Anybody Collect Cuban Baseball Cards ?
storm888
Posts: 11,701 ✭✭✭
I'm thinking that if Cuban card prices have adjusted downward
during this TERRIBLE economy, now may be a safe/good time to
start building a portfolio.
By late 2010 or early 2011, it is expected that Americans will be
able to view Cuban baseball games..... IN PERSON.
Both the controversy and the reality of the changes could boost
interest in Cuban cards dramatically.
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Some travel agents will soon be taking deposits on prospective
reservations.
I will be there!
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cubanball.com
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NYT..
"...Cuba has the longest baseball tradition in the world outside the United States, and probably the most deeply felt one as well. The sport arrived on the island just as Cuba began its struggle for independence from Spain, and Cubans later served as the game’s primary ambassadors, introducing it to other Caribbean nations.
“Baseball is more Cuba’s national pastime than it is America’s,” said Roberto González Echevarría, a professor at Yale and author of “The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball.” “It was considered modern, democratic and American, while the Spaniards had bullfighting, which was retrograde and barbaric. It’s as if the American founding fathers had been wielding Louisville Sluggers.”....."
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U.S. travel industry gearing up for return to Cuba
Wednesday, December 16 11:29 pm
It's too soon for Americans to plan a Cuban vacation of beach, mambo and mojitos, but the U.S. travel industry is gearing up for a return to its largest Caribbean destination before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
Tour operators held a video conference with Cuban tourism officials in Havana on Wednesday and asked them if they are ready for the "rush" of Americans if the U.S. travel ban is lifted as proposed by legislation now under consideration in the U.S. Congress.
"Americans really want to see Cuba," said Robert Whitely, president of the U.S. Tour Operators, which together with the National Tour Association also present at the event, handles 75 percent of all package tour business to the Caribbean.
"We predict that at least 850,000 Americans will go to Cuba in the first year," Whitely said.
That does not include an estimated 480,000 Americans who will go to Cuba on Caribbean cruises when U.S. ships are allowed to dock there, and another 480,000 Cuban American visiting family in Cuba each year, a Cuban official said.
Cuba plans to build 30 hotels over the next six years with the help of foreign investors, adding 10,000 rooms to the 48,600 that exist now, as well as golf courses, said Miguel Figueras, the top adviser to the Cuban tourism minister.
Favourite PLAYGROUND
Cuba was a favourite playground for Americans in the 1950s, when the Mafia ran casinos and brothels in Havana that were closed by Castro. As Cuba veered towards communism, Washington broke off diplomatic ties, imposed trade and travel bans and Cuba's tourist trade all but disappeared for three decades.
Some 2.5 million tourists visited Cuba this year, mostly from Canada and Europe, said Figueras, who indicated that U.S. companies are losing out to the tune of $1 billion a year.
According to Cuban estimates based on 2 million Americans visiting Cuba a year, U.S. airlines stand to earn $600 million and travel agencies $300 million annually, Figueras said.
President Barack Obama has said he wants to improve ties with communist-run Cuba and lifted restrictions introduced by the Bush administration on visits and family remittances by Cuban Americans to the island.
But whether American tourists will return to Cuba will hinge on debate in Congress, where opponents say sanctions should not be lifted until Cuba frees political prisoners and undertakes democratic reforms to its one-party state.
They say American tourism will help prop up the communist government of President Raul Castro, who succeed his ailing brother last year.
A bill to end the travel ban sponsored by Democrat Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona has 195 backers in the House of Representatives, 23 votes short, supporters of the measure said.
Similar legislation in the Senate has the support of key senators such as Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana, but needs 60 votes to pass.
"They are within striking distance in the House," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute think tank.
No action on the bill is expected until the spring.
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Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
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Comments
Kiss me twice.....let's party.
The best of the best Cuban Cards
Even has the Cabanas Pete Hill......... wow!
<< <i>So you think there are some Tolesteros Josh Gibsons floating around down there? >>
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I would be shocked if there are not TONS of great paper-collectibles
down there.
There will be MANY fakes, but there will be GREAT stuff, too.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
I know many large finds hit the market back then, far more Cuban finds than you see today.
Same with the Japanese cards.
<< <i>Isn't there an old Castro baseball card? I know there a couple/few modern ones, or he has appeared in sets lately, but wasn't there a card from when he played? >>
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"Played" is an interesting word.
The Yale Prof who wrote the history of Cuban BB, is pretty clear
that FC never "played" any kind of pro or high-end BB.
If he had played, he would not have been a "star;" based on his
only recorded college performance.
Yale Prof On Issue At Bottom Of Page
The pic in the story is the dominant one used by TimeLife and other pubs.
(It is essentially a staged shot of him playing a few innings for fun.)
The Sportscaster card from the 70s is the earliest I recall bearing FC's pic.
TL had a series of postcards, prior to that.
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Also, if he had been any good he would have ended up in America.
Cuba was the primary source of Lat players, before the troubles.
FC's BB prowess is a myth that refuses to be busted.
Steve
I've got to think there are some stashes down there as well.
Always looking for Topps Salesman Samples, pre '51 unopened packs, E90-2, E91a, N690 Kalamazoo Bats, and T204 Square Frame Ramly's