Hobby Quick Hits Ep.177 LOTH: Barry Halper

SPEAKER 1: Hobby delivering that breaking Hobby news directly to your airline.

SPEAKER 1: I know those hot drops from the card shops.

SPEAKER 1: G your help.

SPEAKER 1: John.

SPEAKER 1: New name.

SPEAKER 1: Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 177 of Hobby Quick. Its have one of our legends of the Hobby series today. This week it is Barry Helper.

SPEAKER 1: Little controversial subject and figure, but definitely a legend of the Hobby, part owner of the Yankees at one point probably had the best collection, on the planet. Some of that, obviously a lot of it still exists now in other people's hands as Barry has, passed on.

SPEAKER 1: But, we're gonna talk about the man, the collector, the entrepreneur on today's episode and he's definitely an interesting character and, has some importance to the Hobby. We're gonna definitely, deep dive and, and learn more about Barry Hopper, on today's episode.

SPEAKER 2: Ok. Now a quick word from our great sponsor followed by the new product release schedule. Then we'll go around the Hobby verse to tell you all the latest Hobby happenings and news. Then we'll tackle today's topic of discussion.

SPEAKER 3: Hi, this is Pat Hughes announcer. Coming to you from the Sports Card shop in beautiful New Buffalo, Michigan. The Goer family has built an incredible place here for collectors to buy, sell and trade cards and memorabilia. Be sure to stop by and let them show you around the Sports Card shop.com connecting sports athletes, the Hobby and collectors around the world.

SPEAKER 4: Hi, this is Allen Pinkett and I'm here to tell you the Goer family has done it again.

SPEAKER 4: They've just opened up the sport card shop in downtown Valparaiso, Indiana. And it is awesome.

SPEAKER 4: If you're a collector, you need to check this place out. Tell them Alan sent you and get a free gift on your first visit.

SPEAKER 1: All right, folks, you got me this week doing the new product release calendar. Let's start with April 24th. We've got 2024 historic autographs. Prime volume two premium staying on the same day. 2024 Onyx vintage collection. Baseball Hobby 2324 Panini origins basketball H 2 23 24 tops NBL.

SPEAKER 1: Basketball. Also on the 24th 2023 upper deck. Skybox Metal Universe champions going to the 25th, 2024 keepsake Bruce Lee 50th anniversary collection. The following day on April 26th, we have 2024 Leaf Metal Football. 2024. Sage Hit High Series football 2023 tops Pristine Road to Euro 2024 soccer.

SPEAKER 1: Also on the 26th, 2023 wild card five card draw stacked deck football also on the 26th. Yu Gi oh, Legacy of Destruction blister pack.

SPEAKER 1: Now, let's head into May May 1st 2022 23. Marvel annual 23 Panini National Treasures racing. 2324 Panini recon basketball, 2324 upper deck XPX hockey and a couple on the third to close out the segment. 2324. Panini Crown Royal basketball and 23. 24. Panini Don Russ soccer. You know what's coming next?

SPEAKER 1: Choose your weapon. Happy ripping. Let's go round the Hobby verse and catch up on this week's Hobby news and find out.

SPEAKER 1: All right, the big news story on this episode of Hobby Quick, its collectors parent, company of PS A has sold golden auctions to Ebay and in the same sort of transaction, PS A has acquired the Ebay vault. So it looks almost like a trade with collectors giving Ebay Golden and Ebay giving PS A their vault. Like a trade. Both teams have to pass a physical for the trade to go through. I'm just kidding there.

SPEAKER 1: Rumor has it that you can buy a card or eventually not at the moment. Probably you can buy a card off Ebay and through it out after the purchase, have it go right to PS A for grading and encapsulation. So we'll, we'll see some of the details are a little fuzzy but those are the main, point points of the transaction.

SPEAKER 1: So I'm sure more stuff is yet to come, more announcement. Yet to come, Panini has announced that they have signed Angel Reese to a of LSU or formerly of LSU to a Multiyear autograph and memorabilia deal. And if that wasn't good enough for this happened, Evans pick in the 2024 W NBA draft. The Chicago Sky Select Fanatics has announced their first live event that they are putting on.

SPEAKER 1: It will be taking place August 16th through the 18th. That's Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Javits Center in New York City, a three day event. It will feature athletes, Derek Jeter, Tom Brady Kevin Durant, the Manning quarterback brothers Hulk Hogan and more to be announced tickets for General Mission, our about 60 bucks a piece for adults for each day and about half of that for kids.

