot like photos I had seen in the books but I could see no evidence of what had gone down there except one, lone, French cemetery in the middle of a wheat field near the tracks.

That war was so horrible and really uneeded. People who didn’t understand that modern war would be so much different (they were thinking of 1870) than in the past, entered into it with no idea of what they were unleashing. We are STILL paying for it now. All of the subsequent WWII could easily be pinned to it. In fact, I believe that in 4 or 500 years, both world wars will be viewed as the SAME war–and just as pointless, both.

I think I’d rather have been in just about any other conflict than in those cold, wet, muddy trenches, getting the stuffing shelled out of you and having officers order you to run up against machine guns. The casualty figures of the First Day on The Somme are some 56,000 wounded or killed. That’s just the British! That’s one day! Astounding. Sad. –fog

Huge Dinosaur Find in New Jersey

Mrs. Pinetar gets mad at me when I don’t eat right. And I am trying. But she leaves the house before me typically and what happens in the kitchen after that, stays in the kitchen.

That’s why I was surprised one day when she KNEW that I had eaten critter crunch cake sprinkles with my coffee for breakfast (I didn’t have time for anything else and we didn’t have a lot of options).

To which she led me to the coffee pot where we saw this: