Customer Reviews

Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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Only one word describes the catalog set.....INCREDIBLE. As a life-long baseball fan, collector, dealer, etc, this set of catalogs, pictures in beautiful crystal clear color, many of the artifacts of America's National Pasttime. Many people were upset at Halper for breaking this collection up. Contratry to that opinion, I believe breaking the collection up allowed SO many people to share in the history of the game. Five million dollars worth of collectibles were purchased by MLB for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Twenty two million dollars worth were auction in the Sotheby's auction and an unknown amount on amazon.sothebys.com. These catalogs contain relics from every facet of the game......baseball cards dating back to the 1880's.....team and individual photos dating back even farther.....uniforms, bats, balls, gloves from nearly every hall of famer......personal trophies like triple crown, Cy Young, MVP and so much more. Nowhere will you find such a book that illustrates why Baseball is woven through the fabric of America than this catalog. The lot descriptions are carefully crafted to be both a history lesson and a thought (and pocketbook) provoking snapshot of baseball. Never again will there be such a collection amassed. No one has the access to players and probably the funds to acquire such a collection....you get a glimpse at everything important about baseball. Everything good about baseball.....you forget about the strike of 1994, you forget about the high paid cry babies of today and remember the guys that played the game for one reason.....the love of the game. There was team loyalty, work ethics, and so much more that baseball and America as a whole is sometimes seriously lacking today. Spend the bucks.....you won't regret it......

I have had this book collection for years. I bought it as Costco about 8 to 10 years ago. It is truly amazing to see everything this man had collected. Unfortunately it is now come to light that most of it is fake. He made it up, stole it, or paid people to lie about it for him. Turns out he was the Barry Madoff of Sports Collectables. He even fooled the MLB Hall of Fame (they ended up returning most of the 7 million dollars worth of bogus stuff they bought) and Billy Crystal paid over $230,000 for a bogus Mantle glove. Sad.

This is an incredible reference, especially for uniforms. The pictures and detail are amazing, and you can generally tell what people thought was real, and what people did not from looking at the prices. The attention to detail in the descriptions is really helpful in identifying stuff today. I wish there were more photos, and sometimes I wish there was an acknowledgement of some of the controversey surrounding some of the items. I really am in awe of the folks who put together this beautiful book, and the incredible pictures. I think this is a great starting point for anyone collecting seriously.

This is the Hall of Fame of baseball memorabilia, without equal. Halper had put together a collection of almost every baseball-related item that could be collected, and these catalogues display most of that collection, including lots of items that you never would have thought even existed. The pictures of the items are terrific, and are worth the price just by themselves. But in addition, this post-auction printing also includes the final bid prices for items in the auction, so it seves as an excellent "price guide" for rare and unusual material - memorabilia you certainly won't find in Beckett's guides or other more generic price references. And, for those of us that think of some of the final bid amounts in terms of hefty mortgages rather than hobby expenses (e.g., $305,000 for a Lou Gehrig jersey!) the book is great fodder for dreams, however unattainable they may be...

The pictures are indeed magnificent, however, I must demur about the accompanying text which does not provide appropriate, tightly written or in some instances, historically accurate information.