SPEAKER 1: And there are VIP tickets which will allow you early access, get into certain areas that the General Mission won't be able to, to watch some panels and interactive stuff as well as well. And I'm sure more details to come.

SPEAKER 1: So this is you know, the whispers are, this will be like a sports comic con if you will and more details I'm sure will come out as we get closer to the event time. It's odd sort of timing a couple of weeks after the conclusion of the national in Cleveland. I don't know how much of an effect that will or won't have. The fanatics fest is in New York City, which to me, I'm biased my hometown, but it is a Mecca.

SPEAKER 1: It's gonna be well attended event and probably very successful as for me, at this time, I do not have plans to attend but, you know, we'll see, we'll see there's some space between now and then, but if it was tomorrow, I would not be going. All right. This story, I find pretty interesting on a few different levels.

SPEAKER 1: The Gretzky case, right? The 7980 opt hockey case that went for, for $3.72 million with buyer's premium on Heritage auction. The buyer of that case or part buyer of that case, I'll get to that in a minute. Is Jack Arshawsky out of Ontario Canada. He's a real estate agent. He used some of his inheritance from his uncle.

SPEAKER 1: Not a true and tried self admittedly, not a, a die hard collector owns a Gretzky rookie. I heard all the buzz about this case and decided to throw his hat in the arena, won it for the 3.72. Now, he's sort of having second thoughts and so this part, I don't really get he's paid $3 million of the 3.72 to Heritage.

SPEAKER 1: I kind of was under the assumption on the auction on the level of that you have to pay, you have to have that money confirmed in your account to even be. But so much, I guess for that theory he's told Heritage don't. Right now, he wants to take a pause, keep it in their vault and he's trying to move it to somebody else and then he wants Heritage to ship it to them.

SPEAKER 1: The new buyer, he's reached out to Drake Wayne Gretzky himself, the Edmonton Oilers owner, with no response. And so right now it's just kind of a, a pause. He owes $0.72 million, to get the case, in possession. So right now he, it's kind of a stalemate and we'll see, he says he does not want to make a profit, on the buy. He just wants someone to pay what he paid or, or bid on it.

SPEAKER 1: So, we'll see how that goes. Something tells me that that might change, as well, but a little bit of a, a soap opera in the, the Hobby world that I, I find kind of interesting, maybe more, maybe even more than, than you do. And II, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this next story.

SPEAKER 1: Not that it doesn't matter, but just, just for the sake of time. And I, I, you know, I think this is, we're in the early innings of a Kurtz card care. I don't like give even saying that name on the air. That's my stance on people who do that, which is a card cleaning enhancement kit, has been very, he advertises he's very public of, of what he does and what his products do.

SPEAKER 1: Again, I think most people know my take on that. Well, I guess, you know, the Hobby slews discovered a Jackie Robinson card that he cleaned and sent the PS A and detective work was done and PS A has de deactivated that card from their registry. There may be some other cards. It's kind of conflicting stories of how much all parts.

SPEAKER 1: But you know, PS A sending a message back that if you clean or alter cards that, you know, they potentially they can do that or will do that. Here's the other thing I I and this will let I'll, I'll end on this note. I've heard people say that there's no way to detect these chemical agents that are in these kits like Kurtz and others that exist.

SPEAKER 1: And I don't buy that as someone who loves forensics. And watches all those shows that doesn't make me an expert by any stretch of imagination, but a lot of things can be detected and, and even even with a blue light or a black light, we, we see many fluids and additives, blood, other things bleach.

SPEAKER 1: You know, that's how they know, sometimes when people try to clean up crime scenes. So I don't believe that technology doesn't exist to not detect that, we've got technology that, that checks marrow from 1000 year old, corpses and, and gleams and, information from it.

SPEAKER 1: So, don't tell me they can't, you know, if they want to, they can't detect, chemical agents. And, so, I heard someone say that, I kind of chuckle because we, most people I think obviously know that's fault, false. So, I guess we'll end the new segment there and there you go.

SPEAKER 1: Well, our feature presentation.

SPEAKER 1: All right. Today's subject of legends of the Hobby. Mr Barry Hopper was borderline controversial. They were, we're, we're gonna talk about that, but no one can argue.

