What began as an innocent hobby—kids trading cards of their favorite players as part of an overall love of the game of baseball—has now shape-shifted into a staggering multi-billion dollar a year business, a cutthroat world of condition, competition, and corruption. It's too bad that The Ultimate Baseball Collector's Collection DVD is so horribly out of date: all of the doom and gloom visions projected in these nearly two-decade-old pair of documentaries—Ultimate Baseball Memorabilia (1989) and Collecting America (1991)—have long since come to pass. While Ultimate Baseball Memorabilia's focus is on avid fan Barry Halper, whose unbelievable museum-like assortment of autographs, bats, and uniforms is indeed impressive, it's Collecting America's business-oriented pronouncements that have remained the most prophetic, but it's still sad to see now-gone legends such as Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin in such a superficial overview. Although we see Halper arguing over his ethics—swearing he'd never sell anything he owned—he in fact went on to hold one of Sotheby's largest auctions, making over $21 million in 1999 (he died in 2005 from complications of diabetes). The shrewd trading card sharps of Collecting America, on the other hand, have no such principles—for them, it's all about making money. Featuring digital transfers that are VHS quality at best, this very dated release is not a necessary purchase. Aud: P. (B. Gibron)
The Ultimate Baseball Collector's Collection
(2007) 100 min. DVD: $14.95. Genius Entertainment (avail. from most distributors). ISBN: 1-5944-4805-1. Volume 23, Issue 1
The Ultimate Baseball Collector's Collection
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