2 weeks Ago By Joshua Hall
IMAGINE stumbling across nearly $1MILLION in a family estate sale, that’s what one local from Danvers, Massachusetts effectively did last year.A local, who chose to remain anonymous, enlisted the help of a trading card expert after finding out that a Babe Ruth rookie card he had could have been worth a small fortune. YouTube @NBC10 BostonA Massachusetts local stumbled across a Babe Ruth rookie card[/caption]RexThe card fetched a fortune at auction[/caption]Jeff Gross, an avid card collector with a mini museum in his own home office, couldn’t believe he what he was seeing when he was shown a 1916 ‘Morehouse’ Babe Ruth rookie trading card.
Speaking to NBC10 Boston, he said: “It was in my hand. I was like, what am I doing with this card in my hand?”An understandable reaction given that the rarity of such a card had even seen people question if it even existed in the past.Baseball icon Ruth is one of the biggest names in the history of sport and memorabilia related to the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees star has fetched millions in the past.
The anonymous discoverer of the card told Gross that his dad used to collect cards and just “had them sitting around the house” – little did he know he was sitting on a fortune.That’s because experts valued the card at a whopping $500,000 – $700,000.Gross added: “Someone said to me, ‘does he know he won the lottery?’.
And I said, ‘he does now’.”The card, which featured an advert for Morehouse Bakery Co. on the back, went to auction with Robert Edwards Auctions.
PJ Kinsella from the auction house said: “It’s actually what is on the back of these cards that is what really, really adds the value here.”That back, which was aimed at children, offered them the chance to earn a ball and bat, or a “nice long jump rope” if they collected 50 cards. Despite an already eye-watering valuation, last minute furious bidding when the card went to auction last December saw the finder pocked way over the estimation.
In fact, the card actually sold for a sensational $812,724 in the end. The anonymous seller told The Boston Globe: “This whole process has been so exciting.“To go from not knowing the value of the cards, then randomly connecting with Jeff, to sitting there last night watching the value of the bids increase, it’s been a thrill.
“I did a big fist bump when the final bids came through and it said it had sold.”The man’s collection made a killing at auction separately to the Ruth card too.A “shoeless” Joe Jackson card made $87,000 and a Jim Thorpe card fetched $24,000.
The Morehouse collection made $980,000 in total at the auction.While the amount is impressive, it is still a long way from the $7.2MILLION earned from a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card sold at auction in 2023 – the third-highest sum ever made from a trading card.
GettyBabe Ruth memorabilia has fetched millions at auction in the past[/caption].
