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The Bill Mastro Collection by Carlton Hendricks Dec. 5, 2010

I guess I've just been too busy to hear Bill Mastro's collection would be auctioned. Shortly before I got the catalog John Gennantonio mentioned it . I speculated if it would really be his whole collection, and that not all of Halper's collection was in the Sotheby's catalog and stuff had been cherry picked....yada yada. But the subject was just in passing and I quickly forgot about it. About a week later I got the catalog in the mail and started looking thru it without even knowing it was the Mastro collection. It was very early A.M. and I was just getting home and completely exhausted. The catalog was so good it slowly got my attention even as tired as I was. Normally at that hour I'd have quickly thumbed thru a catalog and put it aside to go thru more thoroughly the next day. Blurry eyed I kept seeing stronger and stronger pieces. Still unaware it was Mastro's collection I concluded "this is some catalog, this is the best catalog I've seen in years....what is this?" Then I saw it was Mastro's stuff.

I don't usually read the part of catalogs telling about the collector, I just tear off for what's being offered flipping pages a second at a time till I see something that stops me. But it's one of the world's finest collections and I wanted to see what they had to say. The Willy Wonka part was OK I guess, I didn't see the movie, but I got the drift. However, the part I found very interesting was about how Bill moved from cards to memorabilia; naturally, since I've never been a card guy. It was brief but intriguing. The write up briefly covers Bill's collecting chronology starting as a youngster in Bernardsville New Jersey.

In 22+ years collecting, I've not had much dealing with Bill Mastro. I believe I only bid in one or two of his auctions over the years. (19th Century Estes Professional Baseball Bat Story ) The Mastro name has been well known in the hobby many years...but as far as I can tell not the man....I can remember a discussion about him many years ago with a group of collectors. As I recall, no one knew him very well and we were all speculating about him. What kind of name is Mastro; the question came up....I think he's Italian I said...One person was adamant he was Jewish....I don't know, Mastro sounds pretty Italian I said....I think he's Italian....noop Jewish said the collector....he was adamant in his speculation. Somewhere I had heard he was an heir of the Florsheim shoe fortune....No one knew for sure, and to this day I have no idea if that's true. I also heard he had a great political pin collection, and sold it years ago

I can't remember which National, but it was a long time ago. I had looked over the list of dealers who would be set up and saw the name "Mastro and Mastro". I didn't think much of it, I just figured Mastro and Mastro sounded like a father and son enterprise. So I'm there at the show on set up day and ran into Herman Kaufman. So we're walking around the show, and we come up to Mastro's booth and Herman was chatting with Mastro and another guy in the booth who looked real young. 

In all my time in the hobby I've only sent one item to an auction house to auction.....One day I was going thru the antiques stores in Martinez Calif. ; where Joe DiMaggio was born by the way, and found a huge advertising sign for Vitalis hair dressing featuring Roger Maris. It was a classic, and I thought I'd finally found something great that I could sell since it didn't really fit my collection...too contemporary. So I called Mastro Auctions and spoke to someone about auctioning it. They said to mail them a photo....this was before email. I sent off a photo and the next thing I knew I had a voicemail from Bill Mastro on my answering machine. I am telling you....that was the most convincing voice mail I ever heard....Talk about salesmanship....I remember the part where he goes, to the effect..."This is a great sign, you must be an advanced collector feign speechless, you obviously have great taste"...Somewhere I think I still have that tape, I didn't erase it, it was so remarkable. I'd post an audio link of  it but it would be akin to playing it on the load speaker at the National....I guarantee everyone would get a big kick out it.....probably even Bill himself.

Anyway about the auction....Obviously it's a phenomenal  collection....but after thinking it thru there's some areas I'd like to have seen that are absent....tins for instance....I think Bill was a hard core baseball purist kind of collector...meaning, he collected baseball only and very little generic material. Which would leave out a lot of great looking display pieces. I think If it wasn't connected to a big name player or team, usually he probably wouldn't collect it. Nevertheless, there could have been a Ty Cobb pocket tobacco tin in the sale. Also a Cy Young cigar tin. 

I'm sure Bill and I are basically polar opposite in our collecting approach...In my way of thinking....if an item is antique, athletic related, and great looking....I'm interested. And if the item happens to be connected to a big name team or athlete, all the better.....In Bill's case, I think his view would be....If it's antique, baseball related, and connected to a big name team or player, he'd be interested.....and if the item happened to be great looking....all the better.

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12/5/10 - Note: I wish I had more time to post more than three top picks, but all I could do to hoist up what's here! If I get time to add more I will. -Carlton

- UPDATE =

12-7-10 2:21 AM PST

I have now added 7 more top picks -Carlton

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