Baseball Cards vs van Gogh Paintings
Okay, I’ll admit it up-front. I’m not a collector who couldn’t care less about the value of his collection. And like any savvy consumer, when I go to a card show I shop around for the best cards I can afford. Once a dealer gives me the price I will always ask if that’s the best he can do.
Like many of you, I’ve been closely following the current skyrocketing prices for vintage baseball cards. Cards that I paid hundreds of dollars for back in the 1990s are now often worth thousands (once graded). So go ahead and call me a collector/investor. I can’t take my cards with me so at 65 I am slowly auctioning them off and using the funds to enjoy some travel. I haven’t been doing many “bucket list” journeys in the past 16 months, of course.
I got back into baseball card collecting in 1985 and consider myself most fortunate to have watched my collection rise in value substantially. Who would have guessed that within my lifetime cards I possess would become so much more valuable? On paper, at least.
All of this comes to mind after reading a fascinating article in The New York Times last April entitled, “The Woman Who Made van Gogh.” It tells the story of how Johanna “Jo” Bonger, wife of Vincent van Gogh’s brother, Theo, helped to make her brother-in-law’s painting popular and in demand.
I wish that Vincent could have enjoyed recognition by his contemporaries and received payment for his paintings while still alive. It’s hard to believe now but in the late 19th century art dealers couldn’t care less about Impressionists.
Of course, I am not a creator like Vincent. All I did was start buying baseball cards in the mid-1980s (after a 13-year hiatus) in the best condition I could afford at that time. And even back then, making about $30,000 a year, I could afford quite a lot of nice vintage cards. Many of them are now PSA-graded. My collection has increased in value tremendously. Why couldn’t Vincent have experienced something similar with his paintings to give him some psychological comfort, if nothing else?
While Theo had no success in attracting buyers for his brother’s paintings, his wife, Jo, did. And this is after Theo not only watched his brother die but then died himself three months later. He had contracted syphilis from earlier visits to brothels, started hallucinating, and then suffered a complete physical collapse.
Imagine you’re Theo’s wife, now with an infant to raise. You have no way to make a living and you’re holding about 400 paintings and several hundred drawings by your brother-in-law. What do you do, right? She found a way.
In addition to all the paintings and drawings she inherited, she also now had in her possession dozens of letters that her late husband and brother-in-law had exchanged. She saw that Vincent put into words what he was trying to show in his paintings. It struck her that the letters and art needed to be “marketed” as a package. She showed these letters to gallery owners and they slowly started exhibiting Vincent’s paintings.
There’s lots more to the story, needless to say. But this was the start of van Gogh being recognized as the genius he is known as today. His paintings are worth millions. I only wish he could have enjoyed just a tiny bit of the notoriety and financial rewards today’s artists receive.
So, what’s the point? I’m no artist, of course. I just restarted my baseball card collecting passion back in the mid-1980s simply because I have that collecting gene in me and love baseball. I’m also fortunate to be alive more than 35 years later. Within my lifetime I’ve watched my collection explode in value. And by auctioning it off bit by bit I’ve even been able to enjoy financial gains versus having the gains go to my two younger brothers, who aren’t collectors. For that I’m grateful.
I’m thrilled to see that Jo van Gogh helped her brother-in-law to gain the worldwide recognition he has today. Call it enlightened self-interest on her part. But I’m saddened that Vincent was long dead and gone when his paintings started selling for eye-popping prices.