As senior accredited appraisers of personal property, of which sports memorabilia is an important category of collectibles, at ValuePros we use our over 40 years of experience and expertise to prepare appraisals of items involved in every professional sport played internationally.
Sports Memorabilia collecting can actually trace its roots back centuries, and sometimes we are asked to examine and appraise items from the early Olympiad days. The bulk of our work, however, involves appraising sports items from the 20th century when collecting transitioned from a hobby to an investment with profit potential.
At ValuePros, we know for instance that signed equipment from before the Great Depression is extremely rare. Who’d want to waste a good baseball on an autograph? The first type of memorabilia collected was much simpler, and it’s probably the same way many of today’s collectors got their start. From this simple analogy, you see that ValuePros experts not only have to know what the items are, but also understand the economic conditions of a particular era that may have affected the buying-selling-collecting scenario.
As appraisers of Sports Memorabilia, we understand the criteria of scarcity; in this case, because there were fewer gloves made for certain positions on the field, e.g. Catcher than for outfielders, it follows fewer Catcher’s gloves were made or survived the passage of time and usage. If you find a Catcher’s glove, for example, from the 1920s, there are far fewer of those gloves available than Pitcher’s gloves, because every team had a dozen or so Pitchers and maybe two Catchers.
We also have to also consider two other factors: Condition and Authentication. A worn, tattered sports item, no matter the age, has to be correctly judged against items that have been properly cared for and have retained much of their originality.
As in any economic endeavor, as Collecting is, there will be fraud. The Sports Memorabilia industry is rife with fakes. At ValuePros we are trained to look for the differentiating factors between fakes and originals.
If you have a Sports Memorabilia Appraisal need or question call us at (888) 353-7152 to discuss or CONTACT US online.
