Collect Green Bay

Actually, a few days ago I travelled to not one, but two antique malls in and around Appleton, Wis. Thousands of square footage spanned over these two sales venues so I was pretty pumped that I may come across some great sports treasures.

One problem though... I have been to many antique malls in my day, and I never had any luck finding any good sports pieces. I don't know if it's a Wisconsin thing, or if the places I was going to just aren't very good when it comes to those types of items, but I figured I'd still give it a try.

Unless you think a 2008 Ryan Braun bobble head is a good sports antique, there was nothing even remotely interesting sports items at either of these two huge antique malls. Why do antique malls always lack nice sports pieces?

I have a couple theories... The demand for sports items far outweighs the supply. That simple.

Sports antiques just don't belong in antique malls. That's what card stores are for.

Maybe quality sports antiques are just that much tougher to get than any other type of antique... I really don't know, but that's just always been the way it was when I went to these places.

It's a bad economy ... Okay, horrible. Everybody seems to owe money and bills are stacking up. So, why the heck is eBay so darn dry. Since I started using "The Bay" in 1995, I have never seen so few quality items.

Is it because the people who own quality items are doctors, lawyers and people who don't need this cash? Maybe has something to do with it, but that can't account for this entire situation.

Is it because people hanging on to the quality items assume nobody will pay normal prices for their items, so they are kind of holding on to them until the economy gets better?

That may be part of it too, but there has to be a group of people who need cash, and can't wait til things get better.

I really would like to hear other people's thoughts on this.

I know that this topic may have nearly the same effect as when hearing fingernails on a chalkboard, but with the recent alleged FBI investigations to auction houses and the horrid economy, I think this is a valid one. Ever since I've been dealing with auction houses, one thing that always struck me as unusual is that many of them have poor customer service.

Whether it's ignoring customers' emails, or paying consigors late, for whatever reason auction houses and their workers seem to ignore obvious customer service qualities and act like arrogant fools. Well, this lack of service has escalated over the last year or so... Mastro Auctions is no longer, but seems to have taken care of its customers ... Thank god. But it does seem inevitable that there may be one or more auction houses that still will become casualties of this terrible time.

So, what happens to consignors' money that's owed if an auction house gets shut down, or goes bankrupt? The thought of this is scary as hell, but it may become reality for some people... From what I understand, money owed to a consignor seems to be unsecured, and I am not sure the consignor would ever see his/her cash if the auction goes belly up...

Can a lawyer really help a consignor in this time of need? They can sure try, but you can't force somebody to pay money if they can't pay it... Lets face it, there are many people and businesses that are in trouble, but it seems to kind of have an extra burn to it when it has to do with the sports card and memorabilia hobby. At least it does for me.

When the hobby was at its peak, these businesses thought they were at the top of the world. Nobody could break them ... Now, they seem to want pity like everyone else.

Hello collectors! My name is Chris Nerat and I am proud to announce to launch of, what will soon be, the Internet's most popular blog to Green Bay and ALL sports and Americana memorabilia. For those of you who remember me from my time spent at Sports Collectors Digest I want to welcome you back for more of the same of what you saw in my Gavel Chat blog, and for all of my new readers, here's what you can expect:

-Original content focusing all sports memorabilia, just like my previous blog I wrote when at SCD
-Interviews with people who collect memorabilia from not only the greatest sports town in the world, Green Bay, but of the entire collecting world
-Educational pieces that will help advance collectors' knowledge
-Entertaining and sometimes humorous entires about the hobby we all love
-Some entires covering non-sports, such as Green Bay breweriana

Also, at my previous jobs, sometimes, I was censored a bit, or just couldn't write what was on my mind. I want to let everyone know that this will not be the case with collectgreenbay.com. I want to focus on every aspect of the hobby; the good, bad and the ugly. As long as it's truthful, its fair game on this blog.

For those of you who didn't read my piece on fake Brett Favre game-worn jersey, please click on this link and you will see what kind of pieces you will come to expect from this blog: Click Here for this story, which made National News

If you ever have any questions, comments, things you want me to cover or anything else you have to let me know, please call me at 715.252.9364 or email me at chris@titletownnostalgia.com