SPEAKER 1: At the time when he was with us, he was one of the largest memorabilia collectors ever. And so let's learn about Barry Hopper.

SPEAKER 1: Barry Harper was born in Newark, New Jersey on December 3rd, 3rd, 19 39 and frequented as a young boy, the Newark Bears games, which were the AAA team of the Yankees. The stadium was very close to where he lived as he grew up, he attended the University Of Miami and then worked at his family's paper supply business until it closed in 1992.

SPEAKER 1: He became a limited partner of the Yankees and became close friends with George Steinbrenner, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Pete Rose, Don Manley Thomas H and Moore and started to really accumulate through them and, and helped by them, some, you know, crazy memorabilia and kind of made his basement into a museum in his house. And many players even came over to see his collection.

SPEAKER 1: His wife Sharon would cook for everybody when they came to visit and he used those contacts and relationships as a way to acquire more memorabilia. His basement museum was called Cooperstown, the Cooperstown in New Jersey. He was very philanthropic especially with the burn center at Saint Barnabas in Jersey. No, no reason why he picked that. Just he did nothing personal.

SPEAKER 1: There one of his prized items was an uncut strip of T 20 sixes with a Wagner on it.

SPEAKER 1: His game used uniform collection was unrivaled. He had game used uniforms of pod Galvin, Christy Masterson, Cap, Anson King, Kong, Kelly, Dan Bry Theres Tinker Zebras and, and Chance and multiple Joe Jackson Jerseys and in those cases with those uniforms, in many cases, some of them were the only ones known in existence.

SPEAKER 1: He also had Lou Gehrig's last baseball glove in his 1930 hat. He had Ty Cobb's 1928 Philadelphia A's Jersey, which was autographed. He had a mantle glove which was eventually pride from him by comedian Billy Crystal. He owned Mickey Mantle's 1956 World Series ring.

SPEAKER 1: He owned 1920 sales agreement this is an amazing piece. The 1920 sales agreement between the Yankees and the Red Sox F, sending Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees.

SPEAKER 1: He had Ty Ty Cobb's dentures and Christie Mathewson's first minor league Jersey in 1998. Sotheby's auctioned off his collection for $21.8 million.

SPEAKER 1: Many of the purchases were actually made by Major League Baseball who then gave the items to the baseball Hall Of Fame. So some of those items, if you go to Cooperstown, you might be looking at some of Barry Hopper's personal collection. Sotheby's even produced a three volume book, quote, the Barry Harper collection of baseball memorabilia.

SPEAKER 1: All right. Now, on to the controversial part, some of his items have been questioned as to their authenticity. Others were supposedly stolen from widows of players or family members, but some of those allegations came from questionable sources to be exact Peter Nash.

SPEAKER 1: For those that don't know Peter Nash was one half of the r group third base, from New York City who himself was arrested for memorabilia f fraud and was convicted as well. So consider the source that Peter Nash was, most will tell you very jealous of, of Barry Hopper. So, you know, Barry was never tried or convicted on any accusations and so many have found them to be unfounded and, and untrue.

SPEAKER 1: But, you know, his collection, is still out there today, as I said, some of it, on display at the Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown when Major League Baseball purchased, a good portion of it through the Souther Be's, auction to, you know, I think Major League Baseball was fearful that in a private sale, someone would, you know, maybe cut up the Jersey for distribution in, into a card product.

SPEAKER 1: As we all know that happens in Major League Baseball wanted to preserve those uniforms and many of those uniforms, like I mentioned were the only ones known to exist. And, you know, you can say what you want about MLB. But one thing they do care about is their history and, and trying to preserve it. So, they, they did it there with the Sotheby's Helper, sale.

SPEAKER 1: He died on December 18th of 2005 due to complications of diabetes, fairly young at, at age 66 but will be remembered mostly fondly, in the Hobby for his collection, which as I said, lives on to this day in various forms. All right. Thank you for listening to another episode of Hobby Quick.

SPEAKER 1: Its wanna give out our Social Media starting with our website, which is www dot sports Carnation podcast.com, Facebook. You can follow us at www.Facebook.com/Sports Card nation podcast forward slash Twitter. We are at Sports Card. Nat T one. So it's Sports Card. Nat I one Instagram at Sports Car Nation Podcast, or you can email the show Hobby Quick hits at gmail.com again. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.