Here’s a guy who can tear the cover off the baseball. Gregg Garfinkel plays third base for a fastpitch league in California, and while he may not have the fielding or hitting chops of his idols — Mike Schmidt and Ron Cey — this transportation attorney knows how to handle a baseball. Garfinkel, 54, runs Baseballidays, a business where he turns baseballs used by big … [Read more...]
Collecting Frederic Remington’s 1800s American Football Prints
American artist Frederic Remington (1861-1909) is famed as the preeminent painter and sculptor of the Old American West, with classic and exciting action images of cowboys, American Indians and the Cavalry. Many sports fans familiar with his work, however, don't realize that not only did Remington play football at Yale University, but he made numerous sketches of 19th century … [Read more...]
Ramblings: Catching Up With Artist Monty Sheldon
One of our occasional writing streams in Rich's Ramblings is to get a little more in-depth with various people in the hobby. We write about store owners, hobby personalities and for the first time, one of the artists who create the cards. I first heard of Monty Sheldon nearly two decades ago now when Mark Macrae, a leading hobby dealer, was carrying some beautiful artwork … [Read more...]
Editions, Proofs, States and Other Aspects of Fine Art Sports Prints
This column looks at several parts of fine art prints, including things you've likely heard of before but mayb have never known what they exactly meant: press proofs, artists proofs, states, limited editions, etc. EDITIONS Fine art prints are often printed in editions. An edition will contain a finite and often known number of prints. There is the normal print run, then … [Read more...]
Identification Tips for Beginning Collectors of Sports Paintings
As collecting original paintings is becoming more popular and mainstream in the sports memorabilia hobby, this column is a beginner's guide to identifying the different types of paint (oil, acrylic, tempera, watercolor, gouache, pastel, encaustic), and how to identify reproductions of paintings. The common types of paint in fine art paintings: Oil paint Oil painting is … [Read more...]
Collecting Sports Prints by The Masters: How and Where to Do Your Homework
Did you know Rembrandt made a 1654 etching showing a golfer? Did you know that the 1800s painter Winslow Homer helped make a woodcut print of a football game, or that you can purchase Andy Warhol limited edition screen prints of Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, Eric Heiden and Pete Rose? Fine art isn’t just for museums these days. Increasingly, sports collectors are purchasing … [Read more...]
How to Turn 996 Common Baseball Cards Into a Honus Wagner
Like any good card collector, Tim Carroll knows how to trade. He's been in the hobby since 1987, about the time thousands of new collectors were being born every day and the card companies cranked up the presses to meet the demand. The sports card shops and card shows were stuffed with boxes and sets of products produced with much fanfare but are now more often than not, … [Read more...]